I’ve been playing around with Zillow’s new Agent Finder. It’s crazy good! Matt Carter of Inman News summed it up in a post article entitled; “Zillow just gave consumers something more than a cow pie.”
“Realtor.com couldn’t do it. Redfin couldn’t do it. Even the Houston Association of Realtors tried and failed.
Now Zillow’s done what the industry establishment couldn’t: It’s helping consumers find agents in their area who have the greatest number of sales, the most listings or the best reviews.”
I’ll say. And of course I sure many REALTORS will lose their shit about this. You can already see this in the article’s comments.
Few things that strike me about this announcement.
1. Timing. Matt mentions this in his article too. With Zillow trying to get as many direct feeds why launch something so controversial?
2. Will the industry play catch up? Now that the cat is out of the bag. Will Realtor.com, Redfin, HAR finally get their agents and members to get off their ass and compete?
3. Consumers are going to love Agent Finder. One thing I noticed when I was searching through the list of agents is when I came across agents with no reviews, I was wondering…”what are they hiding?” Agents with no photo, or listings (currently or previously) seemed not worth my time.
Of course their are other services out there. Just yesterday Cloud CMA announced integration with RealSatisfied. In a nutshell you can add any ratings and reviews you get on RealSatisfied right as part of your Cloud CMA report pages.
Cloud CMA clients can also easily add Zillow Agent ratings too.
Agent ratings and reviews are here to stay. The industry needs to get out of their own way and embrace this new world, not fight it.
Amen, brother!
Well put!!!!!!