What Zillow doesn't want you to know about its listing gap • Hacker News Board

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

#181

Post by jacobr1 » Thu, Oct 08, 2015, 3:05 PM UTC

spacecowboy_lon wrote: post #168

bcg1 wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You make excellent points. I guess what I meant was that Zillow's model _should be_ to improve the process and to make it cheaper. Maybe 6%-7% commission is still appropriate for high-end properties that only have a limited pool of potential buyers (that's not my world, I don't really know) but for average homes in 2015, it is an anachronism left over from a time when buyers and sellers couldn't do a lot of the legwo…

Is 6-7% really the norm in the USA its 1 or 2 % in the UK if so damm that is a market that needs disrupting.

3% for the buyer's agent, 3% for the seller's agent

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

#182

Post by novaleaf » Fri, Oct 09, 2015, 2:58 PM UTC

beggi wrote: post #157

novaleaf wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

i bought a house on redfin (my 2nd house) and if you are willing to put in time to scout out your house, it's a good cash savings. (which, probably you should, since you are going to live in it!) I ended up touring maybe 15 houses. Reasonably sure that the house we got was the best deal out of them too.

Are you talking about the 2.5% they split with you or are there other ways to save with Redfin?

the "cash back" is nice, but I'm more talking about finding the right house (more important I think!)

With redfin you can (and, are required) to do your own discovery: finding the house you think are potential candidates and touring them. Redfin has an associate go with you to the houses you are interested in to show you around/answer questions.

For me, it took about 4 house tours before I figured out the house type I was aiming for. After that, then next 10 or so tours was just trying to find a house that offered the best bang for the buck (based on what I was looking for)

Ultimately, if you have the time available to do this kind of footwork, Redfin offers you "choice" that you won't get from an agent. However if you are time constrained or not willing to put in 40 hours over a few months to find your perfect house, then a traditional agent will be better.

Also keep in mind that I'm in the Seattle area, which is Redfin (and Zillow's) hometown, and as per the original article, maybe in other regions redfin's listings may not be as comprehensive?

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

#183

Post by stephengillie » Sun, Oct 11, 2015, 7:20 PM UTC

jsc123 wrote: post #120

stephengillie wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a nightmare. I used to work for one of the industry dinosaurs; they have an MLS team that was as large as their development team. They pull data from over 600 MLSes, with different requirements for each. Managing 600 business contacts is a big pain, then there are different data conventions that change without notice. They have had a long-standing arrangement to feed data to Trulia too. The word is most MLSes us…

which dinosaur?

Reliance

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

#184

Post by Simulacra » Mon, Oct 12, 2015, 7:39 AM UTC

jpmattia wrote: post #85

Simulacra wrote: post #18

When I was searching for a house I used 5 or so apps to do so. I found that Zillow had many, many listings that were very old, but were placed up top and the dates changed to make it look like it was just listed. However, checking the actual data for that listing shows that it was not pulled from the market and relisted, it was just Zillow constantly boosting really crappy houses that had been on the site for a long…

> In short, trust none of them To amplify: I don't think it's any accident that the 2005 housing fiasco happened in this industry. Terrible pricing information (gaps + timeliness), as well as terrible conflicts of interest (buyers brokers are incentivitized to make the buyer pay as much as possible) make me wonder how much longer these dinosaurs are going to continue to operate the same way.

Very good point.

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

#185

Post by Simulacra » Mon, Oct 12, 2015, 7:42 AM UTC

at-fates-hands wrote: post #89

Simulacra wrote: post #18

When I was searching for a house I used 5 or so apps to do so. I found that Zillow had many, many listings that were very old, but were placed up top and the dates changed to make it look like it was just listed. However, checking the actual data for that listing shows that it was not pulled from the market and relisted, it was just Zillow constantly boosting really crappy houses that had been on the site for a long…

I had the same problem this summer. I was working with an agent and I told him I saw several houses I wanted to look at on Zillow. Sent him the list and all but one was sold. He said the listings were in some cases as much as 6 months old. After that, he just plugged me into the MLS listings directly and then every time a new house would show up, I'd know about it and could email him if I wanted to see it or not. I t…

My area (Atlanta) is a very hot market. I found my house on Cinco de Mayo, emailed my agent, and we were looking at it that afternoon. By 9 AM the next morning the owners had accepted our offer. The house had not been on the market 24 hours. If I had not jumped on that house the moment it hit The MLS system, I would not be sitting in the backyard enjoying it right now. :-)