A new chapter for Zillow: Top execs to publish a book about real estate

Seattle-based Zillow has grown into one of the leading online real estate companies by crunching valuable housing market data and presenting it on the web and mobile apps.

Now, though, two of the company’s executives are going old school and publishing their findings in a hardcover book.

Zillow CEO Spencer Rascoff and Chief Economist Stan Humphries today announced that they will debut a book titled “Zillow Talk: The New Rules of Real Estate” on Jan. 27.

Rascoff and Humphries wrote the book to “help people make smarter real estate decisions using data” — much like Seattle-based Zillow already does online for its 74.3 million users.

The authors tap into Zillow’s real estate data to show how housing trends have changed over time and what it means for homeowners, buyers, sellers, renters, and landlords.

“This book provides answers to the most common real estate questions, like, ‘Should I buy the worst house in the best part of town?’ or ‘How do I find the next hot neighborhood?’” Rascoff said in a statement. “Until now, the only answers we had were anecdotal and imprecise. Today, thanks to our work mining Zillow’s treasure trove of rich housing data, we are able to uncover game-changing trends, bust some common myths and ultimately offer new insights to help people make smarter decisions.”

The 288-page book is available for pre-order on Amazon for $20.52 and on Barnes & Noble for $20.72. You can also buy a Kindle edition — sold by Hachette Book Group — on Amazon for $12.74.

Zillow has been growing like crazy recently, acquiring its biggest rival in Trulia and nearly doubling its office space in downtown Seattle. Its stock, currently trading at $117 per share, is up 43 percent over the last year.