Zillow: The Good, The Bad, And The Ugly – The Mortgage Note

Anyone even remotely aware of the real estate industry has most likely heard of the platform called Zillow.

Best known for listing properties for sale and rent, Zillow has garnered a massive amount of attention over the years, especially since they offer different partnerships that agents can take advantage of. But how do professionals rate its performance and usefulness?

The Mortgage Note spoke with real estate professionals to see what they think of Zillow, and they didn’t hold back. Here is what three of them said on the record:

Let’s start with the positive….

Easy To Use

Numerous agents said that Zillow can be a useful tool, especially for homebuyers just starting their search.

“The concept of what they do is great. They do make it very easy for buyers specifically to just look around and browse. It’s actually much easier than a lot of the platforms out there, which is why people use it,” said Jules Zaphire, Real Estate Agent at Locqube. He is licensed in New York and Connecticut.

Joshua Holt, CEO and broker at Holt Real Estate Team powered by PLACE, said Zillow is a great solution for people who want to find information quickly and don’t know what options there are yet.

“It’s still the number one home search portal out there. If you are starting to think about buying a home, it is usually people’s first stop, which can be a great starter tool,” said Holt. He works in Madison, Wisconsin.

Perks For Industry Professionals

Rob Jensen, owner/broker of the Rob Jensen Company in Las Vegas, works with high-end clients and says they pay to play with Zillow.

“Zillow is obviously an important website,” he said. “Consumers look at it. That’s why we give them money.”

Jensen likes the advantages his company’s listings get when they use features like Zillow Showcase.

“When you are part of Zillow Showcase, you can put your open house date and time at the top of the listing versus putting it below, which makes it more prominent,” said Jensen.

Jensen said the exposure is great for business. Showcase also allows for targeted ads and offers exclusive features designed to make homes stand out.

Jensen added that being a Zillow Premier Agent has benefits as well. Zillow offers them targeted advertising, motivated buyer connections, and detailed analytics and return on investment reports.

And now let’s switch gears to the negative side of things…

Jensen explained that while he has been working with Zillow on and off for some time, the downsides are starting to outweigh the benefits.

“We are up for renewal soon, and my director of sales said she has a list of complaints to go over with them based on all the different problems we’ve had,” said Jensen. “I am not against trying to get more out of our use of Zillow, but it is just painful when they are such a big company and have been around forever, and they haven’t made it a more user-friendly experience for the agents.”

Other industry professionals who were asked about partnering with Zillow had reasons for choosing not to.

“I don’t think I would do it,” explained Holt. “The biggest reason why is there is typically a higher cost in terms of fees they charge on the back end for referrals, which can eat up a sizable amount of revenue.”

Holt explained that instead of investing money into a massive platform like Zillow, his company prefers to focus on marketing at a local level and let the subsequent relationships develop naturally.

“Instead of investing either massive multi-fees or back-end referral costs to Zillow, we take that money and invest it in our marketing efforts or sponsor events in the community. The way we built our business is more relationship-driven than transaction-driven. We prioritize the people who already trust us and our community sphere,” said Holt.

Here are some other negative things real estate professionals said about Zillow:

Leads

The real estate agents who spoke with The Mortgage Note said the leads that they do receive from Zillow tend to be buyers simply browsing or just starting their homebuying journey.

“Zillow is primarily buyers trying to find their agents and browsing which properties they want to see if they are even ready for that step,” said Jensen.

In addition, consumers’ contact information is not exclusively going to one agent, making an already competitive market that much more intense.

“It’s not like I get that lead exclusively. It gets sent to many other partners on the platform. So it’s all what you pay for. You have more than one agent calling one person because they believe it to be a real lead. It’s not. I don’t get an advantage in my opinion, and I don’t want to pay money to compete with so many other people for the same thing,” said Zaphire.

Valuations

Zaphire explained that numerous times, he encountered issues with Zillow’s valuations of properties, which only brought on more issues during the homebuying process.

“Their valuation models are way off in many cases. It causes a problem when actually working and dealing with clients in general. On Zillow, sellers will say what they think the house is worth, but when you do the full analysis, you realize that that is not the case,” said Zaphire.

Condo Versus Co-op

Zaphire said he has also encountered issues with how Zillow labels properties, more specifically a condominium versus a co-op.

“A lot of times I will get a client sending me a unit that they think is a condo and in reality, it’s a co-op. That property difference is very important, and for whatever reason, Zillow has a hard time distinguishing between the two and lumping them all together.”

Website Updates

Zillow’s website is not updated in real time. This can result in a property that has already been sold to appear available.

“There are issues with updating listings in real time,” said Zaphire. “I know they are trying, but for whatever reason, I’ll see a property is still listed when it had sold just two weeks before, and they didn’t update it on their end.”

Holt said instead of Zillow, his company relies on localized sources that are updated more frequently.

“We have our own listing alert tool on our website, and we usually direct people to use it because it is typically more accurate. Zillow can be a bit delayed when updating a home’s status, terms, and open house schedules. Our website is tied to a direct feed so the data and the statuses of the information for a property are updated more frequently,” said Holt.

3D Tours

Jensen said that Zillow’s 3D tours may work, but it can be a clunky experience for consumers. Instead, he relies on a tool that is on his own website that offers more information, like measurements of different rooms in a house that is up for sale.

“I don’t like Zillow’s 3D tours. Their tours are functional, but on my website, the way you can click basically allows you to ‘walk through’ the property. It’s a smoother ride and even generates floor plans with room measurements. I even quit my membership and then resumed, and I still don’t like this aspect of their service,” said Jensen.

Zillow Is Changing

Despite being named one of TIME’s America’s Best Companies of 2026, Zillow laid off more than 500 employees on Aug. 4.

And after company executives released the company’s Q2 2026 earnings on Aug. 5, Zillow’s shares fell.

What Does This Mean?

Maybe the industry Goliath isn’t as powerful as it seems, and some agents, like Zaphire and Holt, are gaining ground in their markets without working with Zillow.

On the other hand, for industry professionals like Jensen, Zillow may be problematic at times, but if there is still a good return on investment, they will continue to use it.

Traffic to Zillow Group’s mobile apps and sites in Q2 was reported as 239 million average monthly unique users.