Zillow Goes 3D

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1. Vaibhav Domkundwar
   

   April 13th, 2006 at 12:45 pm

   This is awesome. I guess they do not have the Birds Eye view images for all homes right now, but its a really cool way to leverage Live.com. Zillow is really cutting edge in terms of real estate info - I really like the home value graph they track.

2. CyberNaz
   

   April 13th, 2006 at 1:00 pm

   3D? You gotta be kidding me? MS Live is not 3D but a 45 degree aerial photo. Lets not disrespect the real meaning of 3D and whats involved to create 3D visuals and objects. If it was just that easy ! LOL…

3. New York
   

   April 13th, 2006 at 1:07 pm

   Is this is joke? Please can someone explain how that type of image is even remotely helpful during the home purchasing, etc. process. Cant even envision it being helpful from a high-level screening standpoint. These services are only going to really improve the process when they can display detailed views within the actual house.

4. Vaibhav Domkundwar
   

   April 13th, 2006 at 1:12 pm

   New York, isn’t this is a good start?

5. New York
   

   April 13th, 2006 at 1:30 pm

   Good start to what? From a consumer standpoint, I just dont understand the value. Is it amazing from an operational / technological standpoint that they can use satellite imaging and other advanced technology to get aerial images of the entire US - definitely. But I still dont understand how it provides any value associated with the home buying process. How is anyone going to use these images towards buying a house? I suppose it has its value from a commercial real estate standpoint - if I were a big franchise like Starbucks attemtping to select store locations, it might be helpful. But for the average consumer…I cant understand the value.

6. Saul Weiner
   

   April 13th, 2006 at 1:50 pm

   I only have one point to make about zillow. It’s dificult to take them seriously when they use assessor pricing which doesn’t tend to reflect market pricing.

   Regardless, the technology is cool.

7. Will Merydith
   

   April 13th, 2006 at 2:03 pm

   “Please can someone explain how that type of image is even remotely helpful during the home purchasing, etc. process . . . How is anyone going to use these images towards buying a house?”

   New York - you ever bought a house? Seriously I have to ask.

   Traditional MLS photos are often deceiving or not flattering enough depending on the house. Ariel photos, especially these new angled ones, tell you property layout info and street disposition. Information that is probably in the top ten criteria for most of the home buyers out there. So at a glance you can add or elmininate homes from your list. Not to mention that for shoppers who know the neighborhood they are looking in, they can use known landmarks to orientate themselves to the house.

   Even for someone who doesn’t know the neighborhood, at a glance they can see that for instance the 800k house they are interested in is right across the street from a high school!

   The information is invaluable!

   Now as far as Zillow’s assesments . . . they need some work there.

8. Michael Arrington
   

   April 13th, 2006 at 2:57 pm

   Yeah, of COURSE this is a great tool for picking out which houses to look at.

9. Blaze
   

   April 13th, 2006 at 5:00 pm

   This is useless for me because I am here in Australia but on a business note, I like the idea that you don’t have to enter any personal details and no-one will contact you. It’s a no-pressure approach and it would actually make me contact them if it called me to action at the approproate time(s). Take not people

10. Blaze
    

    April 13th, 2006 at 5:01 pm

    *note

11. Nick Douglas
    

    April 13th, 2006 at 5:17 pm

    So Michael, you pick a place to buy yet?

12. Robert
    

    April 13th, 2006 at 8:01 pm

    Thanks for the update Mike … This is farking awesome!!

13. Kelly E. Smith
    

    April 13th, 2006 at 9:36 pm

    Rich Barton and team no doubt have much more up their sleeve people. There will be more to come. Remember how much money they raised?

14. Diego Barros
    

    April 13th, 2006 at 10:30 pm

    Why aren’t the screenshots you provide “clickable” so as to show a more detailed version? It would be nice to see more detail instead of having to squint to make things out. It’s all so Web 1.0

15. Michael
    

    April 15th, 2006 at 10:50 am

    This is not 3D, this is oblique photography. It is a considerable step up from the orthogal photos taken from satalites(these are taken, at great expenses, from a series of airplanes that Criss Cross major MSAs with airial cameras)however, there is no dimensionality to them.

