Why are Home Reviews Important?

Since we launched our client reviews feature earlier this summer, we have received quite a bit of feedback. From consumers who love the feature and how this will help bring some additional transparency to the real estate market, to sellers and real estate agents who hate the idea and feel that this feature will be used to maliciously sabotage their home sales. While we were certainly aware of the fact that user generated home reviews would be a source of controversy, we didn’t realize that this new feature would cause as a big of a stir as it has.   

For us, the primary goal of this feature is to provide consumers with yet another piece of information to assist them with their home buying and selling needs. Home buying decisions should never be based on one piece of information, whether it is an automated home valuation, a real estate agent’s recommendation, or a user home review. Using a combination of all of these bits of information (to name just a few) to make a home buying decision is probably the smartest approach.

As I read through some of the recent press coverage about our new feature, the importance of user generated home reviews was made clear to me from a couple of examples cited by Bob Hagerty (Wall Street Journal) and Kirsten Downey (Washington Post) in their recent articles. These examples exemplified the exact reason why we launched client home reviews in the first place - to help the consumer.

From the Wall Street Journal, “Snippy Things People Say about Your Home are Now Online” - Bob Hagerty:
1)   “Steve Rankin, the agent for the condo in Cambridge where a Zip customer reported "rot" in the bathroom, concedes that there is "a little gushiness to the tiles." Replacing them, he says, would cost just $1,500”

For me personally, the word ‘gushiness’ and bathroom tile don’t really belong in the same sentence. The fact that the listing agent already had a repair cost of $1500 in mind leads me to believe that this ‘gushiness’ was a known problem. Hopefully the buyer of this property was able to negotiate for the proper repair cost.

From the Washington Post, “Everyone’s a Critic” - Kirsten Downey:
2) “An online listing for a house in Manassas, for example, said the $559,000 home had four bedrooms. A poster named JLee said the house had "only 3 BR." Contacted for comment, the real estate agent who has listed the home, Jim Downs, of Coldwell Banker in Manassas, agreed. "Well, it's not four legal bedrooms," he said.”

As a buyer, I would want to know if a house had 4 legal bedrooms or not – especially if the MLS listing claimed that the house had 4 bedrooms. Obviously, if the house was only legally zoned for 3 bedrooms, it would be a misrepresentation (at least in my eyes). In this case, I hope the buyer of the property was able to recognize the fact that the extra bedroom was not permitted and was able to negotiate some type of discount.

These are just a few examples of why I believe user generated home reviews are a valuable resource to real estate consumers. While I will be the first to admit that not all home reviews will contain information as helpful as the examples above, helpful bits of information like these can be priceless to a buyer.

Myron Lo
Director, Product Strategy

Comments

[shadash]

As a buyer all I can say is...

Thank You, Thank You, Thank You

Adding zillow to your site is amazing. :-)