A Question: If I wanted to, could I pay for an ad in the newspaper advertising a house for sale that was not my listing? Or, closer to the Zillow discussion, what if I just bought an ad that said "this house at 1 Oak Street is for sale, and it's overpriced, but I have some that are priced just right."

Can someone please show me where on Zillow they say that "Tell us it's for sale" is the equivalent of a BLOG entry.

I COMPLETELY understand the concept of the Q&A section, which is questions, answers and conversation.

Please tell me how my posting the sale price of a property is considered by Zillow to be a blog entry or comment.

Bstout, that's what I said earlier. A lot of the things in this world were considered "illegal" by late adopters but many eventually accept. Some people have an obtuse learning curve and others are much quicker.

Pikes peak and broker what are you two smoking?

Paceryder, great idea and that's what a smart agent should be doing. Instead of crying like babies take advantage of Zillow as a tool.



Yes the upper right receives the highest exposure. Track the rate of conversion on every piece of marketing. I'd pay up to 999 a hit if I can earn at least 1000.

A marketing decision is really an investment thus roi should be considered.

"Pikes peak and broker what are you two smoking?"
I quit over 2 years ago.
You remind me of someone on this board a few years ago who had some good and bad ideas, yours are mostly immature.
Once you learn to communicate effectively, you might end up in the top 10 of your state doing whatever, but not real estate.

I don't think realting is going to tell us who he/she is.

Everything will shake out and he/she will be long gone and onto the next new thing. Opportunists, after all, always do.

I can see your point realting that Zillow Q&A can be seen as similar to a blog. I was just clarifying your statement that a blog catalogs the net--it really doesn't. Also your statement that blogs are searchable--the search is rudimentary and not very useful.

You're an opportunist too. At a smaller scale. Everybody in real estate is an opportunist. Don't fool yourself.

Midol, hunny?

SiberianWinter,

You don't seem to understand what I was saying. I just believe that if another agent is going to advertise my listing, they better get my permission first. In this case of Zillow, I am sure the agents that are adding properties onto the site are not getting permission from the rightful listing agent first.

You say it is not in the seller's best interest to keep the property advertising to the actual listing agent only. I don't believe this to be fully true. What if I lower the price on my listing that some other agent decided to advertise and didn't lower the price on his advertisement? Could this possibly deter buyers from being interested in my listing? YES! So updating the listing information would be one of the largest problems.

About the whole commenting on property issue. Negative comments are not really fair for people to openly discuss on a specific property for sale, especially if the comment is coming from another agent. It is like they are interfering with the marketing and sale of the property. If we let just anyone make negative comments about property that they might not have even seen, then other viewers could automatically be turned off from the property just by reading the discussion. I just don't think it's right for a site to allow just anyone to comment on something that they have nothing to do with. If it were people that actually visited the property, it might be a different story with the comment section.

"About the whole commenting on property issue. Negative comments are not really fair for people to openly discuss on a specific property for sale, especially if the comment is coming from another agent."
Len, I don't think it is in anyones interest to run down a property. We are all trying to co-op and make a sale, might it be marketed through the MLS, Zillow, Newspaper or any other medium. If one of my buyers wants to see a property they saw advertised, why would I refuse or be negative about it? I'd contact the listing agent to obtain the details and press on.

Hi, it's David from Zillow.

Please try out this feature on Zillow -- there's quite a bit of confusion here about how it works. Reporting that a home is for sale differs from advertising a listing on Zillow. 5 minutes on Zillow.com would clear up that confusion for you -- just click the "tell us it's for sale" link on a house's detail page on Zillow and then compare the process for a listing agent to advertise their listing to the process for anyone else to report a home for sale.

Here's a house that's advertised for sale by the listing agent:
http://www.zillow.com/HomeDetails.htm?zprop=49143474
Here's a house reported for sale by a (buyer's) agent:
http://www.zillow.com/HomeDetails.htm?zprop=48753306

Obviously it's our preference to have the listing agent advertise the home on Zillow but there is no good business, legal or ethical reason not to encourage other agents to let buyers know that your client's listing is for sale. We allow any member of the Zillow community to answer the question; "is it for sale?" and this is exactly how the real estate business often works today -- buyers' agents are often responsible for telling buyers what homes are on the market.

Len -

It's a mistake to confuse this feature with "allowing other agents to advertise your listings" -- that's not what's happening on Zillow. See above.

oh david.... you and the folks at Zillow have alot to learn.

Here is a challenge to all those who feel that what Zillow is doing to be Illegal or Unethical.

Call your state boards legal hotline(it is a free call) and ask? Get their opinion and have them check it out and then we will see how many lawsuits are brought by the state boards. Then we can see what the courts have to say about the issue!

Actually this may be a great tool for investors. It will make it easy to find those FSBO's that set their price according to the ZEstimate and many times the ZEstimate will be way too low.

Zillow isn't fooling anyone. Every property listed on zillow is either much lower or much higher than the zestimates. This goes to show that the public doesn't have much faith in the Z valuation model.

If I were running Zillow I'd setup a department just to monitor and compare the Zestimates with the actual sale price. If the Zestimate is within 1-5% margin of the sale price, then the industry has some catching up to do.

Otherwise the Z model will be coming to an end soon.

I don't think the majority of people know what Zillow is or care what it is as most people going there are realtors.