The Zillow-Costar (Matterport) War

Maybe you have heard that Zillow has recently pulled all Matterport tours off of their platform. (If you hadn’t heard, sorry to be the bearer of bad news!). There is a lot of finger pointing here but suffice it to say that Zillow blames CoStar for not renewing their API agreement and CoStar says this is a red herring, Zillow hasn’t used the API for a long time and is just being mean. This may be retaliation for a lawsuit that CoStar filed against Zillow regarding some photography but who knows? The important thing is how it affects you.

Up until this brouhaha, if you put the Matterport tour in first position in your MLS listing, it would pull the listing into the photos area of the Zillow listing as well as provide a link under the Facts and Features section. This was not through the aforementioned API that Zillow says they no longer have. It was through their MLS feed (at least I’m pretty sure I’m right on this). The API they are talking about pulled directly from Matterport so if you had a Matterport on a listing, as soon as it was made public on the Matterport site (so your photographer could share it with you), it fed to Zillow. Zillow cut that off a while back, probably so they could promote their own virtual tour platform. But I digress…

What you can do...

So what do you do to get your Matterport seen on Zillow? There is good news/ bad news here. You can still get a link to your Matterport but it’s just not going to be as obvious to the end user. The way to do it is to use a single property website (like the one you get for free from me with any of your orders over $500). You can post the Matterport on the website, along with photos, videos, floorplans, etc. When the end user opens that virtual tour link on the Facts and Features section, it will open up the property website and voila’, access to the Matterport. It doesn’t even have to be in the first position on the NWMLS virtual tour section of your listing input. You can still put the Matterport in first position so that other websites like Redfin, Homes.com or your brokerage site can pull it in. Zillow will just bypass it and go to the next thing on the list which should be your property website.

If you want it all...

If you really want to have a more accessible virtual tour on Zillow, you can opt to do a Zillow 3D tour. They are ok but don’t give the immersive experience that Matterport does. Matterport has a lot of other features as well such as the ability to remove all the furniture in a room and to measure spaces so your buyers can figure out where they want to put furniture and such. The Zillow 3D tours are more basic. More like hopping from 360 image to 360 image. That said, according to Zillow, listings with 3D tours see 37% more views and 46% more saves than those without.

My offer to you...

If you want to get the most exposure however, I have put together a discounted Matterport/Zillow tour package and you’ll get both! Check out our packages here. Just pick any package with a Matterport and you'll get a pop up option to add a Zillow tour at a $100 discount. Easy Squeazy!!

Additional reading...

If you have an Inman News subscription, you can read a good article about this- "What Zillow's Matterport Fallout Means for Agents Like You".