Archive for June, 2007

I, as well as eight million others, spent Sunday night tuning into what was one of the most anticipated series finales in some time, and said good-bye to The Sopranos. Whether or not you agree with the way it all ended (that’s another blog post altogether), there is no denying the show’s […]

Kermit the Frog once claimed “it’s not easy being green.” Well, Kermit, not anymore. All over the country building green, rehabbing green, driving green and even green weddings are becoming increasing popular. Here in Chicago, you can find many examples of sustainable living.
Sheila Burt from YoChicago interviewed engineering consultant George Sullivan, principal and CEO […]

Colorful subjects, colorful posts. Appropriately, today’s 46th edition of the Carnival of Real Estate uses a color theme this week when annointing the winners since Craig Schiller, host of the carnival, is a home stager in Chicago and the author/owner/stager of the Home Staging, Rants & Raves blog. Craig’s biz is to "… professionally merchandise […]

I have a guilty confession to make— the PR department here at Zillow is obsessed with celebrity gossip blogs.  On occasion, this news focuses on the real estate updates of the rich & famous (which technically makes this research, right?), and this week a few headlines caught our eyes that we just couldn’t pass up […]

Let’s get right to it - a $55,000,000 home? How’s this possible? I did the math and it works out to $8,800 a square foot. At that price I might be able to afford the current 12’ x 8’ cell block of Paris Hilton - which would go for $768,000. The […]

May was a terrific traffic month for us, with 4.2 million visitors coming to the site.  But we’re always curious about who’s coming to the site and, of course, how often people are coming back.  All of this helps us to better design the site, build better products and generally make Zillow more useful in […]

There seems to be a lot of excitement in the Seattle Tech scene recently. David Gibbons and I attended the 1st Seattle Lunch 2.0 event hosted by WetPaint & sponsored by ZenZui and EyeJot last Friday. We had a blast and met some interesting and talented Seattle entrepreneurs. To add to the excitement, Zillow is […]

If you are looking for some how-to guides to improve your real estate business, be sure to check out Work.com.

Work.com is an interesting service from Business.com that looks to tap into the "wisdom of the crowds." It bills itself as "the entrepreneur’s owner’s manual to where to go, what to know, and how to get […]

Today’s Wiki Wednesday Feature: A Myth about Paying Down Interest-Only Mortgages
What with the subprime mess still making headlines, you’re probably getting sick of reading about mortgages. I sympathize. Even if you’re not one of the thousands of borrowers who are facing the prospect of losing their homes to foreclosure, the thought of shutting your […]

Traditionally, the commission paid in a real estate transaction is split more or less evenly between the buyers’ side and the sellers’ side. Commissions are negotiable and they typically range between 5% and 7%. So, assuming a commission of 5%, one half of that goes to the buying side (to buyer’s agent and to the […]