Zillow announced today that it will begin offering a free feed of public records data to multiple listing services that offer the company a feed of their listing data. Called Zillow Group Data Connect, the service is designed to provide listing services with information that they can then provide to real estate agents to help with listing new homes.
In addition to traditional public record information, a feed from ZGDC can also encompass other, more recently updated information that Zillow uses to calculate its Zestimate property value estimate, like user-submitted data about recent home renovations. That up-to-date feed of information could help agents with market research, customer acquisition, and more.
Zillow Group Data Connect is designed to serve as an alternative for public records services currently in use by MLSs and other real estate professionals. Those services can cost hundreds of thousands of dollars, and Zillow is offering ZGDC for the low price of free, so long as MLSs send over their listings for inclusion on Zillow.
It’s an important move from the Seattle-based real estate search company. Earlier this month, Zillow lost its feed of listings from ListHub, an aggregator operated by Move, Inc., a subsidiary of News Corp. that also runs Realtor.com. Zillow has been pushing hard to pick up direct feeds from brokers and MLSs, and this new service should help the company entice other parties to give it a feed.
