Blog IV– Zillo

“The luxury real estate market is dead.” “You can’t sell the high priced properties in this market.” Not so. There were actually more sales (247) of the higher end properties in Q4, 2009 than there were in Q4, 2008 (228). Q4, 2009 even beat Q3, 2009 by 10.8%.


Of course it took a lot longer for a lux property to sell. Properties were on the market a full 42% longer in Q4, 2009 than in Q4, 2008. Even longer than the 32% increase of Q4, 2009 over Q3, 2009.


Median sales price dipped by 12.4% from $4,132,516 in Q4, 2008 to Q4 to $3,780,000 in Q4, 2009. Dead? No. Deals? Yes.


Zillo.com is a real estate listing service which makes no pretensions of its effectiveness to move property. It merely takes advantage of the perennial interest in real estate and hangs its commercial hook on the dilettante’s fascination with the search process.


Target market

Buyers search for and sellers list their properties on zillo.com. Those properties tend to be hard to find, however, as they are lost in the wash of sales pitches from servicers to the industry. Pop ups may block, mortgage company ads may distract and dating site links (yes, dating sites!) may turn the target customer to another set of objectives entirely.


Attorneys, architects, builders and real estate industry trend watchers will learn nothing from Zillo. The e-commerce pitches bombard the senses and drown the message.


But for those seeking to consolidate, relieve or escape debt, Zillo links may be of some value. For those who are unaware that they are entitled under Federal law to receive a free credit report annually from each of the three credit reporting agencies at www.annualcreditreport.com, Zillo’s links to the $14.95 monthly subscription based credit reporting services may be serving an educational function.


The target market is evidently the browsers or novitiates to real estate search. Brokers will not find this site in the same league as Property Shark, OLR and Trulia. And Zillo is a mere one letter away from the superior zillow.com. Buyers will find this site frustrating by comparison to those more focused listing services.

Functionality
The home page consists of a list of links. The list is clean and clear, so the visitor is able to choose his topic of interest and follow its trail. But that trail leads to real estate agents and residential and commercial properties in states so geographically distant and unrelated to the searcher’s initial area of inquiry, that he is left in a state of . . . confusion. Florida? Georgia? Arizona? Mexico? A disconcerting geographic disconnect, undermining the credibility as well as the usefulness of the site to buyers and sellers of real estate.


The links themselves are to and by outside providers. It appears that Zillo is more of an aggregator of servicers than a true source servicer.


Destinations include BankForeclosuresListing.com, Federal-loan-modification.org, Checking accountsonline.com, Manufacturersdirectory.com as well as credit card debt relief, refinance, student loan and grant sites. Zillo is evidently the “stop and shop” of online real estate search sites.


It gets worse. Sidebar lists of “related services” may take the visitor to airline, hotel, employment, car insurance, “work from home” and ringtone home pages unrelated to the original intent of the searcher. Of course if one wants to connect to “how to get a real estate degree online,” one has come to the right place.


The site reveals its true intent when a link to condos is subheaded as a link to “the entertainment superstore.” Zillo exists more for our amusement than our enlightenment.


A random glitch in the functionality appears when, upon entering zillo.com in the address bar, one of two alternative home pages appears. It presumably is the luck of the draw as to which one may materialize on any given search.


Monetization

Zillo has advertisers and sponsor partners galore. The environment in which they market, however, is so schizophrenically organized, with such minimal connection between products, they may achieve better market targeting by skywriting their message on a summer’s day over Jones Beach.


Zillo manifests a logical monetization model. It does not manifest a logical content model. The absence of coherence in real estate terms, however, may serve its business model well.


NYC Realty Check evaluates listing services sites based on their efficiency and value to site visitors in the real estate market. Zillo should not be viewed as a listing service of serious intent. For Zillo, the commerce does not support the content. For Zillo, commerce is the content. Buyer beware.

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Everett Sherman

Es2258@columbia.edu