✍️ Editor’s Note: Zillow’s Make Me Move feature has been discontinued. It is unclear if this is a temporary or permanent decision.
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Zillow, a prominent name in the real estate industry has twisted the traditional for-sale sign with Zillow Make Me Move feature. Homeowners can test home selling without a commitment using Make Me Move.
If you’re ready to sell your house, try listing your home on the MLS with flat fee companies like Houzeo. You can manage your real estate transaction yourself and sell your house for the best possible price.
What is Zillow Make Me Move?
Zillow Make Me Move is a unique feature that lets homeowners know what’s going on in the housing market without officially listing their houses. This “potential listing” helps you set a sale price and contact information to test the waters without a formal listing. It’s simple and convenient for anybody to explore the real estate housing market.
The service is offered for free and has made millions of users list their houses on Zillow. The underlying idea is to list your house without actually listing it on the real estate market.
How Does Zillow Make Me Move Work?
Zillow Make Me Move essentially markets your property to prospective buyers and lets you know where your property stands in the real estate market. While it has significant limitations, the feature has similarities to a For Sale by Owner (FSBO) listing that helps owners to market their homes.
In a much simpler definition, you’ll market your property to potential buyers at what price you’d be willing to move and sell your house, but without actual listings.
With Make Me Move, you have an active listing with limitless time without getting labeled as a stale listing even if the property doesn’t sell. This is a great way to ease into selling your house and finding the right price without the traditional formality of MLS listings.
For participating users, the level of engagement a Makes Me Move listing receives can be an indicator of market interest in your property. If offers are rolling in at a steady rate, you’ll be able to compare the average offer price against the appraised value of your home.
👉 How to Sell a House by Owner: Read our in-depth guide
How to Post a Make Me Move Listing on Zillow
| # Step | Description |
|---|---|
| 1. | Create a Zillow profile, or if you have one, just log in to the site |
| 2. | Visit the site Make Me Move page on Zillow |
| 3. | Type in the full address of your property and then click “Continue” |
| 4. | Confirm the location of your address and then click “Save and Continue” |
| 5. | Set the price of your Make Me Move to list and upload your photos. Make sure the images are professional and appealing. Enter your home facts, additional details of your property, and the contact number. The listing description must be written so that it paints a subtle picture of your house in the buyer’s mind |
| 6. | Accept Zillow’s Terms of Use and then click “Post Make Me Move”. After that, you have to wait for 72 hours to verify your listing. |
How is Zillow Make Me Move Different From an FSBO Listing?
Zillow’s FSBO listing is accessible under the “Other Listings” tab which is not the default option when someone visits the Zillow website. The FSBO listings on Zillow are routed to contact agents and the owner’s information is not available by default.
In the case of the Make Me Move to list, visitors can directly contact the homeowner. This is Zillow Make Me Move’s killer advantage over Zillow’s FSBO listings.
Are Zillow Make Me Move Prices Negotiable?
Yes, some aspects of the program were negotiable. You could save on a listing agent commission and vary the buyer’s agent commission. It’s essentially similar to an FSBO listing and a way to gauge interest in your home. Make Me Move only showed listings on Zillow, so your home wouldn’t get the exposure a traditional listing would get on a local MLS.
👉 Low Commission Real Estate Agents: Check out America’s Best Low Commission Agents and Companies in 2023
Can You Set Alerts on Zillow?
Yes, Zillow supports a variety of alerts such as saved searches, virtual tour support, and a custom region selection filter.
- Saved Searches: Simply open up the search customization options, set your preferences (i.e. location, car spaces, number of bathrooms), and hit save.
- Virtual Tour Support: In the age of the pandemic, virtual tours have become a public health necessity. To set an alert for virtual tours, simply select “virtual tour availability” before submitting a tailored search query.
- Custom Regions: If you have customized preferences like seeing homes around your favorite bakery or near to the hospital? You can use Zillow’s “draw borderlines” function to set an alert for new listings within a very specific area.
