Zillow is a real estate giant that allows potential buyers to discover homes in their area without hiring a real estate agent. It also provides homeowners with insights about their homes to help them determine the right time to sell and how much their homes are worth. While realtors may not love Zillow because it makes real estate more accessible to the public and many people are learning how to buy and sell houses on their own, Zillow has made a major impact on the real estate industry. This article will discuss more about Zillow and how it has affected real estate for home buyers, sellers, and real estate agents.
About Zillow
Zillow is a marketplace for the real estate industry that helps buyers find their next house by providing sellers and their realtors the opportunity to list a home on the website. Anyone can post a listing on Zillow without the need to hire a professional realtor to do it for you. Homeowners can put their houses up for sale by owner to help them save on realtors commissions. The marketplace also listed houses that aren’t currently for sale, including information about the home’s history and basic facts about it.
Ultimately, Zillow is a complete marketplace that connects buyers, sellers, real estate agents, and mortgage companies while providing educational materials and tools like home affordability calculators to make real estate more accessible for everyone. Realtors can advertise on Zillow to help them find more clients, while homeowners can see how much their house is worth and watch that value grow over time through something called a Zestimate. All you need to become a part of your home buying process is a computer, internet access, and the Zillow site.
A Zillow Zestimate is an estimate of how much a home is worth. Unfortunately, these estimates aren’t always the most accurate because they’re determined by platform algorithms rather than current information about the particular home. These Zestimates can give sellers and buyers unrealistic expectations that affect their ability to buy or sell.
Zestimates reflect the current state of the market, but they have no information about a home, especially one that hasn’t been updated in years and isn’t listed for sale, so how much your house is worth depends on more than just the Zestimate. Of course, the Zestimate can also affect rental properties because it can give you a false estimate of how much a property is worth, causing you to price rent too high instead of relying on market conditions along with the features of the home to accurately price a home.
How Do Realtors Feel About Zillow?
Even though real estate agents can advertise their services on Zillow, many still dislike the marketplace because it gives sellers direct access to listings they didn’t used to have. Now that listings are easily accessible, agents may feel like their jobs are threatened because homeowners can find their own houses. However, realtors shouldn’t feel threatened by Zillow. Even though online real estate marketplaces make it easier for buyers and sellers to connect, realtors are still a necessity, especially for helping sellers go through the lengthy process of selling their homes.
Both buyers and sellers understand the importance of agents even though they can schedule their own showings online. Instead of being responsible for just listings, agents have a large network that provides them with insider access to new listings, allowing buyers to see homes for sale before anyone else.
Additionally, agents can help vet buyers to ensure the deal won’t go through at the end while reducing stress for both buyers and sellers throughout the entire incredibly complicated process.
How Has it Impacted the Real Estate Industry?
We’ve already discussed how Zillow has made listings more accessible for buyers, which can help sellers find more prospective buyers for their homes. However, Zillow has also impacted the industry in other ways through its use of tools.
Valuable Tools for Buyers
Unfortunately, younger generations may have a difficult time securing funding for a home, and many of them don’t even know how the process of buying a home works, let alone the process of selling one. Zillow tools and resources make it easier for individuals to learn about the home buying process. Not only do they provide helpful guides and information for potential sellers, but they have a home affordability calculator that helps individuals determine how much home they can afford based on their salary and debts.
Additionally, on listings, Zillow tells buyers how much they can expect to pay on their mortgage every month and can use another tool to determine how different down payments can affect their mortgage loan based on factors like how much they want to put down and current interest rates.
Helps Realtors
Zillow may also help make realtors' jobs easier because they won’t have to deal with going back and forth with their clients about the types of houses available for purchase. While much of a realtor’s time is spent looking for homes within buyers’ budgets, they also have to deal with unrealistic buyer expectations about the type of features they can afford versus the ones they want. Of course, while these conversations will continue to happen no matter what Zillow does, Zillow makes it easier to set expectations because clients can see what they can afford based on the current market and their budgets.
Zillow may also save realtors time because home buyers can look for listings themselves and send them to realtors to set up showings and begin negotiations with sellers’ realtors early in the process to start building valuable relationships that make buyers more likely to have their offers accepted.
Final Thoughts
Zillow will continue to work on its algorithms to help buyers and sellers learn more about their homes and the unique circumstances that can affect their buying power. Even though a Zestimate might not be completely accurate, it still reflects current market conditions and can compare your house to similar comps in the area to help you determine how much your house is worth so that you can price it accurately when you decide to sell.
Buyers and realtors also benefit from Zillow because it provides sellers with the tools they need to learn more about the process without spending time with their realtors, allowing realtors to spend time on other important aspects of the process, like negotiations.
Julia Olivas
Julia Olivas graduated from San Francisco State University with her B.A. in Communication Studies. She is a freelance who loves sharing her passion for digital marketing and content creation. Outside of writing, she loves cooking, reading, painting, and her pup Ruby.
