• The online real estate marketplace Zillow is gearing up to launch a “super app” that aims to consolidate everything about buying, selling, renting, and financing a home.
• Susan Daimler, the enthusiastic president of Zillow, sat down with Brad Inman, the slightly less tech-savvy founder of Inman, to dish some dirt – well, digitally – on the future of the real estate game.
• Basically, the Zillow app creates a unified platform for all things housing-related. You want a house? It’s there. You want a mortgage? It’s got you. Heck, it could probably find you a decent plumber if you asked nicely.
• The creation of this app is part of a broader trend to contact-free transactions, lowes in-store copycat fights, and socially distanced signings. Because let’s be real, who actually wants to shake a stranger’s hand after the plague of the century?
• Rollout of the app is set to begin in the United States. Because if there’s anything we need in America right now, it’s another app.
Behold, the Super App!
Zillow: Superhero of the Real Estate World?
In a titanic clash of industry titans, Susan Daimler (AKA the Zillow Whisperer) engaged in a playful, pun-filled tête-à-tête with Brad Inman (AKA the Real Estate Raider) – diving into the details of Zillow’s latest leviathan of an app.
According to Zillow’s mother hen, the super app is more than just an app; it’s a superhero that’s here to save us from the dreaded world of real estate paperwork and mindless home browsing.
Digitizing the Ancient Real Estate Tradition
The aim of the app is, as Daimler gracefully puts it, “to digitize the ancient tradition of buying, selling, and renting homes,” preferably without someone’s sweet old grandma having to climb five flights of stairs to show a condo. At the core, Zillow is over here trying to drag a conservative industry, kicking and screaming, into the digital age.
Brian Boero, one of real estate’s sharpest minds (and sharpest dressers) summed up the super app, “It embodies the very notion of technology serving, aiding, and enabling the pains and gains of an industry.” (Sue us if we misquoted a bit; we were more focused on Brian’s dapper green velvet blazer).
Convenience at the Tap of the Screen
Convenience, it seems, is king. In a pandemic-riddled world, ZIllow understood the degree of social distancing required, incorporated it into the app, while ensuring that your homeowner dreams didn’t have to maintain six feet of separation.
Witty Takeaway!
So, our hot take? We’re all for digitizing the house hunting process. An app where you can scroll through house listings while talking to your mortgage broker and eating pizza sounds fantastic. But – and our concern here may be narrowly nostalgia-based – isn’t there something romantic about wandering through empty homes, imagining the lives you could lead? Oh well, guess we’ll get our romance from the misty-eyed homeowners on Zillow’s review page.
Remember folks, the name super app might sound like it should be fighting crime in spandex, but Zillow isn’t saving the world. It’s just trying to save you some time. And who knows, maybe your new home is just a swipe away. Welcome to the future, folks!
Original article: https://www.inman.com/2024/02/13/watch-the-zillow-super-app-is-kind-of-already-out-there/