Zillow Make Me Move Pros and Cons
✅ You can test the water before deciding to sell
This feature is great for those who just want to test the market before making any decisive move on actually selling their home. Verifying if your property will sell for a top-dollar rate or even sell—you get to know with Make Me Move.
✅ The service is free and non-obligatory
Zillow Make Me Move is free of charge and you can also modify or delete the posting any time you wish. If you’re lucky to get a potential buyer, you can either sell your home yourself, hire a professional real estate agent, or negotiate for a better price.
✅ You don’t need a home for sale sign
If you hate to be grilled with some questions from your friends, family, or neighbors, a Make Me Move service can help you with that. A for sale sign can attract people who aren’t really interested to buy the house, but rather just out of curiosity.
⛔ Real estate agents will contact you
The biggest disadvantage of choosing Make Me Move is the real estate agents who try to cold call you to get your listing. More often than not, tons of agents are visiting the listing. Zillow actually gains profits from selling consumers’ contact details to agents as leads. Agents will get your contact info from your Make Me Move to list and will use this to email or call you.
As a seller, you have very little control over who chooses to view your listing and contact you so bypassing the agents is not an option here.
⛔ Buyers may be wary about the seriousness
Since you’re not sure of your home’s price yet, potential buyers would not waste time picking your property. Also, Zillow Make Me Move listings are not actually on the market, so you won’t have as much traffic as you need. Instead of buyers, you’ll get agents who’ll try to get your property listing and make a deal with them.
⛔ Zillow filters can leave out potential listings
If buyers looking for a house remove potential listings in the search filter, they will never land on your listing and your house will get neglected by such advanced users. Unfortunately, these users are most likely to buy a house and make an offer, so you never really benefit from Make Me Move in this case.
Zillow Make Me Move Cost
Listing on Zillow is free. Zillow makes money by charging agents for premium services and by advertising agents, lenders, and other services. Every time an agent gets in touch with an owner and becomes their representative, Zillow earns a commission from that agent. This means you and potentially all buyers will find it much more difficult to connect with FSBO sellers directly.
Truly, the biggest benefit of the MMM feature is that the leads come directly to your phone or email whereas on a traditional FSBO or For Sale by Agent listing, the leads go to an agent if the buyer fills out the Contact form on the listing page.
Even though there’s no cost, you’ll likely end up paying the buyer’s agent commission, around 2.5% to 3% of your home’s final sale price. Zillow also wants to connect you with its listing agents, which means effectively you save 0%.
» What’s My Home’s Value: You can know your home’s market value with Houzeo’s free Home Worth Estimator. It helps you estimate the amount you will get upon sale.
Other Options You Should Consider
1. Sell to iBuyers
iBuyers make an offer on your property within 24-48 hours and can close within 7 days or more. Most iBuyers like Opendoor and Offerpad are also known to offer the Fair Market Value (FMV) for your property.
Selling to an iBuyer has certain significant drawbacks. These include:
- Limited coverage, restricted to metro and urban areas
- Strict eligibility criteria without exceptions
- Non-negotiable offers
- 5% service fee
- 2% – 8% repair costs
⭐ Our Take: We recommend iBuyers if your house meets the iBuyer company’s eligibility criteria.
👉 iBuyer Reviews: Check out rankings, pros, cons & alternatives of top iBuyers in America
2. Sell to “We Buy Homes for Cash” Companies
Unlike iBuyers, “We buy homes for cash” companies help you sell your house as-is fast. They can even close within 7 days or any date you choose. “We buy homes for cash” companies also make cash offers for homes outside metro areas or in difficult-to-sell locations.
Here’s why traditional cash home buyers could be a bad option for you than an iBuyer:
- They make lowball offers and offer only 50% – 70% of market value.
- Their offers are non-negotiable
⭐ Our Take: We recommend selling to a cash home buyer if you are selling a distressed house “as-is” without looking for the best price.
