Inman

Zillow: not just for advertising anymore

Listings and valuation portal Zillow.com is offering real estate agents access to customer relationship management (CRM) and other tools through a new "Agent Hub."

Zillow rolled out the first version of its CRM tool in February as a way for registered users to keep notes on Zillow-originated contacts, flag contacts for follow-up, and send emails. Agents can create new contacts, allowing them to manage all their contacts on Zillow.com, or export Zillow contacts for management in another CRM system.

Real estate agents who have set up a free Zillow profile or are paid "Premier Agent" subscribers will find their Zillow contacts prepopulated into Agent Hub.

In addition to the CRM platform, Agent Hub offers agents an analytics dashboard to monitor their listing and agent profile metrics, access to classes on marketing, social media and agent tools, and industry news and insight.

Bob Bemis, Zillow’s vice president of partner relations, called Agent Hub "another important step in evolving Zillow beyond advertising to offer a more robust suite of services to help real estate professionals better manage and market their businesses."

Operators of other listing portals, including Realtor.com, Homes.com, and RealEstate.com, also want real estate brokers and agents to think of them as more than suppliers of leads and advertising space.

Realtor.com operator Move Inc. provides CRM and marketing tools to Realtors through its Top Producer Systems division.

RealEstate.com’s owner and operator, Market Leader Inc., is one of the lead vendors behind Keller Williams Realty Inc.’s integrated CRM, transaction management and marketing platform, eEdge.

Market Leader has also signed agreements to provide CRM platform for agents with two Realogy Corp. franchisors, Century 21 Real Estate and Better Homes and Gardens Real Estate.

Homes.com operator Dominion Enterprises will power a new Remax.com website and mobile apps, and the companies will collaborate in marketing a Re/Max co-branded version of Homes Media Solutions’ Connect CRM marketing platform to Re/Max agents.