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26 11, 2012

Zillow expands rental offering with Hotpads acquisition

By |2018-05-03T21:24:47-07:00November 26th, 2012|Broker Technology Research, Broker-Agent Information, Main category, MLS Insights|Comments Off on Zillow expands rental offering with Hotpads acquisition

Market leading real estate publisher Zillow expanded their footprint by entering into an agreement to purchase Hot Pads today. The strategy behind the acquisition seems squarely aimed at conquering a larger audience of real estate consumers, namely consumers interested in rental properties. In October, Hotpads had nearly 2.8 Million Unique Visitors. Depending on how you add up traffic to Zillow and their other sites like realestate.yahoo.com, it adds up to less than a 5% increase in traffic. Moreover, Zillow picks up highly skilled staff that understand the real estate portal business, and how to manage data. Although Zillow already has [...]

29 10, 2012

Zillow brings 1.2M listings out of the shadow

By |2018-05-03T21:24:49-07:00October 29th, 2012|Broker Technology Research, Main category|3 Comments

Since the housing market crash, there has been lots of discussion about shadow inventory. These are properties that are in bank foreclosure or pre-foreclosure that are making their way onto the market. Up until now, this inventory has been slowly released - perhaps strategically by banks who want to contain loss exposure - but more likely as a result of the slow process for foreclosure across America. The only thing slower than a bank's decision making process is the US Court system. Last week, Zillow - one of the three leading search portals in America began to display 1.2Million listings. [...]

3 07, 2012

Zillow brings battle to Listhub

By |2018-05-03T21:24:56-07:00July 3rd, 2012|Broker Technology Research, Main category, MLS Insights|6 Comments

Zillow launched a preemptive strike against Listhub yesterday by requesting IDX feeds from the nation's MLS providers. Zillow Executive Bob Bemis sent an email to all MLS CEOs and Executives titled "Why two data feeds when one will do." In the email, Bemis admits that Zillow.com is focused on improving data accuracy and timeliness. The note goes on to explain that Zillow's IDX service, Diverse Solutions, already has the data, why not allow Zillow to use it for Zillow.com so Zillow can circumvent their reliance on Listhub data feeds. A battle ensued when Listhub got word that Zillow was calling them out on [...]

16 05, 2012

Are App Stores the Next Zillow or Trulia?

By |2018-05-03T21:25:01-07:00May 16th, 2012|Broker Technology Research, Broker-Agent Information, Main category, MLS Insights, Product Management, Technology Evaluation|3 Comments

I have been giving a lot of thought lately to the idea of App Stores in the real estate technology industry and it has raised a number of questions that I want to put out there to inspire a conversation with the industry. Let me say right up front that I am not neutral in this discussion, as I am one of the founders of RE Technology which has, as an option, the ability to create an eCommerce store which is different, but related to, an App store. My partner Victor did a great job of discussing the differences in his [...]

4 05, 2012

Move Announces 2x More Revenue than Zillow

By |2018-05-03T21:25:04-07:00May 4th, 2012|Broker Technology Research, Main category, Marketing, Press Releases|Comments Off on Move Announces 2x More Revenue than Zillow

Today, there are two front-runners in online property search – Zillow and Move. They are both public companies. Falling in line behind them are two private companies, Homes.com and Trulia. Here is how the revenue stacks up on the public companies. Move, Inc., Operators of Realtor.com who is in partnership with AOL Real Estate and MSN real estate for publishing broker listings reported revenue of $47.7 million today. Move did not report any earnings or losses. Seattle Upstart Zillow has been on a run, increasing traffic to levels comparable with Move and purchasing companies. They reported revenue of $22.8M and [...]

23 04, 2012

REALTOR.Com Shoots across bow of Trulia and Zillow

By |2018-05-03T21:25:06-07:00April 23rd, 2012|Broker Technology Research, Main category, Marketing, MLS Insights, Strategic Planning|Comments Off on REALTOR.Com Shoots across bow of Trulia and Zillow

The industry knows the dirty little secret. Many third party listing websites are full of garbage data. In a major online marketing effort, REALTOR.com is telling this story. Inaccurate listings are not appearing here and there, but more than half the "for sale" listings on many sites populated from syndication are duplicates, already sold, expired, pending, or bank owned homes that are not for sale at all. Bad real estate listing information is bad for the real estate industry. So many of these sites claim to be consumer centric, but they blatantly and knowingly allow data to be fed to their [...]

