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What Zillow doesn't want you to know about its listing gap

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Re: What Zillow doesn't want you to know about its listing gap

#41

Post by rgbrgb »

beambot wrote: post #34
justinzollars wrote: post #30

As a recent home buyer, I found Zillow information to be at least one week out of date. In most cities, that probably isn't a big deal; however in the San Francisco Bay area I found the site pretty useless because all of the homes I was interested in, I was unable to see because they were usually off the market, pending or very late in the process where I was unable to visit the home. I ended up using a Sotheby's own…

To be fair... in a lot of SFBA locales, homes are selling for 20% over list anyway. So even sellers (and agents) are having a hard time pricing the demand.

I think that's a quirk of how this type of auction pricing works more than anything. If everything in the area is going for 20% over asking, then posting a listing for what you actually think it's going to go for will make it look 20% more expensive than comparable properties, so you may get less offers. So there's this strange feedback loop that happens in local pricing, magnifying the list vs sold price disparity.

Re: What Zillow doesn't want you to know about its listing gap

#42

Post by llimllib »

sharkweek wrote: post #26
ohitsdom wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Zillow used to tie into MLSs but their access was cut in most areas (as described in the article) due to a dispute. Used to be an awesome resource, now it's a ghost town. Would think it's only a matter of time before realtor.com shuts down similar sites like RedFin.

Redfin is a brokerage and thus has full access to the MLS. I'm not sure anyone can shut off Redfin's access so easily because of this?

Which is also why they have very spotty coverage; if they're not a licensed broker in your area, they have zero listings.

Re: What Zillow doesn't want you to know about its listing gap

#43

Post by jrochkind1 »

justinzollars wrote: post #36
beambot wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be fair... in a lot of SFBA locales, homes are selling for 20% over list anyway. So even sellers (and agents) are having a hard time pricing the demand.

my realtor was able to estimate the price better than Zillow, I feel like they need a better machine learning model to accommodate different markets. (Denver, SF and Ohio are very different places)

In my recent long home search period, I didn't trust Zillow's price estimates at all. But i used Zillow religiously because it's UI/UX is just so good, so much better than the competition, I could do a survey of what's out there easier and quicker, and find out more of what I wanted to know about interesting listings.

Zillow "zestimate" seems to be something they're known for, but I don't think it's actually their strength as a product.

Re: What Zillow doesn't want you to know about its listing gap

#44

Post by arenaninja »

jasode wrote: post #38

FYI: To add some color to the article, here's more information about the different relationships of MLS with Zillow and Redfin from a former Redfin intern (posted July 28, 2014): https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8096912

That's a very interesting read. So that means that in my market (Houston, TX), Redfin actually has all the listings? I wasn't aware of that. har.com usually has 100% coverage and some nifty features, but the mobile app is pretty awful

Re: What Zillow doesn't want you to know about its listing gap

#45

Post by jrochkind1 »

tyre wrote: post #32
ohitsdom wrote: post #24

> So as not to violate Zillow.com’s terms of service we have done so manually (hence the limited number of cities). Can sites have a legally enforceable terms of service that ban automated access? I understand if the automated traffic is high and impacts server performance and cost, but they can ban it even if it's limited? I understand sites need to protect their servers, but if it's publicly accessible and the traf…

Yes. Sites can ban traffic for any reason they choose. You're using their servers and they have the right to determine how those servers are accessed. They don't need a specific "right" to control their servers. Likewise, users on the internet have no "right" to access anything.

I'm not sure sites can sue journalists for investigating them. Or rather, I don't think they will win. In the U.S., anyone can file a suit against anyone, merited or not, of course. Sometimes in cases like this defendents can get damages from plaintifs under anti-SLAPP laws. But it's still gonna be a long road to get there, if your opponent has the bucks for it and you don't.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strategic_lawsuit_against_publ...

Re: What Zillow doesn't want you to know about its listing gap

#46

Post by justhw »

Simulacra wrote: post #23
saidajigumi wrote: post #5

Mods: the title of this HN post is not the title of the linked article, which at this writing is the somewhat less clickbaity "What Zillow Doesn’t Want You To Know". In fact, the c&d part, while important, could almost be seen as a distraction from the larger issues of MLS listing access discussed in the article.

True, this is true, and technically against the rules. Post Title and Article Title must agree. The poster must be popular or someone affiliated with the mods, else they would've had their posting rights revoked by now.

I'm not popular nor affiliated with HN. I was actually linked to the article from PG's tweet https://twitter.com/paulg/status/651289253742161920.

The actual post's title was click-baity and the tweet title too long to submit to HN, so I truncated it.

Re: What Zillow doesn't want you to know about its listing gap

#48

Post by debacle »

The MLS system is a disaster. Think Alien 2 levels of mucousy, dark and dank ventilation shafts. Zillow has never not worked really well for all of my uses (shopping, price checking, looking at neighborhoods, etc), and it's done so in a way that no other realty website ever has.

The reality is that realtors have a huge vested interest in making it more difficult to shop for a house and generally rely on information asymmetry in a massive way. Zillow is a massive blow to that barrier and I hope they succeed.

Disclaimer: I've worked for a handful of realtors and with several MLS systems in the past.

Re: What Zillow doesn't want you to know about its listing gap

#50

Post by debacle »

rgbrgb wrote: post #6

One point that this analysis misses is that there's often a significant delay between the time a property hits the market (lists on MLS) and the time it hits aggregators like Zillow [0]. If you're looking at week old listings in hot markets like LA and SF, then you're looking at a batch of inventory that has already been picked through by savvier buyers. For this reason, we always recommend that our buyers use a brok…

Truth be told, if you're looking at day old listings on the MLS you're looking at a batch of inventory that has already been picked through by savvier buyers.
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