Zillow: Can We Talk? Real Estate Gets Social
Zillow has always wanted to be “your edge in real estate.” Now it aims to be your real estate fueled social network as well.
While the Zillow homepage is still real estate transaction driven–find homes for sale, sell homes on Zillow, real estate guide–founders Rich Barton and Lloyd Frink realize business life in a Web 2.0 world requires driving user enagagement as well as action:
When the Zillow.com real estate service launched on Feb. 8, 2006, we tackled the first question most home buyers, sellers, and the curious ask: “How much is this home really worth?” Zillow calculates a Zestimate™ home valuation as a starting point for anyone to see — for free — for most homes in the U.S. So, using the Zestimate as the foundation, we built a Web page for each home and then filled it with data and maps and layered it with publicly available information such as comparables and tax information. We then “opened up” these pages for owners and their agents to edit and add information, create their own estimates, upload photos, and post homes for sale.
So, what now? Our goal is to bring conversations about homes online and create a lively exchange of information. For years, people have been talking over backyard fences, in the grocery store lines, and in coffee shops about homes — whether they’re for sale or being remodeled or they’re just plain interesting. We’re laying the groundwork for the Zillow community — where homeowners, buyers, sellers, and real estate professionals become a vital part of the conversation about homes.
Will it work? Every Website wants to build community around its users, but how much sociability is there to go around?
Moreover, the Zillow value proposition resides in making buyers and sellers of real estate smarter consumers in the high-ticket transactions. Can Zillow simply turn on a social networking switch and automatically turn a numbers and data driven real estate user base into touch feely neighborhood schmoozers?
Even if Zillow does succeed in gaining more user interaction, will the conversation move beyond real estate mechanics? Will users stick around after their homes are bought/sold to continue their neighborhood conversations, or move the conversation back to their primary social networking venues?
The Zillow social bet is big, a $57 million in Venture Capital one. Out of the Zillow gate, though, Zillow is not looking very social.
While the Zillow blog touts “New Today! Welcome to the neighborhood,” there is no “more personalized, more local, and more relevant” neighborhoods to be readily found. The Zillow announcement includes multiple links to the site’s touted new social features, but they mainly lead to tradtional data banks of real estate information and commentary by Zillow employee “users.”
Zillow is proud that it still calls itself a “beta.” Visitors looking for real community, however, don’t care how the site is labled, they simply seek the experience promised. After all, another new social network is but a mouse click away!