Is the housing slowdown bad for Zillow?
By: Spencer Rascoff, CFO & VP of Marketing | September 13, 2007
I get asked this question a lot, so I figured I’d answer it here once and for all.
The short answer: no, I don’t think so.
The long answer: like most things, it is good in some ways and bad in other ways.
In times of flat or declining housing prices, looking up the value of your house or a friend’s house is undoubtedly less fun. So I’ll concede: in slower times (which are upon us), we lose some voyeuristic traffic.
On the other hand, in times when houses no longer sell themselves, we clearly benefit from sellers and agents looking for more ways to market their listings and themselves. We also benefit from buyers searching out more tools to get an edge in real estate – and that’s what Zillow is all about. In a buyers market, the more you know about the house and the area, the more you can potentially negotiate. Whether you’re checking out recently sold homes in the area, are interested in the sale history of a home, or have a question to ask the owner or agent— knowledge is power!
Since this is Zillow after all, a data crazy company, let me cite some stats to make my point. In August 2007, we had 4.4 million unique visitors come to the site – 17% more people than came to the site in August 2006. Zillow continues to grow our traffic significantly while the overall online real estate category’s viewership is down about 2% year over year according to Hitwise. So while personally I’d love to see my house’s Zestimate start increasing again, I think that Zillow can prosper as a great tool for buyers, sellers, agents and brokers in a down market.
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- Categories: Home Mortgage, Real Estate, Real Estate Industry, Zillow
Comments
15 Comments so far
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Geoff Graham on September 14, 2007 5:42 am
That’s great to hear. I think Zillow still has a lot of room yet to run before everyone knows about it (I still meet real estate professionals who’ve never heard of Zillow).
David G from Zillow.com on September 14, 2007 8:25 am
Good point Geoff. Thanks for spreading the word. About half of the visitors to Zillow say the site was recommended by a friend — Thank You!
Dave on September 14, 2007 9:25 am
Beyond just real estate professionals, it is just starting to get into the mind of non-computer people as well. My parents recently mentioned that they had heard of a site where you could look up home prices in the area and see how much theirs was worth.
Sure enough, it was Zillow they were talking about. It’s interesting that it has made its way to my non-tech parents
Drew Meyers on September 14, 2007 12:45 pm
Glad to hear it Dave!
Brad B on September 16, 2007 5:54 pm
You mention traffic to Zillow being up year over year in August. However, Zillow’s traffic profile on Alexa seems to show traffic slowly and steadily declining?
http://www.alexa.com/data/details/traffic_details?site0=zillow.com&site1=&site2=&site3=&site4=&y=r&z=3&h=300&w=610&range=3y&size=Medium&url=apple.com
Thom on September 17, 2007 10:01 am
How do I get my property removed from Zillow? The comps and value of the property are totally incorrect. Zillow is using comps that are 15 miles from my property instead of the 15 homes across the street that have sold in the last 6 months. It does not show my home in its correct location but in the next town. This is totally misrepresenting my property.
David G from Zillow.com on September 17, 2007 10:48 am
Brad B -
a) The Alexa data you pointed to is reach as % of the total web’s reach. Since the web is still growing it’s possible that this % can come down even as a site’s audience grows.
b) You should Google “Alexa accuracy.” It’s widely understood that you should take Alexa data with a pinch of salt. I respect what they’re trying to do but our measured traffic numbers will always be more accurate than those estimated by Alexa or similar services.
Thom -
We don’t remove homes from Zillow; the data we display is derived from public records. Please reply with the address in question so we can investigate the home’s positioning further.
Brad B on September 17, 2007 12:13 pm
The rank and page view stats on Alexa show the same trend as reach.
David Gibbons on September 17, 2007 1:24 pm
Brad B -
Maybe ask Alexa. All I can tell you is that according to directly measured traffic, Alexa’s data regarding Zillow is incorrect. It’s not unusual. I also like Alexa but should caution you not to make any decisions based on what you find there.
Spencer Rascoff on September 17, 2007 1:41 pm
Oh how I wish that Alexa were reliable. But it ain’t. That’s why we fork over a ton of money to Omniture to do our own site analytics (and several other companies).
I do look at Alexa sometimes, but it’s not reliable.
Kelsey Group Blogs » Zillow Valuation Now $350 Million on September 20, 2007 6:07 pm
[…] color to a fairly complete profile I wrote after the Inman conference in August. He reiterated blog comments that while it seems counter-intuitive given the collapsed housing market, the site’s traffic […]
Brad B on September 21, 2007 1:51 pm
Obviously Alexa is not perfectly accurate but most people in the internet industry agree that it is statistically relevant and accurate enough to be able to accurately show trends (up or down) for most sites (e.g. YouTube, Facebook, iLike).
I find it hard to believe that Alexa is inaccurate enough to show a steadily declining reach/pv/rank for Zillow when it is actually rising. Hmmm…
The Local Onliner » Zillow Valuation Now $350 Million on September 25, 2007 8:24 pm
[…] color to a fairly complete profile I wrote after the Inman conference in August. He reiterated blog comments that while it seems counter-intuitive given the collapsed housing market, the site’s traffic is […]
Matt Goyer’s Real Estate Blog » Blog Archive » Traffic: Zillow (20%) vs. Trulia (300%) on January 15, 2008 2:39 pm
[…] (an additional $30M raised bringing the total to $87M ), employees (from 135 people to 160), site traffic (up about 20% year-over-year), advertising salespeople, (from 5 to a team of 20; Advertising […]
Joe Dahleen on February 27, 2008 4:18 pm
I think that in a down market or changed market conditions Zillow is even a better tool. Lloyd was correct in his interview. It is less about emotion and more about the comps. This really helps borrower even more in this market and becasue they can really see the changes in that local market.
When the market is running at full tilt, the zestimates can’t really seem to catch up. Today with the current market conditions it is more realistic and pricing has been more rational than in this past market.
Plus it helps when there are so few offers on the market, the consumer has more time to check out the home, features and the area without being pressed for time. In the past market it took like 3 offers until you got one accepted.