Houston Association of REALTORS

Real Estate Information Symposium:

Understanding the Internet Buyer
Spencer Rascoff, COO Zillow.com
Twitter: @spencerrascoff
March 30, 2010
 The Internet Consumer…
 Inhales information
 Does a lot on her own
 Demands timely
responses
 Uses mobile devices

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 Information Overload? No such thing.
 Buyers routinely accessing information
including:
 Historical asking prices
 Days on market
 AVMs
 Mortgage amount of seller
 Purchase price paid by seller
 Valuations on nearby homes
 Comps

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 iPhone is the new platform
 75 million iphone and itouch
handsets sold golbally so far
 8.7M last quarter
 Mobile is a killer scenario
 ~1M downloads in 10
months
 #1 RE App
 2M homes viewed per
month
 GPS, pan & zoom
 Values on all homes
 80M+ homes
 4M+ listings
 50K rentals
 Millions of solds
 Saved searches, saved
favs, share on fb & twitter,
push notifications

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Zillow Android App
 The Internet Buyer
 84% of buyers.
 They’re using Realtor.com and Zillow, and
top local brokerage sites (and yes Bob,
sometimes MLS sites)
 looking for listings and agents.
 They do a lot for themselves,
 and expect a lot from agents, including
 instant responses.
 And they use mobile devices.
 What should agents & brokers
do about it?
 Syndicate listings
 Meet internet clients’ needs
 Sharpen your game
 Fish (& spend) where the fish are
 Listings Syndication

 Agents & brokers need to cast

their net far and wide, including
mobile
 IDX is not enough
 Meet clients’ needs
 1/3 of online leads ignored
 Only 5% of online leads
answered in their entirety
 Avg response time to email:

10 hours, 16 minutes
Remember expectations? 56% within 30 minutes!

Source: WAV Group “The Consumer Online Real Estate Search Experience” March 2009
 Sharpen your game

 Arm yourself with information,

because your clients already
have it
 Fish where the fish are
 Linger at top of the sales funnel
by providing free, useful advice
 Fishing is free, but bait’s not

 Spend smartly online for extra

exposure
 Questions?
Spencer Rascoff, COO Zillow.com
Email: spencer@zillow.com
Twitter: @spencerrascoff
Blog:activerain.com/spencerrascoff