Zillow.com(TM) Launches Home Q&A

'Ask Questions, Share Answers' at the heart of numerous new features

harnessing knowledge of agents, homeowners and neighbors

    SEATTLE, April 4 /PRNewswire/ -- Real estate Web site Zillow.com today
 announced the launch of Zillow(TM) Home Q&A, among other new features aimed
 at further opening the site up to community contributions. Home Q&A is the
 ability for anyone to ask questions and share information and insight about
 more than 70 million U.S. homes.
     "The release of Zillow Home Q&A enables anyone to ask any question
 about any home for the Zillow community to answer," said Rich Barton,
 Zillow CEO. "This is the next step in our quest to help make everyone
 smarter about real estate -- a quest that began with publishing
 Zestimate(TM) values last year as a starting point to answer the critical
 question, 'How much is this home worth?' Since then, we have enabled
 homeowners and agents to update home facts, post homes for sale, and set
 their Make Me Move(TM) prices. Over half a million people have made these
 contributions so far, and we've only begun to scratch the surface in
 helping people get answers to critical real estate questions."
     Visitors to Zillow.com can now "ask a question" or "answer a question"
 about millions of homes, right on that home's Zillow Web page. Anyone can
 rate answers as "helpful" or "not helpful," and each contribution links
 back to a user's profile page -- telling visitors, for example, if the
 question was answered by a local agent or other real estate professional,
 or if the contributor frequently answers questions within the Zillow
 community.
     "Today, some of the most colorful and important information about homes
 and real estate is trapped inside the heads of local experts -- agents,
 homeowners and neighbors," said Lloyd Frink, Zillow president. "By allowing
 people to freely ask questions and share information online about homes, we
 hope to unlock, for the community as a whole, a powerful vault of data --
 such as an agent sharing insight into a neighborhood, or a potential buyer
 asking the shortest commute route downtown."
     In addition to Home Q&A, other new features announced today include:
 
      --   Anyone -- agent, homeowner, buyer -- can create free profile pages
           with photos, narratives or contact information.  All site
           contribution links back to the user's profile page.
      --   Anyone can now indicate whether a home is for sale and at what
           price.  Prominent space on the page is reserved for homeowners and
           listing agents who might subsequently enter information on that
           home.
      --   Anyone can now add an unlimited number of photos to any home's Web
           page -- for example, historical photos of homes, before-and-after
           shots, or neighborhood photos.
      --   Additionally, today marks the launch of Zillow EZ Ads, a
           self-service, low-cost and geographically-targeted way for agents,
           other professionals and home sellers to buy ads on Zillow map pages
           for specific ZIP code searches.  The ads take a few minutes to
           create and can be bought easily with a credit card.  EZ Ads can link
           to profile pages, homes for sale on Zillow or outside Web sites.
     More than 150,000 real estate agents currently visit Zillow.com each
 month; these professionals have some of the most useful knowledge to share
 with the Zillow community. With many of these new features, Zillow is now
 providing a free platform for these professionals to answer questions and
 contribute to conversations, interacting with the millions of buyers and
 sellers who visit site. All contributions -- whether Home Q&A, a wiki edit
 to the Real Estate Guide, home posted for sale or EZ Ad -- can link back to
 a professional's Zillow profile page.
     In addition to community ratings of answers, any content on Zillow.com
 can be flagged for review by Zillow's customer service team. Contributions
 deemed not constructive or off-topic will be removed.
     One of the most-visited U.S. real estate sites on the Web, Zillow
 attracted 4.1 million unique visitors in March 2007, just over a year after
 the site's launch. Nearly 90 percent of Zillow visitors own a home, and
 half (54 percent) plan to buy or sell in the next two years. Zillow's
 growing database has data and Zestimate values on more than 70 million U.S.
 homes. Other community features previously launched include the ability for
 homeowners to update and edit information on their home, and post an
 owner's estimate. Since this feature launched in fall 2006, close to
 600,000 homeowners have claimed their homes.
     For more information and commentary from the Zillow team, or to ask a
 question about the new features, visit the Zillow Blog at
 http://www.zillowblog.com.
     Broadcast media: for free broadcast-standard b-roll, visit
 http://www.thenewsmarket.com/zillow to preview and request video, either
 digitally or by tape.
     About Zillow.com
     Zillow.com is an online real estate community where homeowners, buyers,
 sellers, and real estate agents and professionals can find and share vital
 information about homes, for free. Launched in early 2006 with Zestimate
 values and data on millions of U.S. homes, Zillow has since "opened up" the
 site to community input, data and dialogue, including Home Q&A. Zillow's
 goal is to help people become smarter about real estate -- what homes are
 worth, what's for sale, and what local experts have to say about real
 estate and individual homes. One of the most-visited real estate Web sites,
 Zillow was the only online company named by Advertising Age magazine to its
 2006 "Marketing 50" list of the most powerful consumer brands. Zillow is
 headquartered in Seattle and has raised $57 million in funding. Zillow.com,
 Zillow, Zestimate and Make Me Move are trademarks of Zillow, Inc.
 
 

SOURCE Zillow.com