Zillow Advertising can be great or worthless. Your success is all going to be based off of what Zip Code you “own”. People either Love it or LOATHE it.

If you haven’t ever looked into Zillow Advertising let me walk you through how it works. They call it the “premier agent” plans. You are paying for impressions and popularity in a zipcode. The higher end the zip code, the more popular it is, the more profitable your listings can be. If you are buying the majority of impressions (showing up next to the ask for more information form on Zillow) in a zipcode they say that you own that zip. The problem is… The great ones are typically bought and held onto.

I shot for owning an entire zipcode as cost effectively as possible. I got tons of calls. Did tons of showings. And collected $0.00 in commissions. Why?

I was in a low end rental saturated neighborhood. Half of my calls were people wanting to know if they could rent the house. Folks trying to get a mortgage on a 10k house. Or filling out the form (that they wanted to sell) wondering if they could rent it. Basically… They didn’t understand how to use Zillow.

I imagine that if you’re in a higher end area this wouldn’t be an issue. For me I’ve found much more productive uses of my time. I make way more money buying, selling, renting, and rehabbing. But then again I never got my license hoping to be a retail listing agent. So why was I marketing like one?…