What Zillow won't tell you about their free for sale by owner platform. Attention all for sale by owners (FSBO'S). Thinking for using Zillows free service to sell your house? Do your homework watch this video so you know what you signed up for. The old saying "there is no such thing as a free Listing". Find out what happens to your information when you post to their FSBO platform.
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Mark Schreier Licensed Real Estate Agent
email: Realtor@markschreier.com
with Century 21 American Homes Real Estate, Syosset, New York
Cell: 516.263.9094
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Transcript of Video
Mark Schreier : What Zillow won't tell you about their Free for-sale-by-owner platform. That's the topic of my next video.
Speaker 2: [inaudible]
Mark Schreier : What is it that Zillow doesn't want you to know about when it comes to their for Sale By Owner platform? That's the topic of this video. Hello everybody. My name is Mark Schreier and I'm a real estate agent with century 21 American Homes Real Estate right here on say, Syosset, Long Island. If you new to my channel, welcome and please remember if you enjoy the content, subscribe, and press or ring the bell as we say. Uh, so you'll get some push notifications whenever my videos come out and I try to post once a week. I've been pretty good regularly and I try to get those videos out on Tuesday. As long as my day is going well, I shouldn't be able to get them out there some time on Tuesday, Tuesday afternoon, evening, the latest. So back to this specific topic, Zillow claims that you can get a free listing, a for sale by owner listing won't cost you a penny.
Mark Schreier : Well, let's dive into it and see if that's actually true. Number one, they ask you to populate their particular questions. Uh, your name, you know your name, the contact phone number, you upload some pictures, you upload video if you have it, a description of your, of the property and so on. Similar to what a real estate agent would do with, with your property, if they were listing in it. And remember your, your goal is to sell it by yourself. So when you upload that information on Zillow's platform, automatically, you've now become a product, a product for who? Well, similar to a toy on a shelf, you become a product for agents. Zillow has another platform that they utilize for real estate agents where they sell leads to agents that have signed on to become part of their particular program. And already we have a slight conflict.
Mark Schreier : You didn't want to be dealing with agents, but when you put your information up there, they now send your information to the agents in that area that are bought the zip code or a certain locations and they get your information directly and you become a lead because you're an unrepresented seller looking to sell your house on your own. And, and other tidbit I will share with you is about 85% of people who try to sell their homes, houses on their own do not or end up util utilizing a real estate agent moving forward. So think about that. These agents, your house up there and they're paying for leads, your house, your house just became a lead for them and they're going to be contacting you wanting to sell your house. So understand that that's number one. Number two, the zestimate. Now Zillow claims it should be about a 10% margin of error plus or minus what the actual price that they put up there.
Mark Schreier : I will tell as a realtor, I've seen a lot worse than that. I've seen some times it's pretty accurate and sometimes it's way off the mark. Now understand you are trying to sell your house on your own and people who are utilizing the Zillow platform are looking at that Zestimate. And if your house is up here, let's say 600,000 and the Zestimate is at $550,000 now you have an uphill battle, A, those people will never call you because the buyers see that your $50,000 off the price and even though you're looking to sell it on your own, they want to save some money too. So $50,000 off the price is not something they want to get involved in. So you don't get that phone call or that lead. Now let's use another scenario. They see the price and the like and they see the Zestimate and it might be off and they're like, all right, I'm still gonna want more information about your property.
Mark Schreier : And they click contact agent and you'll see that, uh, up here as well. I don't know which side is going to show on this screen, so I'll go like this. Okay, you'll see it up here and it says contact agent. And when you click contact agent, if you notice, if you're a for sale by owner, you are on the bottom, the bottom of that choice. The first one is the agent that the agents that have paid to be on that site. So if you click contact agent, and I believe it, even if you didn't click anybody, you will automatically go to, and I didn't test this so you can leave a comment below if in fact I'm wrong, but I'm pretty pretty sure it's going to go to the paid agents. So if they clicked number one, two, or three, that's not going to you, that buyer requesting information about your house, the information is going to them.
Mark Schreier : And if you don't want to entertain buyer brokers, um, which basically means an agent can sell your house. If it's not on the multiple listing service and be guaranteed that they'd get a commission, then you're not getting that phone call from that agent or you'll get the phone call, but you won't get the lead. Number two, that agent can decide to try to sell the person looking to buy the house or something else because if those are on the MLS, they're guaranteed a commission. If in fact they are able to move forward and a sell that house to them. So the leads that you're looking for aren't getting to you. So is it actually free or is it actually doing you a disservice? If you like this video, please give me a thumbs up. If you didn't like it, you can give me a thumbs down.
Mark Schreier : I am always up to constructive criticism. Please leave comments below on any of the topics you'd like me to discuss moving forward. This is Mark Schreier from century 21 American Homes Real Estate. Hello? Yes, I'm talking to you, the person that watched my video to the very end. Thanks a lot for watching. If you enjoyed it, please give me a big thumbs up. Subscribe to my youtube channel like me on Facebook. I am a licensed real estate agent in New York state, but I also have a referral service that deals nationwide. So if you're looking for to buy or sell a house anywhere in the United States, please send me a text, contact me via phone, and I'll set you up with a local professional in your area. If you're in my vicinity, I'd be more than happy to help you out in any of your real estate transactions that you'd like. This is Mark Schreier from century 21 American homes, and I'll talk to you soon.
