Where Real Estate Gets Its Dirt

Zillow acquires ShowingTime

Zillow Group will pay $500M to acquire home touring tech company ShowingTime

“ShowingTime has a network of nearly one million agents across North America and facilitated more than 50 million showings last year. Its software is used by 370 Multiple Listing Services. The 225-person company also produces market reports.

Zillow will take advantage of ShowingTime’s technology for its Premier Agent business. The Seattle company said it plans to keep ShowingTime as an “open platform” available to anyone, much like it has with previous acquisitions including Dotloop and Bridge Interactive.”

It’s great to hear about good things happening to good people. Scott and Mike are two of my favorite people in the industry. Good on them!

This is a huge move. Zillow didn’t just buy a software application they bought an entire category. An entire operating system if you will. ShowingTime is the defacto standard in how organized real estate does showings, period.

There’s a lot to unpack here, I’m going to have to fill my “thinking glass”.

Looking for a new gig?

Technical Solutions Consultant and Enterprise Sales Exec. – Dotloop (Zillow Group)

Technical Solutions Consultant

“This is an important role within dotloop due to the proven impact dotloop Connect partners have on revenue, generating leads and customer retention! As a Solutions Consultant, you will be responsible for driving engagement and usage while working cross-functionally with sales, Partner Success and Partner Experience to influence revenue and lead generation.”

Enterprise Sales Exec.

“The role of the Enterprise Sales Executive is to introduce, educate, and engage potential large real estate brokerage or franchise clients with dotloop. You will be responsible for obtaining new business through prospecting, building relationships and consultative selling that includes meeting with clients at the client’s site, communicating with clients via phone, email, and virtual meetings. You will build proposals, presentations, pricing, contracts and strategic business and technical plans that fit their needs.”

To find out about these jobs, and others or to post a position you are looking to fill please visit the Vendor Alley Job Board.

About that Zillow SNL skit

I’m sure if you are like me you got this video forwarded to you a hundred times. The skit is funny and like all good satire, spot on. Even down to the real estate agent (do you think RE/MAX paid for that placement?)

But what got me thinking was the daunting task CoStar and others have to supplant Zillow. Zillow had already crossed over and became a verb (the word “zillow” is googled more than “real estate”) And now the pandemic has made Zillow part of our culture.

Jeff Goldbum is not going to save you.

Datafiniti receives cease and desist from Zillow to stop scraping their data.

Zillow orders data company to stop scraping its content

“Zillow sent a cease-and-desist letter this week to a data startup that, the letter argues, was improperly “harvesting” data from the online real estate giant.
The letter went out Monday to a company called Datafiniti. The Texas-based company offers “instant access to every data point on the web,” and claims to have data sets that include millions of people, products and businesses.”

Yowza! It appears that Zillow isn’t Datafiniti’s only target. Inman was able to find photos from Redfin, CRMLS, and CPAR (Central Panhandle). I did some poking around too and found photos from Trulia as well. So what did Datafiniti say when they were questioned about this?

Shion Deysarkar

“In a phone conversation Tuesday, Datafiniti founder and CEO Shion Deysarkar characterized the situation as a misunderstanding. He said that his company is crawling the web the way Google does as it compiles and creates search results.

“Instead of consumer search we’re providing more structured search,” Deysarkar said.”

A “more structured search” ????

Tell it to the judge, Shion. Tell it to the judge.

Hats off to Eric Stegemann of Tribus for connecting the dots on this story.

CoStar CEO calls Zillow “unethical”.

Great scoop from Brad Inman interviewing CoStar CEO, Andy Florance

CoStar CEO to Zillow: Here we come

“He talked about Zillow founder Rich Barton’s roots disintermediating travel agents (during his time at Expedia). The inference, for the real estate industry, is not new.

“I thought up the Zillow business model years before Zillow did, but thought about it for a couple of days and realized it was unethical.”

How humble of you Andy.

CoStar saying Zillow is “unethical” is like Charles Manson pointing to Jeffery Dahmer and saying, “Well at least I’m not going to eat them!”

Who put Zillow in charge of polling?

I’ll be here all night. Don’t forget to tip your bartenders and waitresses.

Industry Relations Episode 51: We Don’t Know What to Call Zillow Anymore!

