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NewsRealtorsVersusZillow

"Zillow Is Buying And Selling Lots Of Homes; It's Almost Half Its Business"9943

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DanSmigrod private msg quote post Address this user



Hi All,

BuzzFeed News (7 August 2019) Zillow Is Buying And Selling Lots Of Homes And It's Almost Half Its Business Now

"It's a major change from Zillow's original business of real estate search and marketing, and it signals a dramatic shift in house flipping from small real estate investors to institutional investors. Other companies including Opendoor, Offerpad, Redfin, and Knock are also expanding the so-called instant buyer, or "iBuyer," market. Zillow plans to buy 5,000 homes per month by 2022."

Source: BuzzFeed News

Is this news good or bad for Matterport Service Providers?

Dan
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VTLV private msg quote post Address this user
It's an interesting way to put a billboard into neighborhoods when the "This Home is Owned by Zillow" sign hangs with the yard sign. Most agents and loan officers are upset to see a possible transaction in their market go to a company from out of town.

There's a line to dance here with agents if you shoot these tours exclusively like I do. Smart agents know not to bring politics into their discussions with clients. No different approach for service providers not wanting to bring up a heated topic.
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cnitschke1 private msg quote post Address this user
I was on a conference call on Monday with a number of Real Estate CEOs including Shawn Black, the CEO of Knock.com and also a former founder of Trulia and his opinion was that the iBuyer category would represent about 50% of the market in the next 5 to 10 years. The rest of the group had a more conservative outlook with a target that was closer to 20% of the market.

The thing you have to keep in mind about the Zillow iBuyer program is that currently they are only converting about 1% of their offers in purchases and that the rest of the program is being converted into seller leads for the premiere agents.

Having just gotten back from Inman and having met with all 3 of the major players in real estate VR, Matterport, Ricoh and Zillow (Which appears to be a white label implementation of Ricoh) each of the products has its place and each of the vendors has its own challenge.

Zillow/Trulia has the clear advantage as their 3d tour program is 100% integrated into their platform and Zillow owns the real estate consumer by a significant margin vs the number 2 competitor, Realtor.com

Matterport says that they have about 10% of the market, but according to my survey of pulling data from their syndication partner, realtor.com, they are only capturing 1% to 5% of the consumer facing side in any given market. This has a to to do with a reliance on the virtual tour link to power the Realtor.com integration and the fact that many MLSs use that slot for other forms of media and a general lack of syndication knowledge on the part of either MSPs or the agents themselves. If the tours do not reach the consumer then they don't exist.

Zillow however made the assumption that the agent would be shooting their own Zillow 3d Tours with inexpensive Ricoh cameras and even now they are understanding that this may have been a massive mis-step. So much so that they pulled the search by 3d Tour function from the beta program when the program went live nationally because there are so few tours. Zillow has realized that they need a shooter network so there is a tremendous potential for business in leveraging Zillow 3d Tours as an onramp to further relationships with agents/offices for other products like photography, drone work, video and even Matterport.

Ricoh is the odd one out. They too are directly targeting agents but they have no syndication partners so at best they are just another virtual tour that then has to be embedded into someone else's platform. But at $45 per moth for all you can eat tours, vs Zillow's completely vertical and proprietary platform and Matterport's premium product, but at a premium price, Ricoh does have an interesting offer.

Personally I deploy all 3 platforms for my 900 or so agents.

1. Matterport - Because tours can be downloaded for offline viewing, the pro2 produces the highest quality tour, when used on a touch device the tour is very natural for the consumer and the tours have direct integration with Realtor.com

2. Zillow - No additional hosting fees, very quick shoots, they are embedded in Zillow and currently I have Zero competition for Zillow tours so my agents can leverage Zillow which the seller understands plus the tour that no one else is offering and win listings.

3. Ricoh Tours - This is a cost effective way for me to shoot and maintain reusable community content in VR to enhance my hyper local marketing campaigns.

I don't think there has ever been a better time to be involved in Real Estate content creation for those that know how to present the topic and are open to change since this space and business models are going to start evolving at a nearly vertical rate.
Post 3 IP   flag post
Garnetwest private msg quote post Address this user
Quote:
Originally Posted by cnitschke1
I was on a conference call on Monday with a number of Real Estate CEOs including Shawn Black, the CEO of Knock.com and also a former founder of Trulia and his opinion was that the iBuyer category would represent about 50% of the market in the next 5 to 10 years. The rest of the group had a more conservative outlook with a target that was closer to 20% of the market.

The thing you have to keep in mind about the Zillow iBuyer program is that currently they are only converting about 1% of their offers in purchases and that the rest of the program is being converted into seller leads for the premiere agents.

Having just gotten back from Inman and having met with all 3 of the major players in real estate VR, Matterport, Ricoh and Zillow (Which appears to be a white label implementation of Ricoh) each of the products has its place and each of the vendors has its own challenge.

