Many of our clients have heard of HouseValues.com.
Some of our clients have heard of Zillow.com (mostly our American Realtors as Zillow has not made the move to Canada yet)
As I see it, Zillow is the automated version of HouseValues.com. Both companies seem to make their money from Realtors and Mortgage Brokers but the big difference between the two companies as I see it is:
– users must give up their contact information to HouseValues.com to get their home evaluation.
– users get their home evaluation (Zestimate) instantly on Zillow.com without giving up their contact information.
Now, I agree, that there is more of a difference, HouseValues home evaluations come from a Realtor while Zillows Zestimate (home evaluation) is automated.
Interesting to hear that the CEO of HouseValues is selling his shares (more here)
10/10/2006 at 2:53 pm
Warning to all realtors who are curious about House Values. I have tried them and strongly recommend staying away from this
type of organization. I paid over 10K, found insufficient return, cancelled after one year and have been harrassed daily
for a value of about $200 for a year since. They fill up my voice mail everyday with harrassing messages and it doesn’t
seem to matter who I call, I can’t get them to go away….over a couple hundred dollars I don’t owe them after
paying them about 10K. When you get involved with an American organization that doesn’t honour Canadian laws but tries
to enforce their own, it becomes difficult to find any party who can force them to stop impeding my business. The whole
event became a huge regret and an expensive lesson.
10/20/2006 at 8:53 am
WARnING! DANGER! TO ALL REAL ESTATE AGENTS!
All real estate agents, stay away from housevalues.com. I’ve lost about
$5,000 to this company. When I got nothing but uselss leads, I inquired with other area
agents and they have lost huge sums,too. The leads you buy aren’t screened. I’ve gotten
quite a few “leads” from homeowners who
have already listed their homes with another agent. This is one big rip-off!
DO NOT BUY INTO THEIR LEAD PROGRAM. YOU ARE WASTING YOUR MONEY!