Drew's Blog

I live in the city of Chicago, and when we were buying a house 6 years ago, proximity to the Blue Line was something high on our list of 'needs'.  Problem was, I was new to Chicago, so it wasn't easy for me to know if there was a train close to the home we were viewing.  Today's home shopper can now look this data up in a cinch.  And even better, WalkScore has free APIs for you to add this data right on your site.

In case you aren't familiar with WalkScore, it is a great site that will give a home a 'walkability' score, based on proximity to various establishments(restaurants, grocery, transportation, etc).  A few weeks ago, they updated their algorithm to calculate the score based on actual walking paths, verses how the crow flies, which I think is a major upgrade.

Today their information is even richer with the addition of a Transit Score, or the home's proximity to public transportation. Now when I type in my home's address I also get this information:

Plus, if you click on the "commute" tab, even more information is available.  Say I had to commute from my house to the NAR Building downtown everyday:

Highly encourage using the information which Walkscore.com gives away for free, by visiting this link WalkScore on Your Site. I think it is information that your visitors will really like. 

 

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This is a really cool video about living in small houses - or "living with less".  It is interesting to watch the trends as people desire to live in less square footage than what was popular even just a few years ago.  While this is taking it pretty extreme - in a lot of ways, this sort of looks like a nice way to live to me.

http://vitality.yahoo.com/video-second-act-jay-shafer-20910192   

 

 

 

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One of my favorite annual technology conferences is coming up next month in San Francisco, Inman Connect.  This year the featured speakers are from companies like: Reddit, Microsoft, Wall Street Journal Digital, Realogy, SimpleGeo and everyone's favorite- Craigslist. 

Inman is trying something new this year, with regards to technology based content specifically geared to Agents.  The day prior to the start of the main event, they are hosting Agent ReBoot. Agent ReBoot is actually going to be the start of a 12 city roadshow.  But by going to the one in San Francisco, you'd get the benefit of the day plus the full conference. 

I'll be attending Agent ReBoot, and have an hour set aside to discuss Zillow and how you can use the site to maximize your presence on the site for your Sellers and attract buyers.  There are ways to leverage your Zillow profile to improve your SEO, use our local housing data for free content for your blog or website, use our forum Zillow Advice to attract new clients, and of course, the session wouldn't be complete without talking about the Zestimate in greater detail. 

Because of this participation, Inman has given us a code to pass along that will bring the cost of attending down from $99 to $79.  Simply use the "zillow0527" as the promo code when registering.  So sign up today! The price increases to $149  day of the event.

Hope to see you there!

 

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We changed the user interface on Zillow for looking at photos on the Map & List page the other day, and it's pretty slick. The new site design makes it more important than ever to include all of your listing's photos -- we allow up to 50 photos.

 

Take a look:

 

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There are 13,000 of you who have an Active Rain blog AND active profiles on Zillow.  As of today, and thru collaboration with the good folks at AR, you now have a link from your Zillow profile to your Active Rain blog!  Just one more way people can find the great content so many of you produce.

If you have an active, PROFESSIONAL (not a regular user) account on Zillow, a link to your blog will automatically appear.  But we didn't stop there, you can now also add your Twitter handle, a link to your Facebook profile and a link to your LinkedIn information. 

I am really excited about this change because it is so important to tie everything you are doing socially, together on the web, to help build your online reputation. 

Steps to edit/add your Profile:

1) If you don't already have an active account, here is a link to start building your free Zillow profile.

2) Log on to the site and go to your Profile.  Click the Edit button. 

3) Next, simply add your information in the respective fields.

4) And you are all done! 

Big thanks to Active Rain for making this happen!  Also, don't forget that you can include even more (followed) links within the marketing text of your profile.  For example, link to some of your favorite or more helpful posts to drive even more traffic to them. 

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We all know that people want to see lots of photos on online listings (Zillow lets you upload up to 50 per listing).  There was a small update made to Zillow this week that makes the number of photos on a listing more obvious.

