‘We do tech so you can do real estate’

In a new episode of the “Real Estate Insiders Unfiltered Podcast,” hosts James Dwiggins and Keith Robinson are joined by Zillow Group CEO Jeremy Wacksman for a deep dive conversation that covers the role of technology in real estate and Zillow’s “Super App.”

This conversation has been edited for length and clarity. To kick off the episode, Wacksman discusses the importance of technology in real estate.

Wacksman: This team was obsessed and focused on solving consumer and customer problems with technology, which really spoke to me. That got me here in 2009 and kept me ever since. Six months after I got here, the app store launched on the iPhone, and we realized it was going to be how real estate and categories like ours went, so I got to work on that. 

Dwiggins: Give us a layout on where you are in the process of building the Zillow Super App.

Wacksman: That’s the Zillow app for a buyer and a seller. We use the term “Super App” to reflect bringing a lot of disparate services together in one app. What does the buyer or seller want? They want to be able to open the app and do everything from start to finish inside, have it notify them, stay really transparent, be in control and do things digitally. This complex project management of a bunch of parties all need to come together to enable that one-stop shop. 

Dwiggins: Tell us a little bit about the acquisition of Virtual Staging AI and the strategy for that. 

Wacksman: It’s a great young company that has innovated a way to do virtual staging. And that’s, as you outlined, another example of us enabling the real estate industry to become more digital, integrated and productive. That requires generative AI and a floor plan that can perform a walkthrough, which sounds fantastic.

Robinson: How would you help agents understand how you are positioning your technology for the good of the industry and for the good of the agent?

Wacksman: Today’s innovation is tomorrow’s table stakes. That’s what technology does. We discover something new, we show our friends. We wake up and we expect it to work and be the default. That’s what internet, the mobile phone, have been doing for decades now.

Technology pushes the consumer forward. One has to keep up with where the buyer and seller is going. That’s really our mission at Zillow.

Technology and change can be scary. Agents have hard jobs and they’re really busy with what they’re doing. We have a phrase at Zillow. We say, ‘We do tech so you can do real estate.’ I think that would be my comment — let us do the tech. You don’t have to be well versed in all of the things that are coming.

Robinson: What you all are doing is trying to get as far into the home as humanly possible, at a distance. How do you see that expanding?

Wacksman: I actually think customers will take more tours and spend more time. Anytime you give consumers more tools, they become more empowered and efficient, but that efficiency doesn’t mean they spend less time dreaming and shopping. 

Dwiggins: With this app, how do you balance between what the agents and the brokerage want with the sellers’ wants?

Wacksman: Consumer empowerment is agent empowerment to us.The consumer is nudging themselves down the funnel to become more transaction ready. For an agent, that’s a higher-intent lead, a more educated buyer in all these regulatory changes. You also have a more educated buyer on how commissions work. This gives good sales agents room to prove themselves.

On the flip side, we’ve spent billions of dollars over the last decade building and developing — or buying and integrating — software for real estate agents and teams. To get the buyer and seller what they want, we have to have super agents, not just agents.

The conversation closes with Wacksman sharing his thoughts on the National Association of Realtors‘ Clear Cooperation Policy (CCP).

Wacksman: An open, free marketplace, it benefits everyone — consumers and agents. Things like Clear Cooperation ensure most listings are available to buyers and sellers. Private listing networks and the removal of CCP are bad for buyers, sellers and agents.

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