Joe and Rudy from Sellsius, roasting some Weenies in St. Paul. I thought the picture was in keeping with the hot dog stand motif I have going on here, and when they were here we did talk about real estate and about the internet.
A couple of days ago I was looking at my listings on the internet. I advertise them on Zillow if my clients request it and on Craig’s list because it is a great place to advertise.
I know Craig’s list has been around a lot longer than Zillow and the sites are very different. To introduce a new food group here on the weenie I will suggest that comparing Zillow and Craig’s list is like comparing apples and oranges. While Craig’s list is free of graphics and pretty plain looking the Zillow sites is full of wiz bang technology and awesome maps.
There is a bigger difference between the two sites. When a listing is put on Zillow it will get up to 20 clicks a month. On Craig’s list it is hard to tell how many clicks they are getting but when I watch the traffic to my listings web sites I am seeing at least 30 or 40 people a day are finding the listings on Craig’s list and doing further research which brings them into my web site. From this I have concluded that my listings are getting a lot more exposure on Craig’s list than they are on Zillow, as only a small percentage of Craig’s list users are going to be interested enough to click.
I am being contacted by buyers via email and by phone through Craig’s list on a regular basis. No one has contacted me through Zillow. I look at Zillow periodically so that I can see all the conversations about houses, neighborhoods and real estate. I am not seeing any conversations going on, at least not in my area. There are always conversations about real estate in St. Paul on my blog and through my email. In fact I stopped while I was typing this post to answer a question about the brewery neighborhood in St. Paul. I am just guessing but I may have had more conversations about real estate in St. Paul in the last 10 minutes than Zillow will take place on the Zillow site in the next several hours.
For now I am a Craig’s list fan
Interestingly, virtually every consumer we asked so far has heard or used Craigslist. Not one has heard of ZIllow. Our sample pool is low and we are still east of the Rockies but it makes one (me) wonder why some of those zillions are not put into offline marketing. I have seen more FSBO billboards and “We Buy Ugly homes” on the highway— these companies get it that there is an offline world that needs to be tapped on the shoulder.
Thanks, Teresa, for hosting the “weenie roast” for us. We had a yummy time. See, weenies are harmless afterall.
ah, a real estate discussion and this blog doesn’t even get that much traffic. There are many Realtors who have never heard of Zillow either. In my market I am finding that the general public does know about it, they ask about the prices and why zillow is and what it is for. I often run into agents who have nevr heard of it. I think in general my clients are more tech savvy than average so that could be part of it. Thanks for stopping by. I hope Rudy was filming as you commented. it would be ashame no to capture it on tape. 🙂 – – I see Zillow just stopped by. Gotta go now. 🙂
I am an agent in the DC area. When posted listing in Craigslist I have gotten some response but not once from Zillow.