The last two days have been pretty busy around here – programmers are working feverishly and phones are ringing. We’ve had a lot of interest from real estate agents, and we’re continuing to fine-tune the pro.eppraisal.com side of the application for next week’s launch at NAR.
The best part of my job here is the interaction I get with the real estate blogosphere, and I’ve really enjoyed reading the reviews by different bloggers. I’ve tried to do my best to answer their questions, and their commenters questions, on their own blogs. They’re listed below for you to go and read:
- Losing Your Zest for Life? Maybe You Need to Give Yourself a Frank Eppraisal… (by Bloodhound Blog)
- Eppraisal.com Kicks Zillow While They’re Down (on The Future of Real Estate Marketing
- How EZ is it? Ask Eppraisal or Zillow (by All About Long Island)
- Zillow: Racist or Equal Opportunity Lowballer? (by Of Mountains and Molehills)
- Chasing Unicorns: Zillow and Eppraisal and When it Rains it Pours (by John Dalton at Active Rain)
- Zillow Has New Competition (on Mike’s Corner)
- Humans 3 – Robots 0 (on The Real Estate Guide)
There are some overarching questions being asked. The chief recurring theme that I see being asked is, “what value does an automated valuation actually add to the real estate transaction?” Our answer is very little. It’s a person’s first step towards a real estate decision, that is it.
In reality, a real estate valuation is very much a hands-on job. Someone needs to be on the ground and in the neighborhood to make an accurate evaluation of the property. We all know about the famous “unzillowables“. That’s why we give an estimated valuation range and encourage our users to sign up to be connected with a real estate professional. The real estate professional, whether it is an agent, broker or certified appraiser, is there to get them that hands-on full appraisal of their home that will help them as they are trying to sell, buy or refi.
Our job is to fill the need for a snapshot valuation, this is closely followed up by linking the user and the real estate professional. It really is that simple.
Our next big step at NAR is to get out of the real estate professionals way even more by giving the eppraisal.com engine to them to put on their own websites – that way you’re interacting with the customer on your own site with us just helping work the technology in the background. Stay tuned for more information on that.
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3 users responded in this post
Interesting stuff, Erik. I do like the perspective you folks are taking, that this truly is only an estimate and not the one magic number that will sell a home.
Two questions:
One, when you discuss linking the consumer to the agent, are you foreseeing a “pay-per-lead” situation?
Two, call me naive, but how and where does NAR have any impact on what technology I choose to use on my website, as long as I’m infringing on the trademark or violating the Code of Ethics?
Hey Jonathan, to answer your first question, we will be operating off of a pay-per-lead system once we push eppraisal professional live.
I’m not sure if I understand the second question though. By NAR, I was actually referring to the NAR Conference taking place next week in New Orleans. NAR as a body doesn’t play a role beyond hosting the event – we have no interaction with them.
Read the NAR portion completely wrong, Erik. This is what happens when I blog before the caffeine kicks in.