5 03, 2012

Century 21 CMO Bev Thorne Joins Zillow Advisory Board

By |2018-05-03T21:25:13-07:00March 5th, 2012|Broker Technology Research, Broker-Agent Information, Main category, Press Releases, Strategic Planning|3 Comments

Zillow is smart. They are building their Board of Advisors with key decision makers in the industry. Zillow is well aware that franchises are contractually required to submit listings to the franchisor, and in most cases, the franchisor can syndicate listings whereever they want. The data feed from franchisors like REALOGY Brands, Keller Williams, and RE/MAX are vital for long term assurance of listing count on Zillow. This also demonstrates Zillow’s disposition to surround itself with stakeholders in their mutual success. It also may deflect some of the local broker’s choice in syndicating listings to publishers. Century 21 has a [...]

14 02, 2012

Bob Bemis Joins Zillow as VP of Partner Relations

By |2018-05-03T21:25:15-07:00February 14th, 2012|Main category, MLS Insights, Our Company, Press Releases|1 Comment

Zillow announced today (full press release below) that Bob Bemis, former CEO of the Arizona Regional MLS, has joined Zillow as the Vice President of Partner relations.  This is a major event in our industry on multiple levels.  Having known Bob personally and professionally for many years I congratulate Zillow for an outstanding hire, well done!  As a consultant in the industry watching the march of Zillow this hire tends to fuel some of my concerns about where this is actually leading.   In almost every strategic planning session I lead we talk about threats to the industry as well [...]

7 01, 2012

Smarter Agent throws arrow at Zillow and others

By |2018-05-03T21:25:18-07:00January 7th, 2012|Broker Technology Research, Main category, Marketing, Sales Advisory, Strategic Planning|3 Comments

Brad Bloomberg of Smarter Agent is a fighter, and I like that. He takes a position and battles from his corner of the ring. Today, he released a blog post on their company website goes nose to nose with Zillow, Trulia and REALTOR.com. Given that his company is suing them all for patent infringement (another story) – they will never be friends anyway. But this new war is one about his view of listing syndication. Post Title : Listing Aggregators like Zillow, Trulia and Realtor.com can Erode the Value of your Business. The money quote: ……(syndication) “devalues the business of.. [...]

7 11, 2011

Nielsen credits HAR and Zillow among others

By |2018-05-03T21:25:23-07:00November 7th, 2011|Broker Technology Research, Main category, Marketing, MLS Insights|Comments Off on Nielsen credits HAR and Zillow among others

When it comes to measuring marketing effectiveness, there is little argument that Nielsen is the leader. Nielsen believes that providing clients with a precise understanding of the consumer is the key to making the right decisions — decisions that can lead to profitable growth. At Nielsen, they are always innovating to keep pace with emerging market trends and the increasingly diverse, demanding and connected consumer. Joining Nielsen is the Houston Association of REALTORS, Zillow, a few dozen brokerages, and about 500 of the more than 1 Million REALTORS in America today. These REALTORS are the bold, the true, the transparant, [...]

29 06, 2011

Case-Shiller Trashed by, Zillow, and RBI

By |2018-05-03T21:25:37-07:00June 29th, 2011|Broker Technology Research, Main category, MLS Insights|1 Comment

If you add up the comments across the real estate technology space during the past few days, you will find a resounding thunder of criticism over the quality of the S&P Case-Shiller index, powered by Fiserv data. Companies like, Zillow, and RBI were the most vocal on their blogs. LPS and CoreLogic probably have opinions similar to Zillow and RBI. They have observed the weaknesses of the Case-Shiller index for years. I think that they are just a little less apt to douse Case-Shiller publically. Talk to any of the data specialists at either LPS [...]

21 04, 2011

MOVE (listhub) renews syndication agreement with Zillow.com

By |2018-05-03T21:25:43-07:00April 21st, 2011|Broker-Agent Information, Main category, MLS Insights|Comments Off on MOVE (listhub) renews syndication agreement with Zillow.com

ListHub operator Move, Inc., (NASDAQ: MOVE) and Zillow, Inc., today announced a long term content syndication agreement for the ListHub publishing network.  ListHub is the largest online syndicator of real estate listings to real estate web sites and provider of performance reports for brokers, franchises, and Multiple Listing Services. ListHub is Zillow’s largest listings syndication partner. This agreement confirms Zillow and Move’s commitment to the publishing and syndication of  accurate MLS real estate listings. As a result of the new agreement, ListHub will continue to send approximately two million listings to Zillow directly from 358 MLSs every day representing 40,000 brokers throughout the [...]