To all the agents in the house,
Zillow's iBuying wind down means the company's main revenue source is, once again, Premier Agent, the lead generator that many of you use. But this sea change in Zillow's business model may not necessarily transform Zillow's testy relationship with real estate agents.
On Zillow's earnings call Tuesday, Mark Mahaney, a research analyst at Evercore ISI, asked Zillow CEO Rich Barton: "Do you think that there's any change in dynamics with real estate agents? And getting out of the Zillow Offers, would you expect that to have any impact on professional real estate agents across the industry?"
Barton replied the company already has "great relationships" with agents. The CEO then made clear that Zillow continues to put the customer first.
"Honestly, we're really focused on innovating for customers and bringing new customer solutions to market," Barton said. "And as long as we're doing great things for customers, we know that partners will be there with us."
Later, Ygal Arounian, an analyst at Wedbush Securities, noted, "There will be a lot more focus on Premier Agent," asking, "Can we get a bit more color around that? What's changed? What's changing?"
Barton answered, "Hopefully, you took some notes, Allen," a reference to company Chief Financial Officer Allen Parker.
Parker then addressed Arounian's question. He quickly segued out of discussing Premier Agent and into ShowingTime, the industry leading home scheduling platform for agents that Zillow purchased for $512 million last month.
"We invest and develop the touring technology, especially with ShowingTime now part of the Zillow Group, we believe that those actions to schedule a tour generate a higher-intent customer that we can connect with an agent," Parker said.
Parker's statement – and Barton's opening comments about tour scheduling being a "pain point for movers and shoppers" – arguably suggest that Zillow may seek to transform ShowingTime from an agent-facing to agent and consumer-facing service.
It's true that Barton and Parker mentioned Premier Agent several times on the call, and both noted the division exceeded the company's revenue expectations. But my takeaway is that the company remains lukewarm about Premier Agent being its main revenue driver.
And then there's ShowingTime, an acquisition that many of you have rang the alarm about. Agents, if Zillow were to make ShowingTime consumer-facing, how might that impact your job?
And what do you see as the future of Premier Agent? Does Zillow's iBuying failure change your willingness to work with the company? Or are you still interested, however grudgingly, forking over to Zillow a monthly check?
Please send me your thoughts anonymously to mblake@housingwire.com.
(P.S. As I've Zillowed away this week, my colleague Brooklee Han has produced excellent coverage on eXp and Redfin's earnings, reporting major news that would generally be the talk of real estate. Please check out those stories below.)
Sincerely,
Matthew Blake
Senior Real Estate Reporter
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