Evolving with the Industry

By Lesley Geary

RISMEDIA, Dec. 15, 2008-When Prudential California Realty first began working with Zillow three years ago, it was a fledgling company known for its home valuation service-Zestimates.

“[Zillow's] point of difference was the valuation and they were doing it on a national level,” Steve Rodgers, president & CEO of Prudential California, says of the original partnership. “We realized that when people were starting to think about real estate, they began with pricing, so you were catching them at the start of their search, which made Zillow a very interesting website.”

Today, Rodgers says its Zillow’s evolution-increasing its offerings and visibility dramatically-that has made it a top marketing tool for his company.

“Zillow is becoming very astute,” he says. “It knows how to capture the press and is getting a lot of exposure for the site. And of course the more success it has, the more people will be supporting them.”

The company’s recipe for success continues to be its no-charge listings for brokerages and MLSs.

“Over 200 major brokerages send us their listings, which means that we have more than 3.2 million listings on our website,” explains Zillow COO Spencer Rascoff. “We get 5.5 million visitors to the site every month, which makes us one of the top three real estate websites.”

Plus, more recently, the company introduced a mortgage marketplace that allows borrowers to hunt for a mortgage online without giving out personal information.

“To date, we have received 557,000 loan quotes resulting in 90,000 loan requests,” says Rascoff. “This is revolutionary and a great example of what Zillow is trying to do.”

Despite the add-ons and changes at the company, Zillow still continues to allow agents the ability to upload an unlimited number of photos per listing, and also now offers a professional directory as well as a popular interactive game called

“Dueling Digs,” which allows people to choose favorite rooms in houses. “Because the number of days homes sit on the market has dramatically increased, it is increasingly important to use every tool in the toolbox and Zillow is certainly one of the very important tools for us,” concludes Rodgers.

Moving forward, Rodgers believes that throughout the next three years, the real estate industry will continue to reshape itself.

“We are going through a cleansing at every level and while it is too soon to tell, because some are just hanging on by their fingernails, I believe Zillow will get more and more traffic and will definitely be one of the survivors and a key player in years to come.”

For more information, please visit www.zillow.com.