Zillow started out as a listing portal or syndication site. But the company has evolved to become… Well, we’re actually not sure what to call it anymore. Perhaps ‘the Amazon of real estate’ is most appropriate. And on September 23, 2020, the company announced that it’s hiring employee-agents to streamline the iBuyer process. So, if Zillow is a brokerage now, what does that mean for the industry?

On this episode of the podcast, Rob and Greg are discussing Zillow’s decision to take its iBuyer operations in-house and how that move will impact other aspects of organized real estate. Our hosts explore how MLSs might respond to having Zillow as members and describe how access to MLS data could change the consumer experience on the Zillow site.

Rob and Greg go on to consider the impact of Zillow being part of NAR and state and local associations, weighing in on how their participation can be seen as a win for the industry. Listen in for insight on how Zillow’s announcement demonstrates their commitment to becoming an iBuyer-brokerage and learn how Zillow entering the system might lead to an improvement for everyone—or a ‘horror show.’

What’s Discussed: 

The evolution of listing portals into brokerage and iBuyer hybrid models

How Rob and Greg define brokerages differently

Zillow’s decision to use employee-agents to bring its iBuyer operations in-house

How MLSs are likely to respond to having Zillow as members

Rob’s theory on how Zillow might reposition its Industry Relations team

The potential impact of Zillow being part of NAR as well as state and local associations

How access to MLS IDX data and VOW rules could transform the consumer experience on Zillow

The leverage Zillow has in getting information from smaller MLSs

What makes Zillow’s shift a WIN for humans (and organized real estate)

Connect with Rob and Greg:

Rob’s Website

Greg’s Website

Resources:

Opendoor vs. Zillow on Industry Relations EP050

Greg’s Blog Post on BPP

Rob’s Blog Post on Zillow

Stop Zillow Campaign

Greg on Twitter

CLAW’s Delay to Syndication Feeds

REALTOR Political Action Committee

NAR’s Rules on Virtual Office Website

The 2008 DOJ-NAR Settlement Agreement

‘It’s a Good Life’ Episode of Twilight Zone

‘A Trifecta! NAR Sued Again Over Buyer-Broker Commissions’ in The Real Deal

Thomas Jefferson’s Quote on Change in Laws and Institutions

Collateral Analytics

Greg’s Blog Post on Zillow

Our Sponsors:

Cloud Agent Suite

Notorious VIP

Opendoor announces merger, first step in going public

Opendoor announces merger with Social Capital Hedosophia Holdings Corp. in bid to go public

“iBuying platform Opendoor said it will merge with Social Capital Hedosophia Holdings Corp. II. to become a public company using the special purchase acquisition company in a deal that values Opendoor at $4.8 billion and provides it with up to $1 billion in cash proceeds. 
The transaction announced on Tuesday is also supported by a $600 million so-called private investment in public equity, or PIPE, at $10 per share, with $200 million from entities affiliated with Social Capital, including $100 million from Chamath Palihapitiya, founder and CEO of Social Equity, $58 million from Hedosophia, and the remainder from existing Opendoor shareholders, Access Industries and Lennar, along with Opendoor management, the release said.
The company said the transaction will allow Opendoor to continue to invest in growth, market expansion and new products to accelerate its overall plan to become a digital one-stop-shop for homeowners.”

If you get a chance listen to their investor presentation, which really gives you a good perspective of how Opendoor perceives the market.

Now that Opendoor is going to have access to capital from the public markets this battle between Zillow and Opendoor is going to have massive (and disruptive) benefits.

We are going to see a lot of innovation take place due to their competition and that is going to be great for consumers and I think real estate as a whole.

C.A.R. closes the loop

California Association of Realtors® (C.A.R.) Standard Forms Now Available Directly Within Dotloop – No Uploading Required

“This is an important addition to dotloop’s transaction management platform and one that will provide enhanced value for both current and future California-based users,” says Marnie Blanco, dotloop VP, Industry Relations. “With direct access to C.A.R.’s Standard Forms, California-based agents, transaction coordinators, teams and brokers can now ensure their transactions close in the most seamless and efficient means possible.”
California agents will no longer need to download and import forms into the dotloop platform, thereby saving them valuable time.”

Great win for Zillow and their dotloop users. No mention of any financial terms. I still remember being there when Austin Allison was on stage with Joel Singer debating the use of these copyrighted forms on dotloop. Austin thought it was perfectly okay to use these copyrighted forms in dotloop without permission or license. When I asked Austin how many songs he had on his iPod that he actually paid for, I got a few laughs from the audience but Austin looked confused.

