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”. That was before the November Hitwise results were published, showing zillow.com had slipped back to third place.

As we pointed out this time last year, traffic does not necessarily equal revenue. Rascoff told businessinsider.com that zillow.com’s revenue is up 65 percent year-on-year, but didn’t name an exact figure. When asked whether profitability was in reach in 2010, Rascoff said, “I think that’s within reach. I think it depends on how the stars align.”

Rascoff has also revealed he is hoping for an initial public offering for zillow.com in 2011. However, one industry commentator described the IPO talk as a “stalking horse” for an acquisition.

With the possibilities of an IPO, an acquisition, and the title of top spot amongst US real estate websites all on the table, the only thing we can safely predict for zillow.com is that their next 12 months will be anything but quiet.

1. IPO Talk at zillow.com

   zillow.com chief operating officer Spencer Rascoff has revealed hopes for an initial public offering in 2011. “We’re not a 2010 IPO candidate, but hopefully we’re a 2011 IPO candidate,” Rascoff told Bloomberg in a recent interview. ...

2. zillow.com Regains Strength

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

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 Turns 3 – What Have We Learned?

   This weekend Zillow announced on its blog that it had turned three. In this short time, Zillow has almost become a household name in the US and in January, they reported a record number of visitors to the site. It now seems a good time to look at what we can learn from the rapid growth of Zillow. Here are some lessons....

5. zillow.com Joins with John L. Scott

   US real estate marketplace zillow.com, the current US number two, has teamed up with John L. Scott Real Estate to add 15,000 of the company's for sale listings. "If you’re a John L. Scott agent, it’s time to celebrate and to thank your broker for doing you a huge favour," says zillow.com chief operating officer Spencer Rascoff....