Zillow charging listing fee. Managers trying to pass it through

[Michael Wolffs]

Apparently Zillow (the corporation) is now charging a fee to list rental on it's several sites.  This is predictable.  They're justifying this to the managing agent / broker community by telling them to pass this through to their customers (meaning us.)

My understanding, and this goes back to the old newspaper ad days, is that advertising was paid by the broker.  It was part of the service.  Do we have any long time landlords here who remember how this was handled back then?

Now it's years later, and Zillow is pushing this to go through to the owners.  Does this constitute a change in relationship, and should the owners be giving the brokers/managers pushback on this?

[Russell Brazil]

The cost will get passed to landlords one way or the other....either through directly paying the fees, or through an increase in the cost their agents and property managers charge. Take a relatively small property management company that manages 1,000 units. If the typical tenant is in a unit 3 years, this equates to over $1,000 per month in cost, on a sector that operates on razor thin margins already.