Who are Zillow's competitors? 10 alternatives to know
Most people with an interest in buying, selling, or just looking at real estate know of Zillow. The site has a big online presence and has worked its way into meme culture and the zeitgeist alike.
But just because it’s the most popular doesn’t mean you have to use Zillow to get information about property or use it to help during your homebuying or selling journey. (After all, a decent portion of that meme culture is about how incessantly they contact you whenever you schedule a home visit.)
Fortunately, Zillow is far from your only option when it comes to online homebuying real estate, whether you’re looking to buy your first home or just find out how much your home is worth. A number of other competitors exist, which offer additional or unique services that may be better matched for your needs. Some may not be available in as many cities or markets as Zillow so be sure to check to see if they're available in your area.
Here are the ten best alternatives to Zillow:
Zillow’s most well-known and comprehensive competitor is Redfin. Redfin goes beyond listings, functioning as a full-service real estate brokerage with real estate agents all over the country. This makes it especially popular with tech-savvy people who want to streamline the selling or homebuying process online.
You can use the Redfin app to browse homes and open houses in your area and handle all of the paperwork online. Whenever there’s a change in your paperwork or negotiations, you don’t have to meet up with an agent, you can just do it remotely. However, by working with Redfin, homebuyers may lose out on the benefits of working closely with an agent, whose personal touch and industry experience might help you negotiate a better deal.
When it comes to listing your home, Redfin also offers a range of tech tools to make booking appointments, taking remote tours, marketing your listing, and more easier than traditional processes. Their commission is slightly lower than the industry average, but there are some caveats.
→ Is Redfin bad? Here's what to know
One of the first real estate listing websites, Realtor.com still boasts one of the largest inventories of homes for sale. Realtor.com is owned and operated by the National Association of Realtors (NAR), and uses data from various MLS systems so it may have a leg up on Zillow in terms of the data it provides on homes.
Billed as a more intuitive, user-friendly tool than the tech-forward options on the market, Realtor.com is a no-frills approach to online real estate. Just find a home you like, click to get connected to a Realtor, and go from there.
→ Learn how to find a great real estate agent
A Zillow subsidiary, Trulia is specially optimized for buyers. It’s loaded with information about available homes, neighborhoods, and local real estate data. Trulia also has a frequently updated blog covering real estate topics and free tools like a mortgage calculator to find out how much you can afford. Like Zillow, you can save your favorite properties and set up alerts for new houses on the market or when changes occur to your favorite listings.
→ Related: Here are 13 companies that buy houses for cash
UpNest subverts the typical real estate model by providing an online platform where real estate agents compete for your business. Buyers and sellers can both use UpNest to get special offers from the top 5% of real estate agents in local markets. That way, they can save a chunk of change on commission while still receiving high-quality service.
UpNest isn’t for home sellers who want to go for sale by owner or buyers who want extensive choice when shopping for a home or choosing a real estate agent. But, it does give you a more bespoke touch to the real estate business than Zillow.
Another very intuitive tool for homebuyers, HotPads gives you a host of filters to narrow your search for both rentals and homes for sale. From specific areas or neighborhoods to commute time and more, HotPads helps you weed out extraneous properties that you’re not interested in seeing. However, it offers less from a service perspective than Zillow and properties skew heavily towards rentals.
→ Learn about whether you should rent or buy
A product of the real estate tech boom spearheaded in large part by Zillow, Homesnap uses instantly available data to set itself apart from competitors. With the app, you can take a picture of a home just about anywhere in the US and pull up pertinent information about the house.
So, if you see your dream home and it’s not on the market, you can learn when it last sold, for how much, and relevant information like square footage and the number of bedrooms and bathrooms. The user-friendly tools can help you save a lot of time in your listings search or help you learn more about a specific home you like.
CoreLogic Matrix is a multiple-listing platform (MLS) that’s a favorite among real estate agents for its extensive data library. It’s one of the best resources around for getting accurate home value estimates.
While the resources are usually reserved for real estate agents, prospective homebuyers will benefit from the data that their agents can pull for their comparative market analysis, covering everything from when is the best time to buy a home in a certain area to how much you can afford to spend.
Most people use Zillow to search for homes in specific areas. NeighborhoodScout goes a step or two beyond scouting an area’s property values to give you an idea of what it’s really like to live in a certain area. The site uses user reviews and data points regarding schools, crime, home values, and more to rank neighborhoods and cities. Reviews and testimonials add a personal touch to give you a better impression of what it’s really like to live somewhere, a valuable touch if you’re thinking of moving somewhere new.
→ Learn how to choose the best location for your house
Opendoor is what’s known as an iBuyer. These online companies offer to buy your house quickly without all of the in-person inconveniences of a traditional real estate transaction.
Basically, it facilitates finding buyers for motivated home sellers in exchange for a service fee rather than a real estate agent’s commission. You’ll also close much faster than you would in the typical process. However, the biggest trade-off of using a site like Opendoor is that you’ll get offers that are below what you might get if you took the time to go sell your house on the open market.
→ Read an overview of Opendoor and whether it's worth it
Yes, we’re including ourselves. Orchard can help you buy a home — you can search for homes and book tours easily from your computer and you’ll be paired with an experienced local agent. We can even help homeowners who are looking to navigate the tricky gauntlet of buying and selling a home at the same time.
With Orchard, you can make a non-contingent cash offer on your new home in the area you’re moving to. Plus, Orchard’s concierge service goes even further by handling your listing, making value-boosting updates and repairs, and facilitating closing so you can move once without any awkward rental periods in-between. Get started here.
Here are some more frequently asked questions about Zillow and their competitors.
Yes, Zillow has several competitors in the online real estate space. These competitors include Redfin, Realtor.com, Trulia, Homes.com, and more.
The MLS is a database of real estate listings that is managed by real estate professionals. Unlike Zillow, which relies on user-generated content, the MLS is more accurate and up-to-date because it is updated by licensed real estate agents. Additionally, the MLS provides more detailed information about properties, such as the status of the sale, the seller's contact information, and more.
While both Zillow and Redfin offer online real estate listings, there are some key differences between the two platforms. For example, Redfin employs salaried real estate agents who can help buyers and sellers throughout the entire transaction process, while Zillow only provides a platform for buyers and sellers to connect with each other. Additionally, Redfin offers more detailed information about properties, such as the number of days a property has been on the market and the history of price changes.
Zillow's estimate (Zestimate) can be lower or higher than its competitors' estimates for several reasons, usually because of differences in their algorithm and data sources, which can lead to variations in estimated home values. Additionally, the level of detail provided and regional variations can impact the accuracy of Zillow estimates. However, it's important to remember that no estimate is a substitute for a professional appraisal or market analysis by a licensed real estate agent.
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