Real Estate Search Zillow - rhymes with pillow…
What is Zillow? It evolved from the desire to make zillions of data points for homes accessible to everyone. But a home is about more than data - it is where you lay your head to rest at night, like a pillow. And so Zillow!
In early 2005, Zillow founders Rich Barton and Lloyd Frink were fresh from the success of bringing travel to the Internet at Expedia.com. While brainstorming ideas for their next business venture, they were drawn to the idea of real estate. Rich had actually started obsessing about bringing real estate online as early as 1989 when his mom decided to become a real estate agent after she packed her last child off to college. He even wrote a plan for a consumer real estate service, but the idea was shelved in favor of the dreaded “steady job.” However, his enthusiasm for it never completely disappeared…
Fast forward 15 years. Both Rich and Lloyd were separately involved in buying houses, while jointly looking for new business opportunities. Lloyd spent hours finding information on the house he wanted, putting data into a spreadsheet, and doing complex calculations to determine a home’s worth. The idea crossed his mind that someone shouldn’t have to be a computer programmer to determine what a house is really worth. He figured he wasn’t alone — there must be millions of people struggling with the same problem.
Then the idea struck them: Why not help consumers by giving them access to the same kinds of information and tools agents use? Why not equip consumers with information about what is their most important investment — their home? So Zillow was born, with the goal of helping people make smarter real estate decisions. Source: Zillow.com
August 16th, 2008 at 7:07 am
The Zillow site is interesting, and I feel that it does empower the consumer when making decisions. Real Estate agents often complain that the “zestimates” do not reflect market value accurately, and this has caused some consumers to hold false opinions about their home’s market value. I know that since those complaints began, Zillow has improved the calculation, and from what I see it is not bad. I think the main problem on that end is the end user forgetting that it is just an estimate, which all market evaluations are.
The only other issue which I had with the site was in the forums. When a potential seller asked what to expect during an inspection, I answered since this is my profession. My response drew the ire of other consumers, because they felt that I should not do my job as state codes require me to do. I think that is why Zillow has been advertising for more inspectors to come on their site (to have that segment of the industry explain what it does, while having other inspectors back them up, so the consumer will understand the reasoning behind the work).
Zillow does seem to be moving ahead with ways to connect with the industry (like their API for finding hoes which Realtors can use on their site) and the consumer (like the monitored forums with the attempts to have more industry professionals involved in them), which makes for a good site.