Zillow Rental Manager No Longer Free!

[Luke H.]

Hi everyone hope all is well.  I just tried to list a property on Zillow and it is no longer free.   What are some alternatives to Zillow that are free of charge?
craigslist.

Thanks!

[Joe Splitrock]

The pay per listing model has some advantages:

1. Any listing on Zillow has a credit card behind it, which reduces the risk of scammers. Look at what happened to Craigslist in most markets. Overrun by scammers and Craigslist has no revenue for moderators. Zillow can maintain higher quality listings which is good for their customers.

2. Landlords used to advertise properties 30-60 days before they were even available or leave the listings up after they were rented. This resulted in lots of extra properties that were really not available. With the pay model, landlords will be careful to only advertise active properties. That means a better user (tenant/customer) experience.

3. For landlords who choose to use Zillow, there will be less competition. Some landlords are too cheap to spend $10 to get their place listed. That means there will be the same number of customers (tenants) but less landlords, so better chance of finding a tenant.

Bottom line is this is a business. My properties cost over $50 a day when they are vacant. If I can advertise on Zillow and get a tenant in the property even one day sooner, it saves me $40. I will continue to use Zillow, but also Apartments, Realtor, Zumper, Facebook and Craigslist. If I find over time that Zillow doesn't produce, I will drop it. My point is in a business it is not about expense, but rather return on investment. 

I do think Zillow pushed the cost way too high. Going from $0 to $9.99 per week is crazy. They could have done $2 a week to get people used to paying, then moved it up a dollar every year. I expect other platforms will move to pay models over time. 

Bottom line, nothing is free. Any service offering free listings right now falls in one of these buckets:

1. They are pre-revenue, so their free model is just to attract users.

2. They are collecting and selling user data.

3. They place advertisements on their site.

4. They have a step-up option that costs money.

5. They are non profit 

My point is monetization is happening everywhere. Make your decision based on what is best for your business.