Zillow Premier Agent | Reviews and Pricing | 2024
Zillow needs no introduction.
The top real estate portal in America and one of the most visited websites in the world, Zillow makes most of its money from real estate agent advertising. It has multiple options for agents and brokers looking to purchase leads, including a pay-per-lead option and a pay-at-closing option.
Zillow is one of the top real estate tech companies as well, and includes other brands and products like Trulia, dotLoop, StreetEasy, and more.
Welcome to your one-stop-shop for Zillow Premier Agent reviews!
Your Reviews
Zillow Premier Agent
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Use Zillow if…
- You are excellent at rapid follow-up and can get in touch with new leads quickly
- You have many listings and don’t want other agents showing up on Zillow for your listings
- An eager lender wants to go in with you on some advertising spending
Skip Zillow if…
- You work with investors or are an investor (consider ZBuyer)
- You want to focus on seller leads (consider Homespotter)
- You’re foolishly a “Zater” and just stubbornly refuse to work with them (consider Realtor.com)
View Other Real Estate Paid Leads Services
Best Features
Good Lead Quality
“WHAT???”
That is probably what many of y’all are thinking.
There are plenty of negative reviews blasting the quality of leads from Zillow. And it’s true, that most leads will never buy a home. Lead quality from most systems other than direct referrals can feel pretty lousy if your follow-up is lackluster.
But when it comes to lead quality, the most important question is how was that lead captured? Were they forced to register like on many agent websites before seeing homes?
Potential clients who submit their information to Zillow do so willingly. Zillow doesn’t force registration.
And unlike Facebook ads, they are on Zillow to actively look at homes. Your Facebook ad, meanwhile, is interrupting your target audience while they look at cat pictures. Are they interested in buying? Who knows?
Google AdWords campaigns do target consumer intent via their search inquiries, and therefore might be of similar quality to a Zillow lead.
But at the end of the day, Zillow leads are people looking at homes and volunteering their information, asking to be contacted. That is usually a pretty darn good lead. If it isn’t working out for you, chances are that you are not moving quickly enough and losing them to other agents, or failing in the followup.
Volume
Zillow is the most visited real estate portal in the world. That is not even counting Trulia, RealEstate.com, or StreetEasy – all owned by Zillow Group.
Chances are good that a significant portion of home hunters in your service area have spent time on either.
There are plenty of leads to be had. And once you’ve got it working, plenty of ways to start scaling.
In fact, there are top producing agents out there who have built their business on Zillow leads and have grown large, thriving teams off working Zillow leads. If you want a paid lead service that can grow with you, few can do so well as Zillow.
Zillow Premier Agent Benefits
Zillow is a multi-billion dollar corporation. They are hard at work building an entire ecosystem for agents in their Premier Agent program.
That includes agent CRMs and more. None of these tools are the best in the biz by any measure. But they can suffice, especially for a newer agent starting out who wants to dive in and begin building their business with Zillow.
Biggest Pitfalls
Limited Seller Leads
Zillow is not the go-to source for seller leads.
Their new Instant Offer program is specifically designed to generate more seller leads, but only available in a few markets, limited to a few participating brokers, and nowhere near the volume of buyer leads they generate.
Listings are where the money is. You are wise if you are focused on listing leads over buyer leads.
Not Exclusive
You are not the only agent shown to clients.
First is the listing agent. If the agent is a premier agent, then they will be the only ones showing up for their own listings.
Then it is you and another two agents, for four total.
As you can see, there is a lot of information there that can be competing for a would-be-buyer’s attention. You want to make sure you have a great picture, lots of good Zillow reviews, and record all your sales in Zillow.
If you aren’t getting many leads, it could be as simple as a competitor has more impressive reviews and recent sales in comparison.
Zillow Premier Agent Pricing*
- Generally cheapest zip codes start ~$200/mo spend
- Affordable markets work out to about $20/lead and the pricier markets can be $100/lead or more
- Flex model payment is a percentage of commissions
Pricing depends on your local market area. More expensive markets mean more expensive leads.
At the lower end, the price per leads is often in the $20s. For more expensive markets with median prices nearer the $500,000s, you can see $100+/lead.
Within the Premier dashboard, you can explore different zip codes, see which have space available, and what Zillow estimates your ROI and cost per lead will be.
You can also comarket with a lender, which will help cut the cost of your Zillow spend.
*This is current to the best of my knowledge at the time of this writing. Contact the vendor directly to check current prices, discounts, and terms.
My Personal Recommendation
Zillow is The Big Bad gnarly disruptor-in-chief, right?
Not quite.
I am not on the “Zater” train. Not in the slightest (I used to work for Zillow). If there is a tech company the average agent should fear, it should be Redfin, OJO, or Opendoor. But that is for another article.
Regarding Zillow leads, they are actually quite good if you are quick with a phone call and persistent with a potential buyer or seller. There are brokers who spend literally millions a year on Zillow leads. They wouldn’t be doing that if they weren’t getting an ROI of at least 3-5x their spend.
Zillow is starting to consolidate its leads, however. Their focus is on fewer but bigger agents. Most zip codes are fully bought up. Its time as an easy lead source for newbies is coming to an end while they actively try to work with top producers instead.
As part of this trend, Zillow also introduced Zillow Flex, a “pay at closing” referral-based lead system like what Realtor.com did with their Opcity acquisition. Paying at closing sounds great, but Zillow and Realtor.com only want to work with top producers. You know, people they can count on to close.
Therefore, if you are interested in Zillow leads, I recommend taking it very seriously and being fully committed to making it work. Zillow is only going to want to play with people who are successful with their leads. If you can convert and earn business, they’ll possibly find someone else who will.
And whether you sign up or not, it is an excellent idea that you create and keep updated your Zillow agent profile. Consumers can see this, and often find it even if you aren’t spending money with Zillow.
Zillow Videos
Pros
None. The leads were awful, only one out of all the leads they sent had even talked to a lender let alone gotten pre approved. Do not believe their sales people, every word they say is a lie. I was told I could expect to sell one house for every ten leads I received. I should have known better. Keep your money, this company is awful.
Con
Everything. Completely junk leads for an excessive cost. When you ask zillow about the quality of the leads they blame you. It’s your fault you can’t sell a house to someone who can’t get pre approved. They know their product is junk and blame you. Their own website highlighted the 3% conversion rate. 97% of what you are paying them a lot of money for is almost completely junk.