Zillow/Trulia has the clear advantage as their 3d tour program is 100% integrated into their platform and Zillow owns the real estate consumer by a significant margin vs the number 2 competitor, Realtor.com

Matterport says that they have about 10% of the market, but according to my survey of pulling data from their syndication partner, realtor.com, they are only capturing 1% to 5% of the consumer facing side in any given market. This has a to to do with a reliance on the virtual tour link to power the Realtor.com integration and the fact that many MLSs use that slot for other forms of media and a general lack of syndication knowledge on the part of either MSPs or the agents themselves. If the tours do not reach the consumer then they don't exist.

Zillow however made the assumption that the agent would be shooting their own Zillow 3d Tours with inexpensive Ricoh cameras and even now they are understanding that this may have been a massive mis-step. So much so that they pulled the search by 3d Tour function from the beta program when the program went live nationally because there are so few tours. Zillow has realized that they need a shooter network so there is a tremendous potential for business in leveraging Zillow 3d Tours as an onramp to further relationships with agents/offices for other products like photography, drone work, video and even Matterport.

Ricoh is the odd one out. They too are directly targeting agents but they have no syndication partners so at best they are just another virtual tour that then has to be embedded into someone else's platform. But at $45 per moth for all you can eat tours, vs Zillow's completely vertical and proprietary platform and Matterport's premium product, but at a premium price, Ricoh does have an interesting offer.

Personally I deploy all 3 platforms for my 900 or so agents.

1. Matterport - Because tours can be downloaded for offline viewing, the pro2 produces the highest quality tour, when used on a touch device the tour is very natural for the consumer and the tours have direct integration with Realtor.com

2. Zillow - No additional hosting fees, very quick shoots, they are embedded in Zillow and currently I have Zero competition for Zillow tours so my agents can leverage Zillow which the seller understands plus the tour that no one else is offering and win listings.

3. Ricoh Tours - This is a cost effective way for me to shoot and maintain reusable community content in VR to enhance my hyper local marketing campaigns.

I don't think there has ever been a better time to be involved in Real Estate content creation for those that know how to present the topic and are open to change since this space and business models are going to start evolving at a nearly vertical rate.
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Garnetwest private msg quote post Address this user
Wow! Very informative post @cnitschke1 !!
Post 5 IP   flag post
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lilnitsch private msg quote post Address this user
I have been offering both tours to our agents. Here is the same home with both tour platforms (Zillow was shot with the Z1)

Zillow 3D Home
https://www.zillow.com/view-3d-home/226acbfa-d06a-4d8b-9cbb-eeaa9713538a?setAttribution=mls

Matterport

Matterport
Post 6 IP   flag post
JonJ private msg quote post Address this user
Hi @lilnitsch,

Thank you for the comparison. Can you give us an idea how long it took for each type of tour as well as the number of scan points for each?

Thanks in advance!
JonJ
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lilnitsch private msg quote post Address this user
Matterport I like to quote approximately 45 minutes per 1,000 SqFt (could be more or less depending on people, pets, or the property) Zillow 3D home tours are really quick on site. The home above was approximately 2500 SqFt Zillow portion took maybe 15 minutes or so. It’s basically a scan per room or feature you would like to highlight maybe another 15 minutes or so on the backend to connect the photospheres
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izoneguy private msg quote post Address this user
With the Z1 - are you using Auto settings? or can you adjust exposure and WB?
Post 9 IP   flag post
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lilnitsch private msg quote post Address this user
I’m using auto hdr. I believe however you can make some in camera adjustments but you are stuck with whatever the camera kicks out you cannot edit in 3rd party software
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lilnitsch private msg quote post Address this user
Zillow 3D homes app also doesn't give you access to the 360 panos so, it you want some 360's for social you'll need to swap back and forth between the Theta app and Zillows or go through a second time for 360's for social
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DanSmigrod private msg quote post Address this user
@lilnitsch

I thought you could share the Zillow 3D Home tour?

Dan
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lilnitsch private msg quote post Address this user
You can however lead gen from said tour would go to Zillow Premiere agents unless they happen to click the tiny box next to the listing agent on the contact form. I was referring to 360 imagery for Facebook for diving traffic back to a more direct point of contact for the agent or brokerage
Post 13 IP   flag post
cnitschke1 private msg quote post Address this user
Zillow does allow you to share a proprietary link to the home that takes the view back to Zillow. If the consumer fills out a contact form and does not select the microscopic checkbox next to the listing agents name teh lead is sold to a premiere agent.

That make this really easy, because they have monetized it.

Our strategy with Zillow tours is to help agents win listings since most sellers have an attachment to Zillow and doing anything to enhance your Zillow listing of their home is a win.

we still use Matterport for Realtor.com, TourFactory, and to download them and share them internally with all of our agents or directly with anyone you want via the iOs Share button or by sharing the url.
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@lilnitsch

Can you share the Zillow tour to social media, such as Facebook and have it look as nice as uploading a single 360º?

Dan
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cnitschke1 private msg quote post Address this user
The single 360 is always best practice. It leverages the gyros in the mobile platform and you can point the link to which ever site you choose for lead capture.
Post 16 IP   flag post
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DanSmigrod private msg quote post Address this user
@cnitschke1

Thank you for your thoughtful - must read – post above.

I look forward to reading more of your insight about content creation in the real estate space.

Best,

Dan
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