2019 Tips For Trulia and Zillow
The placement phase is where prospective clients will see your property. It’s a critical part of any strategy and should work hand-in-hand with your promotional strategy. In fact, much of your placement is promotion. It’s 2019 Sprouters and everything is digital including placement.
Imagine being a first time homebuyer in 2019, where would you turn to? Honestly most people are going to look online and they are going to eventually find either Trulia, Zillow or both. Doesn’t it follow that if your target market is on these platforms looking for homes then you should be there too?
So let’s get into the ins/outs, and pros/cons of Trulia and Zillow. After this you should have a basic understanding of what they are all about, how they work, and what they can do for your real estate business.
What They Do Well
Trulia and Zillow are industry monsters. Here are some stats we know:
50% of Zillow and Truila users are looking to either buy or sell
Over 80% of US homes have been viewed on these platforms
Zillow is the leader with 36 million visits per month
Truila is 2nd with 23 million
Both have a full-statistical comprehension of the real estate market. You can search all 50 states to decipher trends both regionally, statewide, and nationally. This in itself is a tool that is useful for both buyers and sellers alike.
Your property will instantly be analyzed on a number of factors. These statistics will accompany your property listing, and can either make or break your ad. For this reason, it is important to be in the ballpark on your price and area information. If you are asking for too much or being facetious in your listing, Zillow and Trulia will catch it!
Additionally, Trulia and Zillow allow for a wide-range of filters to be applied by searchers to eliminate a number of properties. The interface is straightforward and simple to use. Placing an ad on these platforms is easy for individuals or real estate companies alike.
Why Prospective Buyers Turn to Trulia and Zillow
Buyers turn to Trulia and Zillow simply because they are convenient. They don’t have to rely on anyone to look for houses, and they don’t have to spend hours driving around neighborhoods scanning for signs. For this reason, Millions of Americans use these platforms as their FIRST step in the property purchasing process. By not putting your listing on these sites, you are missing an opportunity to connect with prospective buyers early in the purchase process.
And connecting counts! Being able to respond fast, effectively, and on brand means you are a 100x more likely to generate a lead (that’s not a typo but an actual stat from Truila). They also say that 88% of their leads believe a quick response time is “extremely important” in deciding on an Agent! That means the more active you are on the website, with a strong brand presence the more likely you are to land that lead. Like we all know: Time = Money!
Realtor PRO’s
The advantage in using one or both of these platforms as a realtor is simple: the property is found by potential buyers without much effort on the part of the realtor. Essentially, these websites are doing the heavy lifting finding a home that each buyer wants, and the realtor connects the dots between generated interest and viewing by answering the phone or responding to an email.
Realtors are able to put as many properties on these platforms as they wish. Posting is really simple, meaning you won’t have to spend hours and hours every day fine tuning every inch of your post. With good photos and an engaging caption you can be generating strong leads in no time.
The feedback on your ad will come naturally through post interaction. If you are getting a ton of phone calls and emails on a property, then you know that your ad is pressing the right buttons. If your ad is seemingly going cold, a realtor can easily check one of the thousands of listings on the platforms to see how others are going about their presentation and tweak.
Both Zillow and Truila offer realtor Selling Apps that help you manage your leads, profiles, messages in an easy to use platform. If you are serious about selling online. Download and get familiar.
Realtor CON’s
The overwhelming negative with each of these platforms is an obvious delay in database updating. There are a ton of properties on both Trulia and Zillow that show to be ‘available’, when in reality they have a contract pending, or may even be sold. For this reason, you have to take great care in updating the post correctly after it has a status change. Don’t rely on the site itself to do the update for you!
As a Realtor, you should also take care in ensuring there aren’t any ‘duplicate’ listings of your property. As with anything else on the internet, there are several scams that parties will incorporate, some of which could use your property as their face. Want to harm your brand? Have someone put an erroneous price on it, and then phish people out of money. Take pride in being secure with all of your online real estate dealings.
Online real estate platforms are seemingly a dime-a-dozen in today’s market. Zillow and Trulia are EASILY the market leaders in this space. Any online marketing strategy should incorporate them. A small amount of time devoted here can make a huge difference. As always, bear in mind that the market has shifted to online viewing. This is the first step of many prospective buyers. Overlooking this can limit your company growth, and leave you sitting on properties for much too long!