Hard to believe this all went down seven years ago. I wonder if he is going to crack open a Cab tonight and pour one out in celebration.

Fear and why iBuyers Offers and Zestimates belong in your CMAs

Jay Thompson, writing on Inman News, Why iBuyers and Zestimates belong in your CMAs 

“Greg Robertson, W+R Studios co-founder, was attacked, called clueless, and challenged as to whether he had any industry experience (yes, almost three decades worth.) IBuyers, also highlighted in the headline, got one mention. Nothing else in the survey report was discussed. A few commenters waded into the fray showing understanding of why they at least look at Zestimates and sometimes mention them in listing presentations. The vast majority of commenters sounded off on the evils of Zillow and the Zestimate.”

I will say I am “clueless” about many, many things. My wife will tell you as much.

Sorry this post is a little long, but I think it touches on a lot of issues (not to mention a shameless plug for my company ????).

Jay, as you may know, is a former broker (The Phoenix Real Estate Guy) and worked at Zillow in Industry Relations for some time. His article is in response to an article published on Inman News about W+R Studios’ announcement of the results of their inaugural survey, 2020 Best Practices of CMAs and Listing Presentations.

Here’s more from Jay…

“No one, including Zillow, W+R Studios or me, is saying the Zestimate should be used as a comparable in your CMA. Of course it shouldn’t be, that’s not its intent or purpose. But to ignore it is to ignore something your clients are looking at and wondering about. Address it upfront, leave out your personal feelings about Zillow, and put any objections to rest early in the process. The listing presentation is the ideal time to address it with sellers, and the CMA is the perfect place to have it on record. “

Emphasis mine

Cloud CMA pioneered ways of including Zestimates to compare against actual sold prices from the MLS data as part of a Cloud CMA report. This has since been copied by other vendors. I was surprised by the amount of push-back we got when we introduced it. Many MLS organizations (after pushback from their members) made us turn the report page off by default, or in some cases, turned off altogether. But every time I sat down, one on one, with a broker or MLS executive and showed them how the report page worked, they understood, “wow this is great, agents are going to love it.”

This happens all the time. Many agents and brokers just hear/read “Zestimate” or “iBuyer” and begin to see red.

As we can see in the survey results and the comments on the article there is still a lot of fear out there. And as Mr. Hurbert once wrote, “fear, is the mind-killer”.

Flash forward to a little less than a year ago when W+R Studios introduced a way of including iBuyer Offers (with Opendoor) in Cloud CMA. We were met with the same type of fear and got a lot of push back and false claims.

“You’re going to put agents out of business!”
“Shame on you Cloud CMA!”

And those were the polite ones. I took these comments hard. We put many of our partner MLS organizations in a tough spot. They began to get calls from their members that “Cloud CMA was sending our CMAs to Opendoor!” (not true). The misinformation got so bad we had to create a document refuting some of the most outrages claims.

But we held firm because we knew, to paraphrase Jay, the listing presentation is an ideal time to address iBuyer Offers, and the CMA is a perfect place to have it on record.

Dan and I are always looking for new ways to innovate, and we are willing to take risks and keep our customers ahead of the curve. Even if these ideas seem crazy or counter-intuitive at the time.

The main thing that got us through the periods I wrote about above was, in the end, our customers (MLS organizations, brokers, and agents) trusted us.

In a recent “Friday Flash” blog post, titled “What are you saying” Brian Boero, CEO of 100watt wrote:

“Honestly, I am glad we have arrived at a point where there are no more red lines to transgress. I used to get revved up about this stuff too. Now, Zillow buys, owns and sells homes, Realtor.com charges referral fees, and yet good agents, teams and brokers continue to do their thing. “

Unlike Brian, I don’t think we are there yet. We still need to get over our fear of these new (old?) models, which as Rob Hahn and I discuss in recent Industry Relations podcast point out, keep turning more and more towards agent inclusion. We need to focus our energy on more positive things. We have a lot more to worry about than Zestimates and iBuyers.

I just hope the industry can take the advice of what a wise old hippie once said…

“You gotta let that shit go, man. Let it go.”

Sponsored By MLS Reset