Today’s RealTrending features Mike Lane, president of ShowingTime. Mike shares the latest on ShowingTime’s evolving platform post-Zillow acquisition and offers some market trend on which real estate markets are still hot based on their data.
Here is a small preview of today’s interview with Mike. The transcript below has been lightly edited for length and clarity:
Tracey Velt: You talked a little bit about how you partner with agents and brokers. Is there anything you want to add to that? Is there anything that our audience should know about the ways you’re partnering with them that you think is important?
Michael Lane: Without question, there’s been anxiety in the industry about what Zillow owning ShowingTime means for agents and brokers. Should I be concerned? Since they exited iBuying, Zillow has changed their strategy quite a bit.
I’ll just kind of speak to the part of the business that I’m closest to, which is investing heavily into technology that benefits the entire industry like the real-time availability, our new user interface, and our offer management products. And then, there’ll be new stats products coming out. I think it was very appealing to Zillow to figure out how to improve the products that are used widely in the industry.
A big part of that, when I’m going back to brokers to tell them, brokers, MLSs, and agents, I should say, is that our business really hasn’t changed. People who compete with Zillow would love to say otherwise but the truth is that really nothing has changed in our products.
Privacy is a big thing that comes up all the time and I take every opportunity to reinforce with our customers that the privacy of the data, the appointments in particular. What happens on a particular listing is totally private. That information cannot be accessed by any other part of Zillow, or any other divisions of Zillow.
So I remind brokers when I talk to them that we’re investing in innovation more than ever in the history of the company. It’s a very exciting time to be in our business. So we’re going to do more than ever.
RealTrending features the brightest minds in real estate. Twice a month, brokerage leaders, top agents, team leaders, and industry experts share their success secrets, trends, and lessons learned navigating this ever-changing industry. Hosted by Tracey Velt and produced by Elissa Branch.
This podcast is sponsored by Zillow and ShowingTime.
