[photopress:boycott.gif,thumb,alignright]I was intrigued by Kevin Boer’s comment on Galen’s post predicting that the Major Brokerage Houses would be jumping in en masse and posting their listings on Zillow.com. Kevin predicts that it will be “the little guy” who will hold out. I predict it will actually be the other way around, with the bigger players finding an excuse NOT to post their listings on Zillow.com. Time will tell.
In my link post to all of the blog articles on Zillow’s overnight make-over, I found this obscure post which says what others are not saying:
“RED ALERT” Zillow Wants Our Listings. Before anyone posts their listings on Zillow-let’s get a consensus. I don’t want to aid these people at all, and by posting your listings, you are doing the legwork for them and I think it is a comakazie move. Before agents gang bang the free listing, maybe we can vote on this as a whole. What do you think? They’re not Realtor’s, so this is not an anti-trust violation, is it?”
Joanne Brown of Keller Williams, who wrote this blog article, tread on the thin ice others knew not to step on. But that’s the beauty of blogs. Every once in a while, someone just “let’s it all hang out” there in the blogosphere.
Sometimes the conspiracy theorists really aren’t so crazy after all… Let the blacklisting begin!
Pingback: Zillow Coverage - Day 2 » Personal Insights on Web 2.0, Blogging, and Business
The big brokers CAN afford to develop technology that is compelling to consumers. They may not be willing to invest in the millions that Zillow spends on it’s technology, but they can certainly afford the hundreds of thousands that they probably already do spend on their web sites and other parts of their IT infrastructure.
Will the industry leaders will invest and create their own private Zillows or will they join the Zillow party? Either way, putting your head in the sand and wishing they’d go away isn’t a viable option any more (if it ever was).
I hear what you are saying, Robbie. But to some extent that argument is irrelevant since Redfin site is to Brokers’ sites, as Zillow site is to Realtor.com’s site.
Better Broker sites will not keep buyers and sellers from Zillow. I think only a better Realtor.com can accomplish that objective. Local to local vs. National to national. Broker site to broker site vs. advertising site to advertising site.
I think you are mixing the wrong apples with the right oranges, to some extent 🙂
Ardell,
Must have been very late when I posted what you commented on above, because it didn’t sound at all familiar to me just now! 🙁 I went back to that post to see my own words, and indeed I wrote them — but I certainly didn’t write them as clearly as I had intended.
What I was trying to say was not that the big brokerages will be quickly posting to Zillow, but rather that the brokerages that “get it”, both large and small, will post to Zillow. One of the big brokerages that “gets it” appears to be Prudential — they have that partnership with Yahoo, I believe they syndicate all their listings to Base. One of the brokerages (only large in the Bay Area) that doesn’t get it is, alas, the one that employs me — Alain Pinel, and they most definitely won’t be posting on Zillow.
It was late Kevin…you can explain it to me in person tomorrow.
Pingback: propertyhype.com » Zillow, Redfin, Business 2.0, Homegain and a blog swap (in a pear tree)