An Interview with Zoopla
Q. Tell us briefly about Zoopla.co.uk and how it got started.
Zoopla.co.uk is the UK’s most comprehensive source of residential property market information and we provide users with data and tools to help them make better-informed property decisions. Our aim is to transform the market by empowering consumers with a single destination to serve all their property needs and to help property professionals reach a broader audience at a lower cost.
We launched the business because we felt that the property market could benefit far more from the web’s ability to deliver transparency and efficiency. By providing FREE value estimates for EVERY UK home, sold house prices and local information as well as hundreds of thousands of properties for sale and to rent, Zoopla.co.uk is fast-becoming the ultimate destination for users to both search for property and to do their market research.
Q. What makes Zoopla.co.uk different?
Zoopla.co.uk is unique in that we combine traditional property search (homes for sale and to rent) with all the information that users need to research the market. Unlike other property websites that focus only on the 4% of homes currently for sale/to rent, we provide users with information and tools on ALL 26 million UK homes. We are the UK’s fastest growing property website and most active property community, with over a million user contributions to our website in the past 12 months alone. We also offer unique features, like TemptMe!™ and AskMe!™, which allow consumers to gain an insight into the market and discover information they won’t find anywhere else.
We also have developed a unique proposition for property professionals whereby we only charge estate agents for leads we deliver to them, aligning our interests with theirs. Due to the nature of our user base, broader appeal of the services we offer and scale of our audience, we are well placed to provide agents with both buyer leads and much sought-after vendor leads at a fraction of the cost of some of their other marketing channels, helping them save significant marketing costs and eliminate risk in these difficult times.
Q. What are the main technical challenges of Zoopla.co.uk?
The main technical challenges relate to the volume of data we are processing daily and the high level of sophistication within our valuation algorithm. Our value estimates are calculated using a proprietary algorithm that we have developed by analysing millions of data points relating to property sales and home characteristics throughout the UK. The algorithm works by comparing relationships between home prices, economic trends and property attributes in micro geographic areas. Our estimates are constantly refined, using the most recent data available and a variety of statistical methodologies, in order to provide the most current information on any home.
We use Amazon’s EC2 Cloud Server technology to help us achieve this affordably – see recent case study
Q. What is your opinion on the current financial crisis? What are the main patterns you’ve seen change on Zoopla.co.uk?
The current climate makes our services all the more relevant for both consumers and property professionals. From the consumer perspective, the thirst for data around house prices is stronger than ever – driven more recently by fear than by the exuberance of the prior few years – so in this respect we are seeing users return to the website more frequently to look at the values of their homes and others. Estate agents are also faced with tough decisions in the current market particularly around how and where they can save costs and our pay-for-performance model is being extremely well-received by agents who no longer wish to pay fixed fees to advertise properties that may or may not generate any enquiries for them.
Q. What type of community are you trying to develop at Zoopla.co.uk?
Zoopla.co.uk is all about leveraging community content to drive market transparency and efficiency. We encourage users to share information about homes and neighbourhoods on Zoopla.co.uk by uploading photos, asking questions and sharing knowledge with other users, making offers on dream homes not on the market, letting other users know the ‘dream price’ that you might be willing to consider for your home and more…
The continued improvement in the accuracy of our valuation algorithm also relies on user- generated content as we can combine data from our users together with data in the public domain to have the most complete picture of individual properties and neighbourhoods.
Q. What are your main influences and sites you enjoy using?
We are following developments in the property space in the US closely, particularly sites like Zillow and Trulia. Google is a clear influence on our monetisation model and we are firm believers in making information free and easily accessible to consumers and charging professionals for targeted leads that allow them to generate business. And of course the social aspect of Twitter is really interesting and we already have around 1000 followers.
Q. Are there any chances for Zoopla.co.uk to reach out to programmers who may wish to use the data for their own applications?
Yes, we are currently developing an open API and expect to have it ready within the next 2-3 months and are really excited about the launch of this and seeing the creative ideas that developers will come up with for our data and tools.
Q. What are Zoopla’s goals for 2009?
Our main goals are to continue to grow our user base and enrich the data we provide as we continue to develop the UK’s ultimate property market resource. We also aim to become the marketing partner of choice for the majority of UK estate agents and our goal is to continue to deliver maximum value to them and minimum cost and risk. .
