Zillow Market Overviews: 5 Ways to Use Local Real Estate Data

As a real estate agent, data is coming at you from every direction; it’s not always easy to interpret it or explain its benefits to a client, let alone act on it. Fortunately, the Zillow real estate market reports are timely and informative, and they make it easy to understand the facts and figures behind local trends. There are a number of ways you can share data with buyers and sellers and position yourself as the local expert.

Here are five ways to use local real estate data.

1. Write a blog post about local market info

One of the biggest challenges bloggers face is populating their content calendar. With monthly and quarterly local market reports, you have several topics to write about on a regular basis. Zillow has market overviews for more than 175 metro areas and also offers national market reports — both current and historical — that can put your local market data into context.

2. Post market info on your websites

Eye-catching charts and graphs on your website’s home page can attract visitors and draw them further into your site. Buyers and sellers are already online looking for comparative information; why not be their one-stop-shop and increase your traffic at the same time?

3. Include market info in your listing presentations

Stand out from also-ran real estate agents by including highly localized, seller-specific information in your listing presentation. Start with the market report, then supplement it with information from Zillow housing indexes. You can even drill down to find data on sold price, price per square foot and home types.

4. Highlight data in your newsletters and mailings

It just got easier to flesh out your newsletters and postcard mailings with customized housing information, right down to each ZIP code in your area. You can also include a Zillow chart from the market overview report PDF: Simply take a screenshot or use another screen capture tool and then paste the chart into your newsletter or postcard template.

5. Include the report in a CMA

When you offer sellers a selection of inferior, superior and like properties in your comparative market analysis (CMA), include a Zillow real estate market report for the area as well. The report bolsters your position as the local expert and supports your pricing methodology.

Today, there’s more accessible real estate data out there than ever before, and buyers and sellers want to understand it to make informed decisions. Sharing market reports and other data from Zillow Real Estate Research helps your clients interpret housing data and increases your reputation as a knowledgeable real estate agent at the same time.