Real Estate News with Terri Taydus, AHWD, CNA, CRS, GRI

First, I am not here to bash Zillow – that would be horribly hypocritical of me considering I market myself on Zillow.com.  But what I do want to do is educate you so that you can make a good decision when you choose an agent to help you from the Zillow website.

Zillow used to be an amazing platform for home buyers to connect with a real estate agent to assist them when searching for and purchasing a new home.  Buyers could click on an agent to the right of the home they found on Zillow and that agent would contact them and provide property information and assist the buyer from the beginning stages of their home search to the closing table.

The buyer knew a bit about the agent that they had selected on Zillow.com as they could read their bio, their reviews, and even link to that agent’s personal business webpage if one was available.  This put the power in the buyer’s hands to make an educated decision regarding the agent they selected.

Buyers often look at the number of “Recent Sales” an agent has (listed to the right of the agent’s star rating) and factor this into their decision making process.

BUYER BEWARE! This is where things get a bit deceptive.

Zillow is now allowing TEAMS and entire brokerages to market themselves as one on the Zillow.com website.  This is not a particularly new practice, but it is becoming much more prevalent with brokerages promoting themselves and gobbling up the lion’s share of the marketing space. 

What does this mean to you?  This means when you are shopping on Zillow.com and you look to the right of a particular listing to choose an agent, you may see that one (or more) of the agents have HUNDREDS of “Recent Sales”  When you see this, you are most likely looking at the COMBINED SALES for the entire brokerage or team.  Same holds true with the reviews – the reviews are for multiple people on the team or that work for the brokerage and not necessarily for the agent your inquiry will be assigned to.

It’s a bit like agent roulette.  You have no idea of the experience, the quality of service, or knowledge of the local market that the agent you are assigned to may possess.  Your “lead” will simply go to the next agent that is up in the “round robin” service for that team or brokerage. You could end up with a new agent with little experience, that is trying to build their business, or you could get lucky and get a more experienced agent…like I said, agent roulette.

I clicked on one such “team” that showed a total of 313 “Recent Sales” and 170 reviews.  This was for a team of 25 team members ranging from 0 personal reviews to 45 reviews.   However if you simply clicked the button to the left of this brokerage’s name based on their “313 Recent Sales”, you would have no idea who’s desk your inquiry would end up on – you may get lucky and get one of the more experienced agents, or you may end up with someone that has only been in the business a short time…agent roulette.

The individual agent with 20 reviews of her own may be your best choice.

Take control of your property search and choose an agent based on THEIR merit vs. the combined efforts of an entire brokerage or team.