    The more interesting technogy comes next when Microsoft, Google and others start using the web community to build 3D models of these major cities. Simply find your house, zoom in, click on the vertices in the photograph, and they will build a 3D model of your house…

16. Steve
    

    April 15th, 2006 at 2:05 pm

    > “So at a glance you can add or elmininate homes from your list…The information is invaluable!”

    Many of these sky shots are dated and therefore show inaccurate information. Looks like about 2 years old in my neighborhood because my neighbor’s house was under construction then and that what the photo shows - a big clearing.

    There is absolutely no substitute for driving through a neighborhood and walking through a home. Zillow isn’t useless, and it’s interesting to see what it does, but only an idiot would add or eliminate candidate properties based on what they see at Zillow.

17. BlogReader
    

    April 15th, 2006 at 2:26 pm

    It’s dificult to take them seriously when they use assessor pricing which doesn’t tend to reflect market pricing.

    That’s not the only information they use in determining the price. Plus if accessor values are always 30% undervalued for a particular neighbor they can just factor that in.

18. Jahn
    

    April 18th, 2006 at 10:44 am

    You folk don’t get it. It lets you know if there is a chicken or hog farm upwind of you. Gives you an idea of the neighborhood. Let’s you know if your are in a water collection point (local flash flood, etc.) Forget “technology” use it as part of your decision tools and that’s it. If dollar accuracy is important go get the public records and look it up yourself! But quit whining and grow up…

19. jC!
    

    April 18th, 2006 at 3:06 pm

    Well, one thing I noticed is the 4 pics the give you for the area are much much clearer and sharper then the old Sat pics. And their current. At least with-in a year. The pics aren’t 40% angles of Sat pics, you can clearly see any side of a givin building (Look at anything in Seattle) I think these are takin by aircraft. Just what I think.
    Zillow is somewhat a good referance point. But the values of homes that I know are all at least 60k more then the high end of the range they give.

20. Ryan Beesley
    

    April 22nd, 2006 at 5:51 pm

    Hi everyone, I’m a tester at Zillow.com and just came across this discussion.

    For those of you saying that this isn’t really 3D, of course it isn’t. Neither is Half-Life 2 though. It is a tounge-in-cheek reference that describes the sense of moving from aerial satellite photos to images that have a sense of depth about them. I’m naturally a little biased about it myself, but I can’t think of a better application of the “Bird’s eye view” technology to date — certainly the coolest in my book.

    We are constantly working to improve our Zestimates and depending upon where you live, we know that they may not always be accurate. We are up front about our accuracy and provide this link, http://www.zillow.com/howto/Da.....Accuracy.z , right on our home page directly below the search box. If you live in an area that we rate as having high accuracy but the Zestimate seems off to you, please use the links on the Home Details page to report those inaccuracies. This is the only way we will know for sure if we’re getting things right or if we have work to do. Sometimes our source data is wrong, but short of visiting every home in our system, we rely on the community to let us know where we’re missing the mark.

    Today, we think Zillow.com can be a useful tool for anyone. I won’t tip my hat as to what we have planned for the future of the site, but I believe we’ll continue to improve our services and offerings to the point that Zillow will be as valuable to all parties involoved in a real estate transaction as the pen they use to sign on the dotted line.

    I hope all of you will keep checking back on the site for updates as we make them and I encourage everyone to sign up for the Zillow Buzz newsletter so that we can let you know of significant improvements and changes we make.

21. PAUL REGIMBAL
    

    June 3rd, 2006 at 8:38 pm

    ZILLOW IS A GREAT SITE. I HOPE THEY CONTINUE TO IMPROVE THE QUATITY AND QUALITY OF THE INFORMATION. I HAVE USED THE INFORMATION A ONE COMPONENT IN R/E DECISIONS.

22. Nathan Kaiser
    

    June 9th, 2006 at 9:50 pm

    I recently conducted an interview with Lloyd Frink of Zillow.com. You can read his interview here: http://www.npost.com/interview.jsp?intID=INT00149