Why You Should Never Buy Zillow Leads! | My Biggest Problems with Zillow Premier Agent Advertising Program For Real Estate Agents! #zillowpremieragent #zillow

Today we’re talking Zillow Premier Agent and specifically what my biggest faults with the program are.

Now if you watch my channel you know that I am a Zillow Premier Agent myself and I have found lots of value in it.

So this video isn’t made against Zillow or Premier Agent but just to highlight some of the parts of it that are not my favorite, so that if you are considering Zillow you can keep this in mind.

The first negative I have is the increasing prices.l

Zillow works on market-based pricing where each zip code has a cost for the advertising that is dependent on the pricepoint of the area and the demand from other agents.

There is nothing wrong with this model, but what can get frustrating is that at times when an area is sold out at max capacity rather than leaving the costs the same and area unavailable, Zillow will somitem open up further ad spend for new agents and this inevitably dilutes the current holders and increases cost per lead.

This means even though you signed up for leads at let’s say $100 per lead, that cost can go up to $150-$200 per lead through dilution.

The next negative I have with Zillow is that they resell the leads they connect you with.

When Zillow connects a lead to an agent, that connection is only honored for 30 days on Zillow.

This means that even though you paid for the lead, after 30 days of connection, the next time that lead inquires on a property through Zillow, they will be routed to another agent paying for ad space.

There is a way around this by having the consumer confirm by email that you are their agent, but this isn’t as easy as it sounds and most consumers won’t confirm that.

Now it’s bad enough that the same lead you got can go on other sites like Realtor or Redfin or Open Houses where other agents will get connected to them, but something just seems off to me that Zillow will reconnect a paid lead to another agent within their own platform.

I know Zillow needs to make money and it is a lot more profitable to sell the same lead ten times throughout their buying process, but this then makes it ten times more competitive to convert that lead with so many agents fighting for the deal.

In this case it seems like the only real winner is Zillow

The next negative I have with Zillow is the lack of vetting or qualifying.

Now I know it’s not realistic to expect only the hottest buyers that are ready to close within a week.

Some buyers will be much further out in the process, are just beginning to search online, or may even need some time before they can qualify for a loan.

This all makes sense and you can always follow up appropriately in those situations.

But what frustrates me at times is what seems like the lack of any kind of basic vetting.

For example I will get calls from leads who want to see a house they are calling on with their own agent yet they are still coming through Zillow, being connected to me, and getting charged as a lead.

Even worse, I have gotten a good amount of actual real estate agents who are buyer agents calling on a listing on behalf of their buyers.

And this is actually being counted as a paid connection for me.

Especially considering the prices that are paid for these leads I think it is just way too high to even try to justify connections like these.

I’m okay with buyer leads that need long term nurturing or are not pre approved, but I believe there should at least be enough vetting to prevent actual agents from calling.

There may be some other negatives around internet leads in general, like their tendency to be unloyal or to ghost you out of nowhere.

However these problems exist with all internet leads, so it would be unfair to pin that on Zillow. There will always be some good and bad at the same time.

As I said before, Zillow has been a great and profitable service for me and my business in the long run.

No system can be perfect and at the end of the day the goal is to close enough deals to where the cost is covered and you make a decent return in the end.

However, I thought it would still be valuable to highlight some of my frustrations with the platform to help set some of your expectations as well if you are considering purchasing Zillow leads.

So now, if you want to know why I love Zillow Leads, then watch this video over here and don’t forget to subscribe to my channel for more real estate.

#zillowpremieragent #zillowleads #zillow

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