cindy b.

We recently put our condo that we spent the last six months renovating up for sale by owner. We did all the work. We renovated, advertised, staged and cleaned the condo thoroughly.

We made the mistake of listing it on Zillow. We had two calls the first day from direct buyers without Agents. We showed the home. They seemed to love it. We were told by the property managers that we have the most desirable location in the community. The community is also very desirable. This is why we decided to purchase the condo in the first place.

We put in stone flooring, slate patio, new paint, carpet, custom cabinets, granite etc. etc. We wanted to price it fairly- and really looked into comps in that community. We have been told also that it is very fairly priced.

We noticed that after the first day, the calls stopped and realtors appeared on our listing with the possibility to contact them to get information on the property. We received over 15 calls a day for four days from only Realtors.

Then i notices that it says on OUR for sale by owner listing "want to appear as the agent for this listing?" call this number. I called Zillow pretending to be an interested person. They explained to me that it is a way for the REALTOR to get their name out there and to have the opportunity to get involved in OUR sale. SNEAKY AND PATHETIC.

I then saw reviews from other sellers who say that Zillow directs the questions and inquiries to Realtors who know nothing about the property and who then either try to get involved to make money off the poor seller or they say that the property is not for sale.

I hope that the brilliant mind who came up with this method of sticking it to the seller puts their own blood, sweat and tears into a project only to have some one completely scam them like Zillow did to us. BEWARE OF ZILLOW