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Welcome back to Go Gaddis Real Estate Radio, right here on AM nine 20, the Answer. I'm Cleve Gaddes. Thanks for sticking with us through the break in this segment. And in the next segment we're gonna talk a lot about Zillow. Zillow has a new listing program called Listing Showcase, and it's really pretty cool.
I've got one of my favorite guests who's gonna be on with us a segment to talk about that, and I'll introduce her in just a minute. Don't forget, if you want to connect with us, it is. Easy. Just go to go gaddis radio.com. That's G O G A D D I S radio.com. You can ask questions. Then we answer on air or off air if you'd prefer.
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We are just now gonna go over a hundred thousand. Downloads or listens to the podcast, and that's very exciting. Let me introduce Christy Val. For those of you who have heard her before, you know that she is my business partner. Christy and I own Modern Traditions Realty Group. Together, we've been business partners for a little over a year, been friends for 10 years.
I don't know how long it's been that we've known one another. Our families have long histories in real estate, and so the modern traditions, we put a modern flare on all of the traditional things that all buyers and sellers want in real estate. Welcome, Christie. Thanks for being here. Absolutely good to be here.
So you were contacted by Zillow to participate in a program called Listing Showcase. If you don't mind, I'd love to set things up for just a minute because listeners might not understand how this is such a big deal. Uh, Zillow owned showing time, that won't mean anything to anybody, but showing time is a software we use to keep up with showings here in Metro Atlanta to manage things.
And at one time, if you were the listing agent, In Zillow, and if you followed Zillow's rules, you could get two benefits. Number one. Your name, your picture of your little face and your phone number and stuff was listed right there on Zillow. So if somebody wanted to contact the listing agent, they could, and that was a big benefit.
And if you followed what Zillow wanted you to do, like using their particular three D tours and stuff like that, then you increased the chances of your listing showing up higher in the search results than everyone else. Now, over the last few years, All of that has gone away. So now we still have the ability to get our listings a little higher if we follow their rules, but there's been no way for home buyers to get the contact information for the listing agent so they could get whatever information and bypass a buyer's agent.
And this Zillow Listing Showcase program is changing that. So tell us a little bit about the Zillow Listing Showcase, and then after that I'd love to get into how did we get selected to be a Zillow Listing Showcase partner in our area? Sure. Yeah. So if you've ever gone on vacation mm-hmm. And you've rented through like Airbnb or V R B O, yes.
You probably have had the option to search for like Superhost or these special tags on their sites that allow you to see, um, properties that are, you know, gonna meet your needs the best or like, and so you mean like, well man managed meaning if you rent from this person, they're a Superhost, so they're gonna do a great job and you're gonna have a good experience.
Is that what that means? Right? Yeah. Oh, interesting. Okay. Okay. So what Zillow has come out with is this product called Showcase, and it is kind of like tagging the property as something special that the buyer should pay extra special attention to. Mm-hmm. So, so it actually shows up different meaning if, if I was a buyer and I said Homes for sale in Lawrenceville, 450 to 550,000.
When a showcase listing scrolls by, I, it, it would be, uh, uh, denoted as such. It would, meaning there would be a note that says this is a special listing, a green dot or something like that. Is that correct? It has a, uh, actually it is a red circle that says Showcase has a little star on it. Okay. And so it shows up on the map that way, but it also is gonna show up higher in the search results for a buyer that's searching.
So when they're looking for properties, it is gonna show up higher in the buyer's search results. Um, and there's a lot of. Special things that Zillow does with these listings as well. Um, something that makes it eye appealing is they do AI driven photography, media, drone photos. Interactive floor plans.
And so that also is gonna draw the buyer's eye to that property specifically. So, um, and, and, and with these showcase listings, we are actually using Zillow vendors, um, to do some of the. Uh, three D imagings, the photos, things like that. And when you say the AI is, is AI helping make decisions on which photos to display first and second and third?
I know we probably would have the ability to override that, but is that what's happening with the, with the ai? Absolutely. So what's happening is they're saying, okay, out of the property photos that we are seeing, these are the top three that we think are gonna be the most enticing to a buyer. Shopping online.
It'll automatically choose those three to be prominent on the listing. And then of course, like you said, we can go in. We don't particularly want the one that they chose. We can swap them out. But, um, they are using that technology to help reach those buyers. And it's a very limited thing if I, if I'm remembering correctly.
So in, let's just say in an area that might cover all of Lawrenceville, I'm just making something up. 'cause I used Lawrenceville as an example before. There might only be 20 listings or 15 listings in a month in that geographic area that will be showcased listing, which means, you know, in that area there might be a hundred homes or 200 homes listed every single month in that area.
