zillow.com

Online real estate marketplace zillow.com is a free-to-list website currently ranked third in the Hitwise US real estate website rankings. It was founded in 2005 by Rich Barton and Lloyd Frink, both of whom previously worked for travel website expedia.com. zillow.com says it aims to be different from what it calls “read-only” real estate websites by allowing users to share information and engage in dialogue as well as browse listings.

Ownership | Market Position | Key Measurements | Market Coverage | Advertising Model | Financials | Site Sections | Technology | Key Management | History | Recent Press | Information Sources

Ownership

zillow.com was co-founded by website president Lloyd Frink and chairman/chief executive officer Rich Barton. Its offices are located in Seattle, Washington.

Market Position

zillow.com was ranked third most visited US real estate website in the March 2009 Hitwise rankings, where it has remained for a number of months.

The website reported 7.5 million unique visitors in January 2009, and stated that 8.8 million unique users visited in March 2009. However, propertyportalwatch.com’s research into other ranking sources such as compete.com estimates the traffic may be much lower than these figures.

Key Measurements
(April 2009)

• 3 million properties for sale (as at November 2008)
• Approximately 5.5 million unique visitors each month
• 100,000 agents registered (as at February 2008)

Market Coverage

All of United States.

Advertising Model

zillow.com is a free-to-list website for agents and private sellers. The website creates revenue by charging listers to advertise with “Zillow Showcase Ads”. Advertisers can choose to appear on 25, 50, 75, or 100 percent of searches within a zip code.

Financials

Rumours put zillow.com’s revenue around the US$10m per annum mark. propertyportalwatch.com estimates the costs of the business to be around US$20m per annum.

Site Sections


The key sections of the website are:

• Homes
• Mortgage
• Advice
• Directory
• Local information
• My Zillow
• Blog

Zillow also has a YouTube channel which presents video tutorials.

Technology

To be completed.

Key Management

The key management are:

• Lloyd Frink, President
• Rich Barton, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer
• Spencer Rascoff, Chief Operating Officer
• David Beitel, Chief Technology Officer

History

zillow.com was launched on February 8, 2006, and had its millionth visitor after only two days. Since then, it has added various features such as a home report email service, Zillow Mobile, the “Zestimate” home valuation function, Zillow Community, Walk Scores and schools data for listings, and a home Q&A section.

In July 2006, zillow.com formed a partnership with Yahoo! Real Estate and Yahoo! Search.

In August 2006, TIME Magazine named zillow.com one of its 50 Coolest Websites.

In 2007, zillow.com was named Outstanding Website in the real estate category of the Web Marketing Association’s Web Awards. It was also a Gold Award winner in the W3 Awards, which honours creative excellence on the web.

In 2008, the website won a Webby award, as well as a Real Estate Standard of Excellence and Outstanding Website award in the Web Marketing Association’s annual WebAwards.

In October 2008, zillow.com fired 25% of its workforce in an effort to cope with the effects of the economic downturn.

In Mach 2009, the website took down its “tell us it’s for sale” feature due to controversy relating to private listings.

In April 2009, zillow.com launched co-branded real estate websites with 180 newspapers nationwide in the US.

Recent Press

Press releases are available on the company’s website.

Further information can be found at the zillow.com blog.

Information Sources

Site Review

1. zillow.com Regains Strength

   US real estate marketplace zillow.com’s staff numbers are returning to pre-lay off levels....

2. zillow.com Expands with Windermere

   zillow.com has partnered with Seattle based agency network Windermere Real Estate....

3. zillow.com Reports 2009 Records

   US real estate marketplace zillow.com has started 2010 with a bang, reporting a 57 percent increase in the number of unique visitors to the website year-on-year. zillow.com recently claimed to be bigger than realtor.com based on comScore figures, but later retracted that statement after comScore pointed out flaws in the comparison methods used. This time, zillow.com is quoting Omniture data to put its average number of unique users at 8.2 million per month and its page view numbers up 37 percent since 2008....

4. zillow.com Turns Four

   Yesterday marked the fourth birthday of zillow.com, the real estate marketplace that now says it has data on 96,013,458 US homes and sees over 8 million unique visitors per month. The past year has been big at zillow.com. The website recently reported a 57 percent increase in unique visitors over 2008 totals. In fact, chief operating officer Spencer Rascoff was so optimistic about zillow.com's audience figures he told businessinsider.com that the website was "closing fast" on realtor.com, and that he hopes to be able to confirm zillow.com's place at the top of the US market “within short order”. ...

5. New iPhone App From zillow.com

   US real estate marketplace zillow.com has released a free iPhone application that allows users to access property values and other information on the move. ...