Top Zillow Alternatives: Home Search, Rentals, Offers, and Leads
Are you a “Zater” and looking for a website to use other than Zillow?
Well, there are plenty of options, depending on what you are looking for.
Alternatives for Home Search
Zillow is the most popular listing website and mobile app in the United States to search for properties for sale or rent.
But that is not to say it doesn’t have drawbacks as a home search platform. In the past, Zillow’s home search has been criticized for sometimes being inaccurate or having out-of-date listing information.
That changed in 2021 when Zillow became a broker member of most MLSs, getting listing feeds directly from the source. In theory, Zillow should be just as accurate as any real estate brokerage or agent website.
Unlike most brokerage sites, however, Zillow still has For Sale By Owner (FSBO) listings, for those interested in browsing them, as well as direct partnerships with many builders to show their off-MLS new construction listings.
It has not only MLS syndicated rental listings but likely the best selection of rentals available, being the established favorite portal for many property managers and independent landlords to list their homes for rent.
But, Zillow’s top competition might be catching up?
Mike DelPrete is an industry observer who notes that Homes.com’s traffic is on a surge since its acquisition by CoStar.
Maybe Zillow will have to start fretting about one of these upstarts one day.
Realtor.com
~$200+/mo. Realtor.com is the second most visited real estate website in America. Realtor.com is owned by Move.com, which is in turn owned by the Murdoch family (Fox, Wall Street Journal, and more). They are also partnered with the CRM Top Producer and lead generation OpCity. Realtor.com is a solid source of buyer leads for real estate agents.
Homes.com
Homes.com is owned by CoStar, who also owns other online properties like Apartments.com. Under their stewardship, Homes.com has been making a resurgence in popularity for searching homes for sale in the USA.
Homesnap
Homesnap is a search portal and suite of tools including a good mobile app for finding homes. It is real estate agent-friendly, allowing customers and agents alike to share the home buying journey. It includes a highly respected app for home buyers. Homesnap was acquired by CoStar in 2020, which, combined with Homes.com and Apartments.com makes it part of a big real estate marketplace.
Alternatives for Listing Rentals
Zillow is the most popular place to list homes for rent. And it was once free to advertise your rental on Zillow.
No more. In 2020, Zillow began charging a fee to show rentals on the site.
Most property managers bit the bullet and ponied up so that their listings were still on the most visited website portal in America. But that doesn’t mean there aren’t alternatives, including free alternatives to list your rental property that still get millions of visitors.
Apartments.com
FREE. Apartments.com is a major rental portal that includes a rental manager system. The tool includes listing to all Apartments.com website properties, tenant screening, leases, and payment collection. These are simple tools designed for DIY landlords or small property management firms.
Zumper
FREE. Zumper bills itself as the third-largest and fastest-growing rental portal on the market. Adding and managing listings is free. It is laser-focused on the rental market, and offers a basic suite of tools to complete your tenant screening, rent collection, and more.
Alternatives to Premier Agent and Flex
Zillow has long been a focus of ire from the real estate community. Many real estate agents view Zillow with suspicion, believing that Zillow’s end goal is either to replace agents with automation or consume the real estate industry in general.
Nicknamed “Zaters”, these brokers and agents regularly insist that Zillow must be stopped, usually by refusing to pay Zillow for leads. These agents rationalize that Zillow is making money from real estate agents own listings, earning traffic on Google from listings and then selling that traffic right back to agents.
While they have a point, Realtors long ago surrendered their best chance to own these portal leads for themselves when they sold Realtor.com. Can Zillow be blamed for taking advantage of an opportunity that real estate agents themselves created?
Some say “yes”. For those, here are some alternatives to spending money with Zillow for leads!
Realtor.com
~$200+/mo. Realtor.com is the second most visited real estate website in America. Realtor.com is owned by Move.com, which is in turn owned by the Murdoch family (Fox, Wall Street Journal, and more). They are also partnered with the CRM Top Producer and lead generation OpCity. Realtor.com is a solid source of buyer leads for real estate agents.
HomeSpotter
$899+/mo. HomeSpotter Leads+, formerly BoldLeads, sells exclusive leads that can focus on prospects who are either buying or selling. It includes a backend CRM and automated follow up system. No sharing your leads with other agents! Most leads are generated via Facebook advertisements. Consequently, they get a lot of leads, but generally low quality. If your systems are set up to process and nurture those kinds of leads, BoldLeads is a competent solution worth considering to keep your pipeline full.
zBuyer
$250+/mo. ZBuyer gets seller leads by advertising cash offers for homes. That may not seem so great at first, but many of these responders are better off listing traditionally, and just need an agent to show them the way. That said, it is also an option for investor-friendly agents or outright investors. The leads are reasonably priced, though you have to work them. Volume may be limited depending on your area, but it might be worthwhile in combination with your other prospecting strategies.
View my list of other real estate lead generation companies that capture and sell online leads.
“Beat Zillow” Content Marketing
What does it mean to compete with Zillow?
Zillow gets its leads via content marketing. Specifically, it has listings, a form of content.
Easy Agent Pro, a website builder, plays to its content marketing reputation with the Beat Zillow Facebook group. It is focused on using long-tail keywords and hyperlocal search to create content that can attract leads, getting around Zillow’s domination of most search result pages.
Read my Real Estate Content Marketing 101 guide for strategies you can employ to “beat Zillow” and earn Google love.
Lead Generating Offline
While many home buyers and sellers begin their journey in a Google search, most do not find their real estate agent that way. Instead, agents can continue to leverage offline lead generation strategies to earn customers, a space that Zillow does not compete in at all.
Examples include prospecting expireds, FSBOs, video marketing, social media, and PPC.
Conclusion
Trulia is left off this list as a “Zillow alternative” because…. it’s owned by Zillow! It has the same real estate listings, costs, and offerings as does Zillow.
Zillow is the most visited real estate website in America, and therefore has a lot of clout in the industry. Especially for any business model that relies on ranking on Google, there are only so many spots in the top of a Google search page. It is a “winner-take-most” niche.
But the real estate industry as a whole is very fragmented with many comers and goers. Zillow has major competition from all directions, whether it is CoStar and NewsCorp in the online search category, or Softbank in the real estate operations realm. Their dominance is by no means assured, and there will always be good alternatives to their products and services for real estate agents and customers alike.
Updated April 16, 2024; Originally published May 16, 2021
