Zillow Launches AI-powered Features for Home Shopping Experience

Zillow has launched five new features to enhance the home shopping, selling, and renting experience, including SkyTour, a first-of-its-kind 3D view of a home's exterior from above. Other features include Offer Insights, Rentals Costs & Fees Breakdown, Tour Itineraries, and BuyAbility upgrades. These tools aim to empower users to explore listings, understand costs, and schedule tours in one place.

Zillow (NYSE: ZG) has unveiled five new features aimed at improving the home shopping, selling, and renting experience. The key additions include SkyTour, a groundbreaking 3D viewing technology for property exteriors, powered by Gaussian splatting technology. Other innovations include Offer Insights for analyzing offer strength, Rentals Costs & Fees Breakdown for transparent pricing, Tour Itineraries for streamlined home viewing, and enhanced BuyAbility tools for affordability assessment.

The BuyAbility feature has already attracted over 1.5 million users since its launch. These tools are designed to address common pain points in the real estate market, such as 94% of buyers using online tools for home searches and 64% preferring online tour scheduling. The new features are now available nationwide on Zillow's website and mobile apps.

SkyTour, in particular, stands out as a technological advancement that could significantly increase engagement metrics and time-on-site for property listings. By leveraging advanced Gaussian splatting technology, SkyTour provides interactive 3D aerial views of properties, setting Zillow at the forefront of virtual home touring capabilities.

Offer Insights addresses a critical friction point in the transaction process by offering data-driven guidance on offer competitiveness. This tool creates a strategic dual benefit: buyers gain confidence, while agents receive more qualified leads from users approaching the transaction stage with realistic expectations.

Rentals Costs & Fees Breakdown tackles transparency issues in the rental market, where 94% of renters want upfront cost clarity. By addressing this pain point, Zillow positions itself to capture and retain more rental market users, which is particularly important as over 50% of rental households are cost-burdened.

Tour Itineraries streamline the property viewing process, aligning with user preferences for online tour scheduling. Meanwhile, the BuyAbility enhancements provide personalized affordability insights, with 1.5 million users already enrolled, indicating strong market adoption.

Collectively, these features strengthen Zillow's competitive moat by enhancing user experience and creating additional data collection opportunities that could fuel future monetization strategies. The innovations address both the transaction and search phases of the real estate journey, potentially increasing platform stickiness and conversion rates.

References:
[1] https://www.stocktitan.net/news/ZG/summer-just-got-hotter-zillow-debuts-five-powerful-new-2c11y8tgoa7p.html