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Zillow’s latest holiday present for real estate agents is a virtual for sale sign.
Zillow describes Make me move™ as “a free and easy way to tell others the price you’d be willing to sell your home for, without actually putting it on the market. It’s that magical number you just can’t refuse.”
Zillow’s also offering free advertising, which prompted the Rain City Guide to wonder about the connection with Pearl Harbor Day.
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Zillow is a joke; there is so much misinformation it is mind-blowing that they are still on the web. I live in the middle of the Loop, when I type in my building address (which has 105 units) only one unit comes up, and there are also about half a dozen address for non-existent “single family residence” condos located at addresses, of which stand commercial office buildings, at various locations within a block of my place. What a crock of crap.
I tried entering my old place in Edgewater, and their info on 5415 N Sheridan is also a joke. They did get the year of construction correct at 1974, but it is 55 stories, not 38, and studios are in the 140k range, not 200k. If I had known studios would be 200k in Edgewater, I would have bought a dozen for 75k back in 2000.
It’s not even a ballpark estimate.
But if anybody wants to give me 250k for my one bedroom in the loop, consider it sold!
Why doesn’t that surprise me. After their “Zestimates” bombed (for the most part), the business model had to be changed. Now it’s going to be a listings portal, with “Make Me Move” as an added gimmick. Quick, someone tell Zillow, we’re in a buyers market. Nobody will make you move.
Zillow is part of this housing bubble. Many similiar real estate related web sites will fall by the wayside once housing corrects.
The CEO was on CNBC last night talking about this new feature. He readily admitted that they have yet to turn a profit and that they’re losing money but they’re confident they have a good business model. That’s the same kind of talk that you heard from execs at every dot com that went up in smoke six years ago.
Don’t under-zesstimate Zillow. The real estate industry is poised for change, and Zillow’s positioned to take advantage of those changes.
Travel agents pooh-poohed the Zillow team when they founded Expedia. Remember travel agents?
Travel agents still exist – the GOOD ones, that is – and I much prefer using their up-close-and-personal services rather than some anonymous Web site. I believe the real estate business will survive likewise. A web site can’t open the door to your potential new home, among other things.
Buying a $300,000 home is a lot different than booking a $5000 cruise.
Sarab from Zillow here.
Because public property records can be incomplete and incorrect, we allow homeowners to update and publish their own facts on Zillow.com — and to also recalculate estimates based on this data which can also be shared publicly on the site, next to Zillow’s starting point.
Accuracy is important to us and we continue to improve in that area — but equally important is educating homeowners that their Zestimate is just a starting point. Zillow.com is a research tool and is not intended to replace a local expert. We actually think Zillow’s a great place for consumers to engage an expert and are therefore bullish about the future of our ad-driven business model.
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