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Zillow has been talking about building a real estate “super app” for two years now, and some are wondering, where is it?
Delivered in his typical blunt style, Inman founder Brad Inman phrased it differently Thursday during an interview with Zillow President Susan Daimler on Day 3 of Inman Connect New York.
“Is it bullshit?” Inman asked Daimler, prompting laughter from the audience. But Daimler was unfazed.
“It is out there now,” Daimler said, pointing to the Zillow.com app.
When Inman objected that that app was “to look at houses,” Daimler said, “But the underpinnings of it, right? That’s where you’re going to see ShowingTime and Follow Up Boss.”
“We’re assembling all of these pieces to come together into the super app,” she added. “It’s not going to be all of a sudden you see on Inman that the super app is available. We are building towards it literally every single day.”
The session, called “Where Does Zillow Fit in This New World?” focused on Daimler’s background as an entrepreneur (she founded and successfully sold SeatGuru and Buyfolio) and Zillow’s recent acquisition of Follow Up Boss for $400 million in initial cash consideration and up to $100 million in a potential cash earnout.
Zillow knew that the super app needed a customer relationship management system and Follow Up Boss “is a best-in-class CRM” with “a fantastic team” that’s “future-forward,” according to Daimler.
“They built something amazing” that agents love and use, Daimler said. “We’d be crazy not to make it part of our ecosystem.”
She noted that “hundreds of thousands of agents” are using Zillow’s products, including ShowingTime, Follow Up Boss and Premier Agent. Zillow acquired ShowingTime in October 2021 for $500 million.
“It continues to surprise me sometimes, this fear of Zillow, but right there we spent a billion dollars in the last year and a half on agent software,” Daimler said.
Inman noted that Zillow is a technology company now focused on being the best in software but also collecting 40 percent referral fees from agents per transaction.
“It feels like either you’re an octopus or you’ve got a split personality,” Inman quipped. “What are you?”
Daimler responded, “We are a technology company building the best customer experiences in the industry. Zillow is synonymous with real estate and we are finding the right ways at the right times to connect those customers with agents.
“We’re not confused at all. We are deeply inspired and motivated equally by customer needs and wants and also the agents’ needs and wants to meet those customer needs.”
When Inman asked what Zillow is looking to buy next, Daimler said, “At the moment, nothing,” but added that the company is “always looking.”
Going back to that 40 percent referral fee, Inman called that figure “a big chunk of change” and “a shitload of money,” with the latter prompting laughter and loud applause from concurring attendees.
“We have the highest quality, most engaged customers out there,” Daimler said. “They are 18 times more engaged than customers on any other platform. Eighty percent of homebuyers, shoppers, are on Zillow.”
Inman then asked Daimler what she thought of the “Your Listing, Your Lead” approach of Zillow rival Homes.com, which features listing agents prominently on the property listings they represent and sends all leads to them.
Daimler pointed out that Zillow offers a similar product that’s called Listing Showcase which costs a few hundred dollars a month. But she said that neither agents nor consumers are best served by a “one size fits all” platform.
“The whole point of the super app and an ecosystem is you do all different types of real estate,” Daimler said.
On Zillow, “there’s great opportunities for buyers’ agents and there’s great opportunities for seller’s agents,” she added. “An entire platform of ‘my listing, my lead,’ I don’t think that’s a great customer experience.”
Analogizing to the Inman Connect event, she asked, “Can you imagine if you had to call 20 different hotels to figure out where you were going to stay? There’s something that’s a little antiquated about that.”