And so if a. Home seller wants their home to stand out. It seems like choosing an agent that can provide them with a Zillow showcase listing, it sounds like that would make sense, especially if it didn't cost you any more to go with the agent that could get you the Zillow showcase listing versus just the regular listing.
You agree with that? You do. And even when they approached us, one of the reasons why they approached us is 'cause they were looking for top listing agents that they know. That clients are gonna have a good experience with and that are consistently listing properties. And that way they can make sure that, you know, the program itself is very limited to the people that they know they can count on.
And the people who know how to do listings right in the first place, I'll bet you they want to be careful and not get connected with an agent who is. And I'm I, I, I mean, no, no disrespect to my fellow agents. I love, I love all of the people who are in real estate, but some of 'em are just amateurs.
They're just trying the best they can to, to just scratch a listing together. And, um, it makes sense for it to be, to be limited just to the people who really know how to, to get listings. Have you read any data about the traffic going to Zillow lately? And by the way, and I'm acknowledged and I will acknowledge again that, you know, it's kind of a love-hate relationship with Zillow.
I mean, I love 'em, but I don't like 'em. 'cause the truth is, is that they figure out ways to get into the real estate agent's pocket all the time. I'm okay with that. I wanna grow business, I wanna do things that are best for clients. But I was reading an article recently and they're unique visitors in the last month.
226 million, 226 million unique visitors. That's not like 226 million visits, that's 226 million different IP addresses logging on to Zillow in one month, which is, which is really amazing to me. So if you're planning to sell your home and your agent does not have a good Zillow strategy to help your property show up the best it possibly can on Zillow, I would say a home seller should be.
Should be leery of that. Should, should maybe shy away from listening with someone that can't get 'em the exposure. Yeah, that is the benefit. You're getting that added exposure. You're also getting the opportunity to speak with the buyer. Uh, and I, I say that because before when we didn't have this program, like you said, it was very hard for the buyer to contact the listing agent directly.
And so this is a great, great way for the buyers to contact us directly with questions about our listings. And we can put anything about the listing in the property, in the, you know, description, right? But it's always good. That's actually speak with the buyer directly to sell that property to them. Well, here's what I think.
I mean, a buyer's agent, and I love buyer's agents, but buyer's agents are much more interested in just finding a house for you to buy instead of finding the house for you to buy. And, and I know I'm, I'm making a blanket statement. Not all real estate agents are that way, but there's nobody involved in the transaction besides the seller who knows more about the house than the listing broker.
I. And in my opinion, when you shut out or you shut down a consumer's ability to reach out directly to a listing broker and ask questions and get information, number one, you are causing a disservice to the seller. I. Number two, you're causing a disservice to the buyer. 'cause the buyer doesn't get to learn everything that they would know if they were working with someone who only cared about getting a commission.
I mean, the reality is a listing broker is gonna work harder to sell a home. I. Even more importantly, I think, is that representation for the seller, meaning nobody's gonna present the home in the same light that the listing broker will. So I think it's good for sellers and good for buyers when, uh, buyers are able to reach out directly to listing agents.
Yes. And then one more benefit is that all of these buyers have. The Zillow searches set and when they have a Zillow search set and they have their criteria set and our showcase listings match that criteria, those buyers are getting a dedicated email all about just that property sent to them to say, Hey, you need to take a look at this one.
Okay, wait a minute. Set up. Wait a minute. So let's say, let's say there's a mil, 2 million people. In Metro Atlanta that have searches set up on Zillow and let's say 500 had a search set up that, that our listing, that showcase listing matched their criteria that they have set up. Every single one of those people would be emailed directly from the system notifying 'em about the listing.
Yes, and they're only notified about that one listing. It's not a list of properties, it's just the one property. That's huge, that that could be one of the biggest single benefits there, because to have a direct line into an audience who's already interested in what you have to offer, meaning we can talk to anybody.
We want to all day long about listings, but it doesn't mean they're gonna be interested in it. We already know that list of 500 or whatever it is, is interested. So that is a huge, huge benefit. That's a huge benefit. And when does this program start? Meaning if somebody listed their home in the next couple of weeks, could they be a Zillow showcase listing?
So it started August 1st. Okay. And, um, so you'll see that they will, the list, the showcase listings will slowly start trickling into the system. Um, you'll probably start to see more and more of them as this program gets going. So, you know anybody right now that works with a Zillow showcase, Partner. Yep.
And get their property listed under this program. Absolutely. Thank you so much for being with us. We've gotta take a quick break. We'll have you back real soon, I promise. We're gonna discuss what's in store for Zillow in 2023 and a listing in Pontiac, Michigan for $1. This is not a segment you're gonna wanna miss.
Stick with us. I'll be back.