local real estate news, statistics, and commentary without the sales spin.
If you think Zillow is primarily a real estate search site, and that home buyers and sellers are Zillow’s customers, you are wrong.
Zillow is a lead generation site. Home buyers and sellers who use Zillow are the “leads.” They are not the customer, they are the product that is being sold to real estate agents.
But don’t take my word for it. Here’s Zillow CEO Spencer Rascoff describing Zillow’s purpose and philosophy in his own words…
After being sharply criticized by both real estate agents and consumer groups, just a little over three months after the well-publicized launch of their new “Coming Soon” listing feature, Zillow’s attempt to convince listing agents to share their pocket listings seems to be a flop. Between the feature’s June 12 launch and my initial data…
Interesting article in the New York Times yesterday: In Suburban Seattle, New Nests for China’s Rich …increasingly, China’s rich are also offshoring their families along with their cash. That’s created a real estate boom in an unlikely corner of the United States: suburban Seattle. Wealthy Chinese have become far and away the biggest foreign buyers…
This poll was active 09.21.2014 through 09.27.2014
Time once again to take a look at the breakdown of what sectors are adding jobs locally and what sectors are losing jobs. First up, year-over-year job growth, broken down into a few relevant sectors over the past four years. The “Finance / Real Estate” sector had been growing by as much as five percent…