Zillow to Acquire Trulia for $3.5B • Hacker News Board

Re: Zillow to Acquire Trulia for $3.5B

#51

Post by IgorPartola » Mon, Jul 28, 2014, 3:27 PM UTC

andrewtbham wrote: post #44

chaosphere2112 wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm in the process of buying my first home, and it's been hugely helpful to have an agent. Services include: - Tours of homes; seeing something online and seeing something in person is an impressive difference. Some houses look amazing online and terrible in person, or vice versa. Cannot possibly overstate the value of this. - Negotiation; he's a professional negotiator, and he has years of experience negotiating in…

The highest producing agents are indifferent negotiators, but work hard to convince you they got you a great deal. They are trying to get you to buy quickly. Every hour they spend showing you more houses dilutes their commission on an hourly basis. Plus if you think you got a great deal you will refer your friends.

Moreover, there is a moral hazard in negotiating. The higher the sale price and the quicker the negotiation is over, the more and more quickly the agent gets paid. The agents I worked with generally did not give off the vibe that they were phased by this. I think at the scale of what a normal person can afford real-estate-wise, the difference is not huge. My latest agent in fact insisted that I go see more properties before making offers when I said I was ready to go. During this time I found the property I finally purchased, and it was about $50k cheaper than the original property I was interested in.

Re: Zillow to Acquire Trulia for $3.5B

#52

Post by swalsh » Mon, Jul 28, 2014, 3:32 PM UTC

chatmasta wrote: post #23

I interned for Redfin last summer. This is a really interesting space, and most people don't realize that Zillow/Trulia are operating drastically different businesses from Redfin. Some background: The US real estate industry is broken up into regions (e.g. SF bay area, Orange County, Lake Tahoe, etc.). In order for a brokerage [1] to operate in a region, it needs to employ agents specifically licensed in that region,…

I bought my house through Red Fin. Though zillow gave some interesting data, the Red Fin experience was much better. In fact because the market is so competitive here (Boston) it was a big leg up.

Our house was listed on a Wednesday morning, with an open house scheduled for Saturday. Since redfin had the most up to date feed, i got an email alert right away. That night we got an early tour, and we put a bid in at list price immediately allowing them 24 hours to accept.

Before that we had put in 4 other offers. We kept getting beat by empty nesting baby boomers offering cash. Having that extra time was a big advantage.

Re: Zillow to Acquire Trulia for $3.5B

#53

Post by bane » Mon, Jul 28, 2014, 3:35 PM UTC

bhousel wrote: post #42

bane wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, here in the D.C. area, nobody's using Zillow for much either since the "Zestimates" are pretty wildly off of actual market value and even in between homes in the same area. For example, it puts my house at about $50k under my next-door neighbor's house, despite my home being larger, with more upgrades (about $100k worth), with one more bedroom and an additional full bathroom. The identical house to mine, a bloc…

>So within, basically 2.5 blocks, in a cookie cutter suburb, we have almost $100k variance, with Zestimates at least $50k under market prices in some cases, and $50k over in others, and smaller homes Zestimating to be worth more than larger homes next door. Zillow will only know what a house is worth when it is either sold or when you have it appraised and manually enter the details. I don't think any reasonable pers…

> I don't think any reasonable person would expect Zillow to know about improvements made (like work done inside a house or landscaping).

Well sure, but one of the reasons local realtors have dumped it as a source of information is that buyers and sellers were starting to latch onto the Zestimates like they were gospel.

If a Zestimate was too high (like my neighbor's house), the seller would insist it go on the market at a very high value, and then end up with a bad relationship with their realtor when it didn't sell. Realtors don't have time for this nonsense.

If a Zestimate was too low (like my house), buyers would want to negotiate down under a fair market value. Again, realtors don't have time for this kind of thing.

In either case, Zillow was skewing the market. And we're not talking by a couple thousand dollars either, but on 20-40% swings.

In a neighborhood like mine, where the Zestimate is off by up to $100k from one house to the comparable one next door, the Zestimate becomes a hindrance on the fair market and causes more problems than it's worth.

It's like people getting medical advice off the internet, it's better not to because it causes too many problems in the established industry and not in a good startup "disruption" sense but in a "fucking everything up" sense.

The reaction from local realtors has been pretty swift and strong against Zillow for these, among other reasons. In an area like mine, I'm not even sure what it's useful for: the tax assessment fmv is wildly different, actual buy/sell prices are wildly different, it provides almost no value for pricing your own home to sell, and no value when buying a home that your local MLS doesn't provide (and even worse it's frequently wildly out of date). I suppose if I was looking for a rental it might provide some value, but the few rentals in my area have long since been occupied and Zillow still shows them up and available.

It's basically the worst kind of disinformation, close enough to look reliable, but ultimately a waste of people's time.

Re: Zillow to Acquire Trulia for $3.5B

#54

Post by cjensen » Mon, Jul 28, 2014, 3:38 PM UTC

smackfu wrote: post #27

chatmasta wrote: post #23

I interned for Redfin last summer. This is a really interesting space, and most people don't realize that Zillow/Trulia are operating drastically different businesses from Redfin. Some background: The US real estate industry is broken up into regions (e.g. SF bay area, Orange County, Lake Tahoe, etc.). In order for a brokerage [1] to operate in a region, it needs to employ agents specifically licensed in that region,…

Isn't the MLS run by the real estate agents that RedFin is trying to disrupt? >They depend on real estate agents manually inputting their listings into the Zillow/Trulia platforms Are you sure that Zillow isn't just scraping the MLS data from broker sites?

