March 29, 2024 3:40 AM

Zillow expands offerings with new Canadian home listings

U.S.-based real estate listing company, Zillow, welcomes nine Canadian brokerage and franchisors, giving them access to more than 100 million average unique visits from home shoppers.

/ Published 5 years ago

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Canada’s real estate market continues to show signs of stability. In November, the number of housing starts increased, exceeding market expectations.

The annual pace of home starts in the country rose 4.4 percent last month. This means that constructions of 215,914 new homes have started on a seasonally adjusted basis, according to data released on Dec. 10 by the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corp. Ahead of these numbers, Bloomberg surveyed economists who predicted that only 198,000 new houses will begin construction during that period.

With all signs indicating a flourishing housing market in Canada, Zillow’s decision to diversify in the Canadian market could not come in the most opportune time.

Early in December, the number one real estate and rental marketplace in the U.S. announced its partnerships with nine more brokers and franchisors in Canada. The new partnerships have more than doubled the number of Canadian real estate companies providing a listing for Zillow.

Zillow continues diversifying in Canada

Zillow’s first venture out in the Canadian market was in October. At that time, the real estate marketplace inked partnerships that welcomed 50,000 listings from Canadian partners. The October deal saw Century 21 Canada, Right At Home Realty, Re/Max Ultimate Realty Inc., Exit Realty Corp. International, Better Homes and Gardens Real Estate Signature Service, Core Assets Real Estate and Greater Property Group coming onboard the platform, both on Zillow’s website and apps.

Zillow has since been enjoying increased traffic. Its Canadian partners brought in as many as 500,000 home shoppers per month, according to Errol Samuelson, the group chief industry development officer for Zillow. With such improvement in traffic, adding more Canadian partners has always been a thrilling moment for Zillow, Samuelson said in a statement.

What a listing in Zillow means for Canadian brokers and franchisors

With their access to Zillow, the nine additional Canadian companies gained access to millions of home shoppers worldwide.

In November, Zillow reported a 22 percent increase in revenue during its third quarter financial result. The company said it now has more than 186 million average monthly unique visitors. These shoppers visited both of the company’s mobile apps and websites, bringing in an all-time traffic high of more than 195 million unique users last July.

In total, Zillow’s website and mobile apps were visited 1.9 billion times over the period that ended on Sept. 30. This indicated a 13 percent year-over-year increase, Zillow said during its announcement. The company noted that 168 homes were purchased and 36 homes were sold through the company’s Zillow Offers option.

These numbers suggested that Canadian brokers and franchisors could look forward to more lucrative years ahead of them.

The nine new companies now onboard Zillow’s platform included HomeLife Real Estate Canada, Sage Real Estate, Your Choice Realty, Coldwell Banker Mountain Central, Coldwell Banker Ronan Realty, Royal Heritage Realty, Sam McDadi Real Estate, Sutton Group Heritage Realty Inc., and TrilliumWest Real Estate.

Zillow
Zillow has more than two dozen apps connecting millions of home shoppers and real estate professionals. (Photo by Brad Coy via Flickr. CC BY 2.0)

A win for brokers, agents, and home shoppers

The new partnerships and listings on Zillow’s platform became a win-win situation for all parties involved, Samuelson said. Brokers were given new channels to increase financial portfolios, agents gained access to more property listing they can offer their clients, and home shoppers were given more investment options.

For HomeLife Founder and CEO Andrew Cimerman, the partnership means his company now has the technology to address consumers’ growing reliance on online shopping platforms. He noted that the real estate market is evolving toward a more technological nature and Zillow is the best partner to address that growth.  

“HomeLife prides itself on being a leader in delivering technology-focused initiatives and the partnership with Zillow is a great example of that,” Cimerman said in a statement.

For Sage Real Estate Co-founder and Vice President of Growth & Development Evan Sage, it is important that his company upholds its core philosophy in any of the partnerships it pursues with third party service providers.

“When looking to make this decision, we recognized that we shared a core philosophy with Zillow when it comes to putting the consumer’s interests first by maximizing the exposure for our seller clients’ homes,” he said.

Catherine Johnson, vice president and broker of record for Your Choice Realty, said Zillow provides the most strategic coverage for all of their clients’ properties.

“Partnering with Zillow is a natural fit as it is one of the largest real estate networks on the web,” she said.

Zillow was launched in 2006 and now has more than two dozen apps connecting millions of home shoppers and real estate professionals. Being in the platform gives Canadian brokerages and franchisors significant listing exposure and broader audience worldwide.

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