Zillow.com

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Zillow.com
Screenshot of the homepage
URL	http://www.zillow.com/
Slogan	Your Edge In Real Estate
Commercial?	Yes
Type of site	Real estate
Registration	Optional
Available language(s)	English
Owner	Rich Barton and Lloyd Frink
Launched	February 08, 2006
Current status	Active

Zillow.com is a Seattle-based online real estate service company founded in 2005 by Rich Barton and Lloyd Frink, former Microsoft executives and founders of Expedia. While Zillow was created to help people get home value estimates, the site has received repeated criticism from real estate agents who believe that the values given on some homes are overvalued or undervalued and not a true reflection of the value of the home.^{[citation needed]}

Contents 1 Company 2 Service features 3 Zestimate 3.1 Criticisms 4 References

[edit] Company

Zillow has stated that it is a media company, and as of 2007 it is the #2 online real estate brand.^[1] Although Zillow generates revenue from online advertising, it also holds real estate brokerage licenses in various states.^{[citation needed]}

[edit] Service features

Zillow allows users to see the value of millions of homes across the United States, not just those up for sale. In addition to giving value estimates of homes, it offers several unique features including value changes of each home in a given time frame (such as 1, 5, or 10 years), aerial views of homes, and prices of homes in the area. Where it can access appropriate data, it also provides basic information on a given home, such as square footage and the number of bedrooms and bathrooms. Users can also get current estimates of homes if there was a significant change made, such as a recently remodeled kitchen. Zillow provides an application programming interface (API) and developer support network.^[2][3][4]

In December 2006, Zillow launched three new pieces of functionality: the ability to post homes for sale, the ability to set a "Make Me Move" price (an informal way to pre-market a home), and a real estate wiki. In 2007, Zillow teamed with Microsoft to offer Bird's Eye View, a feature in Microsoft Virtual Earth, that shows (in certain areas) clearer aerial photographs taken from airplanes rather than conventional satellite imagery. Zillow uses this functionality for entertainment-focused features on famous homes.^[5]

As a part of its API, Zillow assigns a numerical integer to each of the 70 million homes in its database, which is plainly visible as CGI parameters to the URLs to individual entries on its website. The identifier is not obfuscated and is assigned in sequence for each house or condo on the side of a street. Zillow reports on individual units, such as providing street address, latitude and longitude. When integrated with the features of a typical online reverse telephone directory and wiki-mapping services such as WikiMapia, it allows for nationwide "seating assignments" of U.S. neighborhoods for each house that has a listed phone number with a real human name.^{[citation needed]}

[edit] Zestimate

Zillow determines a "Zestimate" for a house based on a range of publicly available information, including sales of comparable houses in a neighborhood.^[6] Zestimate does not take into consideration home-specific factors like recent remodeling, although there is an option to update the information for a particular home. The accuracy of the Zestimate varies by location depending on how much information is publicly available, but Zillow allows users to check the accuracy of Zestimates in their own region against actual sales but does not allow any upgrades to increase and/or change their posted guess.^[7] In many U.S. states, information on the transfer prices of real estate is readily available and accessible by the general public and is not exclusively held in realtors' databases.^[8][9]

[edit] Criticisms

Much of the criticism surrounding the site comes from those who believe that buyers and sellers may not be given accurate data.

In October 2006, the National Community Reinvestment Coalition filed a complaint with the Federal Trade Commission^[10] stating that Zillow was "intentionally misleading consumers and real-estate professionals to rely upon the accuracy of its valuation services despite the full knowledge of the company officials that their valuation Automated Valuation Model (AVM) mechanism is highly inaccurate and misleading." In a letter dated May 4, 2007, the FTC elected not to investigate this complaint, which was later withdrawn by the NCRC.^{[citation needed]}

Real estate brokers state the site does not give an accurate reflection and that other factors must be taken into consideration in buying or selling a home.^{[citation needed]} Realtors with specific market knowledge are more likely to know specific factors affecting the sale of a home such as the overall condition of the home, room flow, landscaping, views, traffic noise, privacy, etc. These factors have been called unzillowables, a term coined in the real estate blogosphere.^[11] The industry fear arises from the possibility that increasing numbers of users will trust internet-based valuation companies like Zillow to give good "ballpark" figures. As such, such sites may become a source of competition for real estate agents who, in many jurisdictions, may previously have had exclusive control of this information.^{[citation needed]}

Zillow.com has no rating with the Better Business Bureau.^[12]

[edit] References