Shoring up the FSBO market
For a long time, Zillow has offered For Sale By Owner (FSBO) listings on their real estate search site through various feeds, but today announce they will be adding 45,000 listings to the existing FSBO database. They say they have “the most comprehensive and searchable selection of real estate listings together on one map: for-sale-by-agent, for-sale-by-owner, for-rent, foreclosures, new construction and vacant land.”
Zillow seeks to attract FSBO sellers, by offering free tools to list their homes, including digital flyer and syndication tools from Postlets.com which Zillow acquired in April of 2011, making it free for all users in July.
Goal: all types of listings under one roof
“If you’re serious about home shopping and are simply viewing listings from traditional real estate websites, you’re not seeing the whole picture. Zillow is the only place where buyers can view all types of real estate listings together on one map. Our integrated approach to marketing all types of real estate listings, alongside Zestimate® home values and Rent Zestimates, creates the most comprehensive and data-rich shopping experience for web and mobile,” said Zillow CEO Spencer Rascoff.
According to Zillow, FSBO listings come to them not only from individual home sellers and through listings feeds from ForSaleByOwner.com™, HomesByOwner.com®, owners.com® and through Postlets.
Zillow is adding features and is expanding its offering, but continues to struggle with perception issues from a rocky past of flawed home valuation estimates (Zestimates) and surviving a major 2010 lawsuit. Regardless of brand struggles, their stock prices have held steady above the opening price of $20 per share, closing today at $25.50 and they continue expanding their product offering.
Eric Hempler
October 12, 2011 at 11:49 pm
Looks like a good opportunity to convert FSBO into listings.
jay Great Falls
October 13, 2011 at 7:53 am
All brokers should remove all their listings from Zillow and then see what Zillow does. Zillow wins the property searches over local buyer agents and is therefore a business nemesis to the extreme. why did brokers ever start giving their data away to 3rd parties? Many were punk'd early on and did not understand the long term implications of such "relationships." Now trulia, homes, realtor, zillow all rank ahead in even the most nichey markets over local realtors overwhelmingly. It sucks.
I almost had a buyer buy a fsbo listed on redfin–no commission being offered.
Redfin for listing no commission FSBOs is a traitor and can go to hell.
jay Great Falls
October 13, 2011 at 8:17 am
My email to Zillow:
Zillow is now listings FSBOs….You're assaulting realtors AND BETRAYING US to the nTH degree. I can work for months with somebody and now have them get a FSBO listing not offering a commission to any agent and lose my buyer if the house is just right.
Shame on you. I will let others know on activerain, twitter, facebook, et al about your decision.
Sara Bonert
October 14, 2011 at 12:11 pm
For years media outlets have listed FSBO and By Agent listings together – think about the newspaper, used by many before the Internet, they list both side by side. One big difference though is that the newspapers charged a lot to have a classified listing, while it is free to advertise your property on Zillow. That is why we consider the real estate community a partner – we get a data feed and in return we display your listings on a site that we’ve invested millions in creating to be exposed to an audience of over 24 million monthly visitors. FSBO listings are out there whether Zillow or Redfin or Craigslist or whoever put them on their sites or not. Consumers will find this information, guaranteed. Your example is a good reason to have a Buyer’s Rep agreement, if the FSBO house is indeed the best home for your client.
Sara Bonert
October 14, 2011 at 12:11 pm
For years media outlets have listed FSBO and By Agent listings together – think about the newspaper, used by many before the Internet, they list both side by side. One big difference though is that the newspapers charged a lot to have a classified listing, while it is free to advertise your property on Zillow. That is why we consider the real estate community a partner – we get a data feed and in return we display your listings on a site that we’ve invested millions in creating to be exposed to an audience of over 24 million monthly visitors. FSBO listings are out there whether Zillow or Redfin or Craigslist or whoever put them on their sites or not. Consumers will find this information, guaranteed. Your example is a good reason to have a Buyer’s Rep agreement, especially for those cases when a FSBO house is indeed the best home for your client.