Zillow announced a move that would make it easier for their prospective Chinese clients to connect with them this week in a bid to capture one of the biggest segments of foreign real estate investors.
According to Inman, Chinese buyers of housing real estate now have two options of talking straight to their Zillow Premier agents: WeChat and NetEase. Cashing in on the biggest and most used mobile messenger app in China, Zillow partnered with WeChat to make it easier for anyone in the PROC to get information about U.S. real estate investments without the need to travel and be physically present.
NetEase is an IT company based in China and will bring easy search of U.S. properties to the Chinese. Greg Schwartz, chief business officer of Zillow Group said, "These new partnerships will help us better serve these home shoppers and drive more business to those Premier Agent partners who have the language skills to navigate these transactions."
The biggest obstacle in real estate transactions involving foreigners is usually language and Zillow hopes with these partnerships, they can easily overcome this. On WeChat, Zillow will give content and information accurately translated to Mandarin. In addition, Mandarin speaking Zillow agents will also be available.
Meanwhile, in a post by The Denver Channel, Zillow has made its bold prediction as to what housing market will prove to be the next big thing and it has chosen Denver. The real estate website used three factors to determine their choice: the Home Value Index, income and unemployment rate. The Home Value Index refers to the median value of a home in a specific area on a month by month basis. In 2015, Denver recorded a rise in home values by up to 16 percent and according to Zillow, it is not a stretch to expect that another 5 percent is coming in 2016.