👉 “We Buy Homes for Cash” Companies: Check out America’s biggest cash home buyer companies in 2023
“Cash for Homes” Companies Near You
3. Sell FSBO With Flat Fee MLS Services
Listing with a Flat Fee MLS service gets your house on the market within just 24-48 hours. Selling For Sale By Owner has increased substantially in the past few years, with 77% of FSBO homes being sold in less than 2 weeks.
Flat Fee MLS is one of the best ways to sell your house fast, and it has 4 major benefits:
- MLS is the fastest way to hit the market, plus your listing is syndicated to Zillow, Realtor.com, etc.
- Your listing gets maximum exposure.
- You can negotiate all offers.
- You skip paying commission or service fees.
⭐ Our Take: We recommend Flat Fee MLS companies for most home sellers. They are fast, and you will save thousands in commissions.
👉 For Sale By Owner Websites: Check out the rankings for America’s best FSBO websites
Should You List Your House on Zillow Make Me Move?
If you’re willing to explore the market at the expense of your confidential contact data and time, then yes, you can give Make Me Move a shot. It’s a non-obligatory service that will let you test the real estate market and arrive at a selling price for your property, which can come in handy in case you plan to sell it in the future.
There’s no guarantee you’ll save on the realtor commissions though! After all, you need to list the house if you want to sell the house and Houzeo is the most technologically advanced platform that lets you do this from the comfort of your home.
👉 PRO TIP: List your home yourself via Houzeo’s Flat Fee MLS for $349 and save the entire 3% Listing Agent Commission!
📞 Need Help? Schedule a FREE Consultation
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Frequently Asked Questions
How do you set up Make Me Move on Zillow?
Visit Zillow.com and create an account. Route to the Make Me Move Listing page and start creating your potential listing. Include your address, curb appealing photos, and a concise description of your property so that prospective buyers get a feel of your house.
What's "Coming Soon" on Zillow?
Zillow has rolled out a new “coming soon” feature that allows agents, brokers and multiple listing services to market homes on its site up to 30 days before they hit the MLS. Sellers use this feature to create a hype about their property.
What is a Make Me Move Listing?
Make Me Move is a feature within Zillow's listing platform for sellers. Home sellers who want to test the waters can use Zillow's Make Me Move listing to see what kind of interest buyers will have in their property.
Does Zillow Make Me Move work?
Sellers will often get offers from buyers during this time, but they could turn off serious buyers by not being prepared to show the home or provide details. You can also expect phone calls from agents who want to help sell your property
Will Zillow buy your house?
Zillow Group launched Zillow Offers in 2018 as an iBuyer service, went on to add a few markets in 2019, but shut down all operations in November 2021. So, Zillow will not be buying your house.
Can I sell my house without a realtor?
Yes, all you need to do is be methodical about it. With a technologically advanced platform like Houzeo, listing your house on the MLS is simple and quick. All the paperwork has been digitized and you can make fast listing changes as well. Plus, you save on the traditional 3% commission fee while paying $299 only!
What are Zillow potential listings?
Zillow's potential listings are those that may come on the market soon but aren't yet listed. These listings include three types of homes: foreclosures, pre-foreclosures, and Make Me Move postings.
Is Zillow free for agents?
Yes, Zillow is free for everyone. Agents who advertise with Zillow Group are called Zillow Premier Agents. They receive branding and exposure on the most-visited real estate marketplace in the U.S. They also pay hefty commissions to Zillow every time they get a lead from Zillow. Essentially, any time the contact form is filled and an agent gets a property for selling, Zillow makes money.
Why did Zillow discontinue Make Me Move?
Zillow launched its iBuying service called Zillow Offers and decided to push customers to opt for instant cash offers. By not accepting Make Me Move listings anymore, Zillow is trying to divert customers towards its iBuying service. It is unclear if this is a permanent or temporary decision.
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