By Claire Zaner Armchair real estate enthusiasts will revel that real estate information is now even easier to get thanks to the new Zillow Real Estate iPhone application. It's amazing that a person can now drive around their favorite neighborhood and see the prices and status right on their phone. They can look up a house value before going to a dinner party, ON THE WAY to dinner.
It's impossible not to acknowledge this leap. Agents who don't embrace this will be left out. If you are a seller- you better ask if your agent uses all web-related means necessary - not just the MLS - to sell your home. It also becomes critical that the Open House feature be used on the MLS. Otherwise the DIY-ers won't know about your Open House unless they wander off and see your signs (they'll be too busy looking at their phone to see any real estate signs!)
Allen Jaworski
Jason Wall
Carol Gabrielson
Diane Easley
Karissa Webster
John "Mack" McCoy
Aune Tietz
Claire Zaner
Glenn Roberts
Dan Goforth
Danny Adamson
Thanks for posting this, Claire. I especially like the link you posted for the MLS-wide OPEN HOUSE site. As newpapers lose their position as the dominant open house venue, this search tool will rise to the top for anyone who wants to see all company open houses in a given area.
I like the idea that this application might be fun to play with when wondering what a house might be worth. However, having used a real estate agent to buy 3 houses in the last 5 years I have learned that without seeing the inside of a house it would be impossible to know for sure what that house is actually worth. Has Zillow figured this part out? I know my agent will not be left behind until they do because she had seen the inside of all of the houses she showed to me.
It would be fun to see the asking prices on houses for sale and at what price a house recently sold.
Hi. Thanks for your comment. Many, but not all companies in the NWMLS upload their listings to Zillow, but, if they do, and, if there are interior pictures posted on NWMLS, they will be available on the iPhone. It's pretty cool. You do get the list price and all other available listing information, and you get the sale price of other nearby properties.
But, I agree with you. I don't see this ap or any other replacing a good buyer's agent, ever. If you're not looking at houses everyday, keeping up on current trends, and current problems in the industry, are you really able to make a good decision based on a few photographs and some data you find online? How many buyers know that doing a sewerscope as part of an inspection can save you from making a $10,000+- mistake? How many buyers are aware that a particular house has been on the market every two years for the past decade?
We, as agents, are pretty positive about Zillow, this new ap, and technology in general. We also know that most of the people need us most of the time, and those are pretty good odds.
Thanks for being loyal to your agent. We like that too.
Thanks Anonymous, for the comment...I believe the iPhone app allows you to see photos..but that is never the same, you are right. Nothing replaces being inside a house - you can't smell cat pee from a photo. Or you can't see the basement height from a staged shot.
I guess my thoughts are that the zillow app is another fun toy for the real estate obsessed...it won't replace having a good agent. Agents are able to do the leg work before showings and they have access to list vs. sales price, price drop history (used for negotiating strategy). I really believe though that listing agents must use the MLS Open House Feature (see link above) to enter public open houses...otherwise, they miss out on the population of buyers who use that as a way to see homes on their own.
For myself, I would have the most fun with the zillow app while on vacation, visiting an unknown city, out of the Northwest Multiple Listing Service area. It would answer some of the curious looky-loo questions one always has about house prices.
BTW - I keep reading this headline as "Zillow on your Pillow"
According to Zillow, half of their Zestimates(tm) for Seattle are off by 7.5% or more - a swing far too large to assist in offer-making.
This means that, if you're looking at $400,000 homes, half of the time Zillow will value them between $370,000 and $430,000 - and half the time, outside of those ranges.
By the time a buyer has seen several homes with a good agent, the two of them should be able to do better than that.