Thinking about buying property in Canada? Zillow Group sure hopes so.
The Seattle-based tech company plans to launch Canadian listings on its namesake home search website later this year, and as of today, it has seven partners committed to providing 30,000 listings north of the U.S. border.
Zillow today announced three new Canadian listing partners: the Ontario-based brokerages Better Homes and Gardens Real Estate Signature Service, Core Assets Real Estate and the Alberta-based Greater Property Group. While Better Homes and Gardens Real Estate Signature Service is a Canadian outpost of a legacy U.S. franchise with 360 national and international offices, the other two are independent brokerages working with a dedicated base of clients.
Along with earlier partnerships with Century 21 Canada and Right at Home Realty, Zillow has also inked similar deals with Exit Realty and RE/MAX Ultimate Realty last week.
This brings the total number of Zillow’s Canadian listing partners to seven, although the company has yet to announce exactly when Canadian for-sale listings will be available for browsing on its website, only saying they are coming “soon.”
“With every Canadian partnership we build, the experience on Zillow will get better for everyone – from brokerages and agents to the millions of home sellers and buyers who visit Zillow every month,” said Errol Samuelson, Zillow’s group chief industry development officer, in a prepared statement. “We believe there’s a massive opportunity ahead to help connect Canadian real estate professionals and their listings with Zillow’s audience, and we’re thrilled by the interest we’ve received from our partners and their members around Zillow’s plans for Canada.”
The new partnerships are all part of Zillow’s efforts to allow its users to search for and buy Canadian homes. Each listing featured on Zillow.com will include the usual property description, photos, agent photo and contact information along with a link to the brokerage website.
In Zillow’s latest earnings call, CEO Spencer Rascoff said that the company is currently building partnerships with Canadian multiple listing services, and that the Canadian residential market was about 12 percent the size of the U.S., even though the median home price is higher.
“We have a great relationship with Zillow in our U.S. offices, so it was an easy decision for us to decide to work with them in Canada as well,” says Nelson Goulart, Better Homes and Gardens Real Estate Signature Service owner and broker of record. “[…] Partnering with Zillow amplifies the reach of our listings and enhances the consumer experience when searching for homes.”
“As a modern, boutique brokerage we’ve always positioned ourselves as a company that focuses heavily on technology and marketing,” says Jordan Rasberry, a managing partner at Core Assets Real Estate, in a statement. “With this partnership, our home sellers will benefit from the exposure Zillow can provide to listings on a reliable search platform.”
