Posted by John Bailo at 1/19/06 6:15 a.m.

I was thinking about the 'slash and burn' financing of the Internet start ups in the late 90s, and how it was turned into some kind of morality play afterwards. Right now, it seems like it was actually the right thing to do. In fact, the market right now is starved for new products and services more than anything, as well as business formation to boost jobs. Flash spending on a bunch of startups would make perfect sense, and since the market has "lain fallow" for five years, the returns should be good.

Posted by MatthewHaines at 1/21/06 3:11 p.m.

Given Zillow's mission, I don't think they have a lot of choice. They have to do everything. They've stated their mission is to make home buyers happier about the home-buying process. And Rich Barton has stated that they're going to have lots of data, cool tools, and national coverage.

Can they not have maps? Can they not have sale price information? Can they not have neighborhood information? It's hard to imagine leaving out any of those, given the breadth of their mission.

But things get stickier when it comes to buyer comments, feedback, and ratings. If brokers were to get negative ratings, they would be very, very upset. Brokers with established reputations will probably do everything possible to avoid being rated. They'll figure they haven't got much to gain but everything to lose.

Can you imagine the reaction of a seller whose house has negative comments? Yikes! It could get very personal very quickly when someone thinks $50K has been sliced off their sale price from a few sentences tossed off by a cranky potential buyer.

I've often thought about adding ratings and reviews to PropertyShark, but it just seems like a bundle of trouble. If Rich Barton and Zillow can pull off that trick, then my hat is off to them.

Posted by unregistered user at 6/12/07 11:00 p.m.

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