I love Zillow. I use the site often, including Zillow Digs. I have the Zillow app downloaded on my iPhone.
However, Zillow isn’t the only real estate website around. There are several that offer a variety of features. While Zillow is awesome, maybe there’s something you want it doesn’t offer.
That’s what this article is all about – to list out viable alternatives to Zillow for your real estate needs. Below our list of sites similar to Zillow, we include a data-based analysis of which is the most popular as well as some charts setting out a Zillow vs Trulia comparison.
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1. Home Bay
Home Bay is more than a real estate listings website. It’s disrupting the real estate agent by offering agency services to sellers and buyers. With the advent of online real estate websites, more and more homes are being found and sold as a result of online information than the hustle of local real estate agents.
Home Bay bridges the gap between being a listings website and providing realtor services.
The big benefit for buyers and sellers is both save up to 50% of the traditional commission paid to traditional agents. This amounts to thousands (often tens of thousands) of dollars in savings, which is fantastic.
Yet, sellers enjoy almost all the benefits of having an agent. Home Bay gets photos, lists the property with all the major real estate sites, provides a “For Sale” sign for the yard, handles the paperwork, negotiates the price, and virtually coordinates showings.
The only thing sellers give up is the ability to have an open house, which isn’t all that big of a deal.
2. Trulia
Trulia is very much like Zillow. In fact, Zillow acquired Trulia, yet they remain separate websites. Both sites use the same listings database, so the listings are the same.
Generally, now that both sites are owned by the same company, other than a different design, they’re very much the same site.
One thing I like about Trulia over Zillow is the Trulia blog including celebrity homes section. It’s updated regularly and the layout is awesome. My only complaint is in order to check out older celebrity homes, you must continually hit the “load” button.
It’s not paginated so every time I go there to look at older celeb homes, I can’t enter in a paginated URL to get to older posts. Otherwise, the Trulia blog is outstanding.
Visit Trulia here.
3. Redfin
Pros
- Redfin is set up very similarly to Zillow, making it easy for people used to Zillow’s layout to start using this website instead.
- The search is performed based on a map and then will easily and quickly display information such as year built, home value, square footage, and home appreciation.
- It’s easy to perform a side-by-side comparison of the homes that you are interested in.
- There are actual real estate agents employed by Redfin. Part of their commission is given back to Redfin buyers.
- Because the agents are actual employees and not independent contractors, they offer amazing customer service. They are paid based on the ratings they receive from Redfin users.
- The information on Redfin comes directly from the MLS and updates rather quickly.
- They offer rebates on selling costs that the seller will receive at closing.
Cons
- Redfin won’t disclose the exact address of the property if the homeowner doesn’t want them to and won’t display information that the listing agent does not want displayed.
- If you are paired with the wrong agent, then it can be very difficult to get them to respond to your problems, meet you places on time, and take you seriously.
- They are not full-service agents.
Find it online here.
4. Neighborhood Scout
Pros
- It’s very easy to search by address or city to get information on property.
- They provide a lot of information that is not made available to other sites such as Trulia or Zillow.
- Much of the information that they offer is great for investors and helps them to make decisions about the risks of buying property in certain locations.
- It covers the entire United States.
- It’s easy to find information such as the average rent in an area, housing market details, and the amount of homes that are rented vs. owned.
- It offers a lot of information about crime statistics in an area to help users make informed decisions about the safety of the location where they want to move.
Cons
- You can access some of their information for free but to get all of the available information, you will have to have an account. It’s $29.99 per report, $79.99 a month, or $191.88 for a year.
- It’s difficult to find out how to speak to an actual person behind the website.
- They do not put dates on all of their statistics, which leaves some users wondering how up to date the information actually is.
Find it online here.
5. Homesnap
Pros
- The browse function on this site is one of the easiest to use, making it simple to look for property in a desired area.
- Their mobile app is fully integrated and easy to use. It offers real-time information about a home when you take a simple photograph of the property. It’s available on both Android and iPhone and has great reviews for being easy to use as well as powerful.
- Even if the property is unlisted, the app will access information about it, giving the property value of the home, condo, or apartment.
- They will help you connect with a reputable agent if you are interested in buying or selling a home.
- You can create a custom feed and desired notifications through the app so that you never miss information about property that you are interested in.
- The app makes it very easy to share homes you are interested in with other users. This simplifies the search for new property.
- It’s easy to explore the area by looking at photographs of houses that other people have taken.
Cons
- Requires an Internet connection to work so if you are in a zone where you don’t have WiFi, you won’t be able to get the information that you want about some property.
- Since it pulls information from public records, the data is not always accurate or updated.
- Once you sign up for emails, it can be very difficult to unsubscribe, which is very frustrating.
Find it online here.
6. Realtor.com
Realtor.com is part of Move, Inc. which also owns a variety of real estate and home sites including Listhub, Move.com, Moving.com, Relocation.com, Doorsteps, TopProducer and SeniorHousingNet.com.