I'm trying to buy a house right now in Fremont, CA. I can confirm that Zillow has errors and omissions whereas Redfin has entirely accurate data. Every Thursday my realtor sends me MLS listings; in every case, Redfin has the new listings.

Re: Zillow to Acquire Trulia for $3.5B

#55

Post by rubyn00bie » Mon, Jul 28, 2014, 3:41 PM UTC

smackfu wrote: post #26

rubyn00bie wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes there is, but it hasn't gotten any HN love... :( it's called Househappy.org. To really understand why it's different takes some knowledge of the industry. The biggest difference, the contact information on the listing is actually the broker who listed it! And it's free for anyone to post. Oh... And it's the easiest to use! At least I think so :-D Note: I work for Househappy

What's the advantage over Zillow? It seems to have less properties. The contact info doesn't really matter to me much, since I will almost surely have a buyer's agent who will just look the MLS data up.

Your agent will appreciate us then... As they'll get leads for listing your house instead of being sold to who paid for the best ad placement.

As well, we have some of the highest data integrity in the business and are continuously trying to make it better...

And less properties, we're working on that too! After all we're a bit over a year old! Give is time!

Re: Zillow to Acquire Trulia for $3.5B

#56

Post by bsirkia » Mon, Jul 28, 2014, 3:44 PM UTC

chatmasta wrote: post #23

I interned for Redfin last summer. This is a really interesting space, and most people don't realize that Zillow/Trulia are operating drastically different businesses from Redfin. Some background: The US real estate industry is broken up into regions (e.g. SF bay area, Orange County, Lake Tahoe, etc.). In order for a brokerage [1] to operate in a region, it needs to employ agents specifically licensed in that region,…

Just out of curiosity, do you know how Craigslist sources it's real estate listings? Does it integrate with the MLS or do agents list there separately?

Re: Zillow to Acquire Trulia for $3.5B

#57

Post by ihaveajob » Mon, Jul 28, 2014, 3:48 PM UTC

chaosphere2112 wrote: post #37

rahimnathwani wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

they provide a hugely invaluable service What is that service? I'm not being snarky; I'm genuinely curious, as the structure of the industry (and fee level) is significantly different than where I'm from. I don't get why you need a real estate agent to help you buy.

I'm in the process of buying my first home, and it's been hugely helpful to have an agent. Services include: - Tours of homes; seeing something online and seeing something in person is an impressive difference. Some houses look amazing online and terrible in person, or vice versa. Cannot possibly overstate the value of this. - Negotiation; he's a professional negotiator, and he has years of experience negotiating in…

My experience with my agent was that she picked the home inspector with the worst Yelp ratings. Most reviewers said the inspector was not thorough at all, which of course works in favor or closing the sale quickly and without any issues, so we decided to choose our own inspector, and she threw a fit. I'm disgusted by the whole real estate agent system in California, where the incentives are all set against the client, yet there is no easy way to bypass the system.

Re: Zillow to Acquire Trulia for $3.5B

#58

Post by rgovind » Mon, Jul 28, 2014, 3:56 PM UTC

All real estate news and websites are biased and always suggest you that buying a home is a god think. In the SF bay area, I hear real estate agents speak on the radio. Before recession, they said you should buy a home immediately so that rates may increase....Then during recession they say you should buy a home as rates have fallen to historic lows..for last 1-2 years, whenever you hear...they say the interest rates are low, so you should immediately buy it, irrespective of dynamics between interest rate and price of house.

I wish there was a website/service which actively debunks what real estate agents, radio channels are propragating.

Re: Zillow to Acquire Trulia for $3.5B

#59

Post by mtmail » Mon, Jul 28, 2014, 3:56 PM UTC

LukeB_UK wrote: post #48

As someone from the UK, I've never heard of either of these sites. Kind of amazing that a business that's limited to one country can be worth so much.

Nobody outside the UK knows Rightmove or Zoopla (the UK equivalent). Zoopla is looking for £1bil (1.7bil USD) valuation in their coming IPO.

Re: Zillow to Acquire Trulia for $3.5B

#60

Post by pjc50 » Mon, Jul 28, 2014, 3:57 PM UTC

chaosphere2112 wrote: post #37

rahimnathwani wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

they provide a hugely invaluable service What is that service? I'm not being snarky; I'm genuinely curious, as the structure of the industry (and fee level) is significantly different than where I'm from. I don't get why you need a real estate agent to help you buy.

I'm in the process of buying my first home, and it's been hugely helpful to have an agent. Services include: - Tours of homes; seeing something online and seeing something in person is an impressive difference. Some houses look amazing online and terrible in person, or vice versa. Cannot possibly overstate the value of this. - Negotiation; he's a professional negotiator, and he has years of experience negotiating in…

Interesting how the division works in other markets. In the UK people generally do their own negotiation, the tours are arranged by calling the seller's agent, the surveys are arranged to the standards of the mortgage company (and in Scotland, rolled into the "home report" at the seller's expense). Once you've selected a property you hire a conveyancer who handles title search and almost all the paperwork.