February 19th, 2018 2:57 PM by Taydus Taydus, AHWD, CNE, CRS, GRI
Zillow / Trulia recently rolled out a new feature that I am less than enthusiastic about. It’s called “My Agent”. Here’s how it works:
Here is where things can (in my opinion) go south
What IS Zillow’s “My Agent” Program?
If you accept an invitation from an agent that you have started a dialogue with for them to be your agent, the next time you search on Zillow / Trulia, only this agent and the listing agent will appear along the right side of your screen. This eliminates confusion and keeps you from accidently getting sent to one of the competing agents along the right hand side and having to repeat your needs to someone new.
Not so bad, right? So long as you have started a dialogue with an agent that you now like and you get to choose.
However, if the agent you clicked on uses Zillow’s concierge service and they connect you via telephone to the agent that you clicked on, Zillow will automatically set that agent up as “your agent” and you will now not see other agents along the right hand side of your screen, even if you decided that you did not care for the agent you were connected with – Zillow has now taken the choice away from you!
What can you do about it?
If you try to reach out to an agent along the right hand side of the screen when shopping for a home on either Zillow or Trulia and your call is directed to the concierge service, you can do the following:
I hope this information is helpful to you. I honestly do not think that the “My Agent” program is a bad thing, I just think that the choice should be yours as to if you want to exclusively see only one agent (plus the listing agent) along the right side of your screen when you are searching for homes in either Zillow or Trulia.
Questions? Please feel free to contact me. I am always here to help :)