When I meet people out in the real world and explain what a consultant does in the real estate industry, conversations naturally lead to the discussion about home values and real estate portals like Realtor.com, Zillow, Trulia, Homes.com or others. For all of us in the real estate industry, we believe that the reason why consumers like Zillow so much is for the Zestimate. Not necessarily.

Last night, I had a casual encounter with a friend who is a helicopter pilot. He ferries executives back and forth to the oil rigs off of the central coast of California. Aside from that rather exciting day job, he loves to find fixer-up properties to buy and sell. He uses Zillow, but not for the Zestimate.

"I use Zillow to look at the last transaction on the house. I need to understand the perspective of the owner which is centered around what they paid for the house and how long they have lived in it." Like most of you, I thought that he would tell me that the Zestimate was the primary reason that he loved that website. I was wrong.

"The Zestimate is a pretty relative thing. I know that the value of a property is based upon what a seller is willing to accept as an offer from a buyer and little more." He did go on to talk about the role that banks play in offering financing on the home, but he typically puts 40% down when he buys, so that is an incidental consideration for him.

What Brokers Can Learn From This

Brokers need to support consumers with information on their website differently today than they did in the past. If you are in a non-disclosure state, you can stop reading this article now because there is little you can do beyond what you offer today. If you are in an open disclosure state, you should be trying to provide consumers with public record information on every property in the area you serve.