Pros
- Run by the National Association of Realtors, this site has very up to date information listed on it.
- It’s a great place to begin your search as it is connected to the MLS and will have all of the most recently-listed homes on the website.
- You can use Realtor.com to search through other websites such as Homesnap, Redfin, and Neighborhood Scout and then quickly get in touch with an agent.
- They offer updated blogs that provide a lot of information about the housing market, making your home appealing to buyers, and the selling and buying process in general.
- They help to connect you with a lender to start the preapproval process.
- It’s an international site and offers information in more than 10 languages.
- It makes it easy to search for agents in your area and then connect with them when you have questions or want additional help.
Cons
- It does not have the strong search function that other sites do.
- It is not as intuitive or as easy to use, which is frustrating for a lot of people who may not be very Internet savvy.
- While it does offer links to other sites to help with moving, remodeling, and even improving your outdoor space, this takes away from the feel of the site as being an expert on housing prices and information.
- The information about the property you are interested in is not laid out in a very clear manner.
Find it online here.
7. Real Estate ABC
Pros
- They have a massive database that makes it very easy to find your home or a home that you are looking for.
- Each home that they list has up to 30 comps, which will help when it comes time to decide what to list your home for or if the home you are considering is overpriced.
- This site does a great job helping you come up with a listing price for your home so you can get started selling right away.
- They offer a lot of informational articles that are designed to help users who are thinking about buying or selling a home.
- With 16 different real estate and mortgage calculators, it’s easy to find out if you can afford the home of your dreams, figure the cost of living in an area, and calculate how quickly you can pay off your mortgage.
Cons
- The website is not very user friendly and can take some time to understand how to best use it.
- The amount of information offered by this website can be very overwhelming, especially for users who are just starting their search for a new home.
- There are a lot of ads on the website, which can detract from using it and make it difficult to focus on what you are actually trying to find out.
Find it online here.
8. Eppraisal
Pros
- The website is incredibly easy to use and offers local mortgage rates as well as the value of the property that you have searched for.
- It’s easy to see how much other homes in the area have sold for so you can compare them to the property you are looking at or see what people are willing to pay if you are going to be selling your home.
Cons
- It does not take specific information about the home into consideration when coming up with a value, which means that it can be very far off of the real price.
- It does not link to the MLS.
- It’s a great way to learn about property in the area but for exact numbers and updated information, you will have to work with a skilled realtor.
Find it online here.
9. ForSaleByOwner.com
Pros
- It’s free to register to be able to use their pricing tool.
- It’s easy to find properties that are for sale in your area, including foreclosures.
- They come up with a value for your home based on comparable properties in the area that were recently sold.
- It’s easy to look into the prices of various homes in the area and then list yours for sale as well, which is the primary design of the website.
- It makes it easy to calculate your mortgage using their on-screen mortgage calculator.
Cons
- Created to help people sell their homes without a realtor, it doesn’t offer as much information about local properties as other websites do.
- It does not offer all of the neighborhood information that many of the other real estate sites do.
- The market values that they come up with for local homes are run through a computer program, not created by an actual human, which means that they won’t take into consideration all of the features of the home.
- While it’s easy to contact the seller directly, this can create an awkward situation and most people find that working with a realtor to be the go-between is a good idea.
- You will still have to get an appraisal if you are going to be buying a home that you found listed on this site.
- The information that you will get about the property has been filled in by the sellers so it’s important to take it with a grain of salt because they might not be totally correct about what they have written regarding their properties.
Find it online here.
10. OfferMarket
OfferMarket is a next generation real estate marketplace. This free listing website features For Sale By Owner, wholesale, and agent listings. If you want to sell your house fast for optimal net proceeds, you can use the Get Offers feature to receive competitive offers from qualified buyers in the OfferMarket network.
Get Offers is a free service for sellers — OfferMarket handles all of the paperwork, title work, and closing coordination in exchange for a small fixed service fee paid by the buyer at closing.
Properties listed on OfferMarket range from turnkey luxury houses to distressed houses in need of complete renovation. OfferMarket serves the full spectrum of buyers (fix and flip through first time homebuyers) and sellers (investors through homeowners).
Which Real Estate Website Is the Most Popular?
As a website publisher, I invest in tools that enables me to investigate search volume for various brands and terms. This software is also handy at assessing the popularity of various brands and websites.
Monthly Search Volume for Each Real Estate Site
The following sets out the estimated number of monthly searches for each of the above real estate websites in April 2018:
- Zillow: 12,530,000
- Trulia: 2,470,000
- Realtor.com: 1,260,000
- Redfin: 965,000
- ForSaleByOwner: 271,000
- Homesnap: 40,000
- Eppraisal: 10,000
As you can see, Zillow is by far the most popular based on monthly search volume for the various website names.
Zillow vs Trulia Popularity
Since Zillow and Trulia are the 2 real estate giants, let’s compare them in Google Trends. Here are Google Trends charts comparing the two for the past 5 years:
