Zillow is one of the most polarizing, if not the most polarizing, topics in the real estate industry over the last decade or so.  If you ask any given agent or broker you’re just as likely to get a gushy declaration of love as you are a venom-filled tirade. So, what’s a broker/team/agent to do?

I understand why Zillow is disliked. I don’t like it from a marketing perspective because it makes my job harder. It’s harder to produce a site that can compete with Zillow from both a capability and SEO perspective.  They’re cutting into the traffic and leads that my site would’ve produced otherwise. They are guilty of inaccurate data on several fronts. Then there’s the old argument that Zillow is selling agents their own leads back to them. That statement is somewhat true. Zillow’s channel of leads is based on the listing agent’s inventory, but they’re actually selling leads to the paying agent an not necessarily the listing agent. That fact makes them even less popular with successful listing agents.  It’s a competition without being direct competition since Zillow isn’t a brokerage itself…….yet.

However, let’s look at the other side of the coin. Zillow does provide a valuable service to its customers. Under Premiere Agent 4 Zillow qualified and scrubbed leads before handing these leads over to members of the PA4 network. A lot of PA4 agents haven’t been too happy with that change, but that’s a different topic. If you’re an agent or brokerage that doesn’t have a strong SEO or organic lead generation program than Zillow is a legitimate source to get leads from to drive business. I’d argue for some if it weren’t for buying into the PA program then those agents or brokerages could find much less success generating leads on their own.

Any brokerage can choose to not put their listings on Zillow.  There’s nothing stopping them unless there are some MLS boards that have voted to unilaterally publish the listings in their feed. So, if you don’t want your listings there pull them. Here’s the rub, pulling listings from Zillow is only going to work at scale in a given area.  Sellers expect their house to be on Zillow. I’d be willing to bet most sellers check Zillow’s site before the site of the brokerage they listed with. If the entire MLS doesn’t pull the listings from Zillow it hampers those individuals that do.  If we take into account my earlier comments that a lot of smaller brokerages use Zillow to level the field, what’s the likelihood that they’re going to agree to the whole MLS stopping syndication?  I’d be willing to bet that likelihood is zero.

Like I said earlier, Zillow makes my job more difficult in some ways. However, I don’t think Zillow is going anywhere. If anything Zillow is digging in and finding new ways to generate revenue from the real estate transaction.  If that’s the case then why not use them to your advantage?  If you have to play their game at least get something out of it.