Take your Realtor hat off for a minute and put your consumer hat on.  Say you did a search for listings and this is what you got back.  Knowing that people usually have a finite amount of time they spend online and won't look at every house on a page, which of these do you think will get more looks? 

(Scroll down for a quick video on how to edit photos)

 

How to add, delete, or edit photos:

Last week, Zillow launched our Local Pages, look for the new tab in the top bar.  Here you'll find tons of local data about not only homes that are for sale, but all homes in a market.  You can also find information such as demographics, population make up, and even see any local pics that may have been uploaded.  This week, we took all of that information and made it available in a free widget you can use on your website or blog.  Look in the right hand column of my blog to see one of the ways you can use this info. 

It is easy to install.  First visit this page where we list all the widgets available.

Chose the area for which you want the information.  You can go as macro as the city of Chicago, or down to a particular neighborhood.

 

Then chose what information you want displayed.  Here is your menu of choices:

 Do you want a large or smaller widget?

 

 The code is automatically generated for you.  Just hit the 'copy' button.

You can inset the widget on any website or blog.  But if you want to put it on your Active Rain blog, simply go to the Settings area of the My Home tab.  Then paste into the blog description and you are done!

Great, local, free content that will automatically be updated for you!

Where does the year go?  Inman's Blogger Connect 2009 in San Francisco is here again already, which means Zillow is once again helping kick the event off with Beer For Bloggers. 

Going to Blogger Connect?  Want free beer?  Want to meet other cool bloggers from around the country? 

Then join us:

Tuesday, August 4, 6-8 PM

The Mighty  119 Utah St, San Francisco, CA 94103

Just stare into Bob's eyes below (taken from previous event) and he'll hypnotize you into coming.....

Also pictured:

Brian Block

Tom Plant

If your listings still aren't on Zillow, there is now another reason they should be: mobile. 

Two weeks ago Zillow release an iPhone application, and boy was it popular. 

• #1 Real Estate app
• #1 free app in the Lifestyle category
• #12 Top Free App
• Over 300,000 downloads!

Now you may be thinking, but I don't have an iPhone, so this doesn't affect me.  While you don't have an iPhone (still a blackberry user myself), guess what, millions of people who are buying and selling do.  And at least 300,000 are interested in real estate, otherwise they wouldn't have download the application.  When you list on Zillow, not only are your listings there for the 8.5 million people that visit the site each month, but now they can be accessed on-the-go as well.  All of your contact information is right on your listings as well. 

Imagine this: a women walking around her neighborhood, iPhone in hand.  With the Zillow app, she can see an estimation of what each house is worth as she walks by.   Then she comes to one of your listings.  It is on Zillow, so she immediately has access all of the homes details, including price, description and multiple photos.  After seeing all of this data, she pushes a button and can places a call to you, the listing agent.  How qualified would that woman be?  

Zillow is the number one most downloaded real estate app in the iTunes store.  If you listings aren't on Zillow you are missing out on a big exposure opportunity.  If they are on Zillow, you now have a mobile component to add to your listing presentation for your Sellers and yet another avenue to reach Buyers. 

Find out more about posting your listings on Zillow by watching this short video. 

 

And here is another video, if you would like to learn more about the iPhone app and its capabilities.

I just returned the NAR Midyear meeting, and once again the most popular subject I got asked about was the Zestimate.  Where does the data come from and how accurate are they are the most common questions. 

We at Zillow are working on creating a library of training videos, and I am please to now give you a training video on the Zestimate to help answer these questions.  Actually, we created two videos on the subject. 

This first video is geared toward Real Estate professional, and how the Zestimate works along side of your listing information. 

The second video is geared more toward the home owner, buyer or seller.  If you are working with a client that is using the Zestimate as an appraisal (verses just a starting point or an estimation), this could be a good video to pass along to them. 

Both of these videos are available on You Tube

Also, please make sure to check out these other videos on various Zillow topics.