Agents/BrokersProptechReal Estate

Zillow’s 3D home tours to appear automatically on Redfin

Redfin names Ariel Dos Santos as new VP of product

Zillow’s 3D home tours will now automatically appear on Redfin listings, according to a Thursday announcement from Seattle-based Zillow.

Real estate agents formerly had to manually enter the link to their 3D home tour for the listing to appear on Redfin. Now Zillow automatically syndicates an agent’s 3D home tour to a listing on Redfin, the company stated in a news release. There’s also an opt out feature for agents who don’t want their 3D tours to post automatically on Redfin.

But Zillow doesn’t intend to stop with Redfin. The company has plans to roll out the automatic syndications to additional real estate websites and multiple listing services in the future.

“Customers have dramatically raised their expectations for a virtual home shopping experience over the past two years,” said Josh Weisberg, VP of Zillow’s rich media experience team, in a statement. “This technology allows agents and photographers to meet those expectations with a seamless, immersive tour experience that is easily made and shared.”

And according to Zillow’s statistics, making a 3D tour is worth the time.

Compared to their barebones counterparts, listings with 3D home tours draw 81% more views and garner 53% more saves, Zillow said. That’s because the 3D tours provide 360-degree views of a home and include interactive floor plans that show buyers where they are in the house, the camera’s direction and perspective and the room’s dimensions. 

“My job is to make homes stand out — to build excitement about my listing and generate the best possible offer for my sellers,” Georgia Stevens, a managing broker at Compass and past president of Seattle King County Realtors, said in a statement. “The agent with the best tools wins.”

In addition to its syndication with Zillow, Redfin also is welcoming Ariel Dos Santos to the company as its new VP of product, according to a Wednesday post on Dos Santos’ LinkedIn page. Dos Santos said his primary focus at Redfin will be on growth.

“Redfin is a product that I’ve absolutely LOVED for many many years and I’m excited to work with some brilliant folks to continue making it better,” he wrote. “Redfin’s mission to redefine real estate in the consumer’s favor is inspiring, motivating and personally important to me as an immigrant..”

Dos Santos most recently was at Peloton, where he served as the firm’s VP of product/technology. Prior to that he spent more than six years at Amazon, where he helped launch the company’s “Just Walk Out” technology that powers its cashierless grocery locations.