InmanTV

Monday, March 06, 2006

For Profit Idea: Zillow.com


Have you tried zillow yet? If not I suggest you do and before you head there, let me first tell you about the site. The site describes itself as, Zillow.com is an online real estate service dedicated to helping you get an edge in real estate by providing you with valuable tools and information. The site I must say I love it. There have been many critics of the site because they proclaim that the Zestimate, or quick home price appraisals are typically not accurate. Read the L.A. Times article:

But for those math geeks that want precise numbers, hire a freaking real estate appraiser and quit complaining. These are probably the same people that argue about the difference between their Toyota Camry and the Lexus ES 300 is leather seats. Ok, lets see how many heads turn in your Camry. Or lets see where the valet parks their Camry in relation to the Lexus, but I digress.

The current tools of looking up taxes, historical purchase prices and utilizing google mapping technology is great in and of itself. Oh what short memories people have. Do you realize what a difficult process each of these features would have been 7 ears ago? However I do have an idea that would solve the critics complaints and add stickiness to the site, upping its resell price. It would require a quick login, which would establish users for future sell, like MySpace, Skype and every other hot web site.

Business Improvement Idea:

Zillow should add a "Ziki" sub price option to its homes zestimates. Ziki, is another way of saying wiki, but with a Z, as Zillow does, in which users could add their knowledge of not a specific house, they already have that capability, but rather a specific neighborhood or zip code. Once lets say 5 ziki prices are collected, they would begin to appear under the Zestimate. This would afford the site to have more up to date numbers than it currently does. The site can not be all things to all people, but I love it and can't wait to see what the sites of tomorrow will bring.

At Larrin's for Profit Ideas, we dont make a lot of the products you buy, we make a lot of the products you buy better.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

How do you prevent people from posting completely wrong price?

Blog Admin said...

you put in a programming control that would not allow the Ziki price to be 25% more or 25% less than the zestimate. Any numbers off by that great a margin would be too questionable to insert.