Zillow is a real estate marketplace that allows users to search for homes, apartments, and other properties for sale or rent. The company was founded in 2005 and is headquartered in Seattle, Washington. On the other hand, the Zillow logo is a simple yet effective design that uses the company’s name in a bold, sans-serif font. The logo is red, which is a color that is often associated with passion, energy, and excitement. But while the logo is simple and easy to remember, how much of history and evolution do you know?
To remedy this situation this article will discuss the history of the Zillow logo, as well as the design elements that make it so effective. We will also provide some tips for creating your own effective logo.
Overview
In 2019, the current Zillow logo was unveiled. While it wasn’t a complete overhaul of the previous version, the real estate firm did refresh and simplify its visual identity.
The square to the left of “Zillow” was removed, and the color of the house graphic was reversed to a white “Z” inside a blue house shape. “Zillow” is now written in a bright blue with a thicker font. Overall, however, the Zillow logo still resembles a house with a “Z.”
According to Zillow, the redesign was created to “bring joy and simplicity to the home search process.”The online real estate platform has also launched its own mortgage lending app, Zillow Home Loans, as well as redesigned its website with more extensive listing images and a new logo.
What is Zillow?
The full name of the company is Zillow Group, Inc. It is a company based in the United States that sells real estate through its online platform. She has been employed since 2006.
The Origins of the Zillow Logo
This service is critical for Americans because it allows them to find suitable housing in any city in the country quickly. It contains useful information on over a hundred million houses. And the original emblem adds recognition, which has changed three times in its long history. These are four different variations of the same brand name.
2004 – 2006
The first was a pre-launch logo. It only included the organization’s name. The word “Zillow” is written in elongated thin black lines. The letter arrangement is free, with an optimal inter-character distance. The text is easily readable when it is black on a white background. On the right, separated by commas, is the second part of the company name: “LLC.” It denotes its legal status and is written in gray characters in abbreviated form (abbreviation).
2006-2008
Both the web resource and the logo were tested in the early years, so they were test versions. The “Beta” designation in the upper right corner indicates this situation. The main space of the logo is devoted to the service’s name, which is accompanied by a domain address – “Zillow.com.” In front of it is a graphic icon. It resembles a broad, three-colored arrow pointing upwards. Furthermore, the figure has irregular geometric elements, between which the white letter “Z” can be seen. The company’s motto is written in very small print at the bottom: “Your Edge in Real Estate.”
2008 – 2019
The following version almost exactly replicates the previous one. The difference is the larger size of all components and the lack of the Internet domain “.com.” In addition, the designers have removed the indication that this is a beta version.
2019 – Today
‘The color, font, and composition of the arrow with a “Z” in the middle have been changed in the modern logo. The letter crosses the graphic in the same way that the “Zorro” character does. Furthermore, the developers redesigned the wide arrow into a house to further associate the icon with the site’s theme, and the bottom inscription was removed.’The color, font, and composition of the arrow with a “Z” in the middle have been changed in the modern logo. The letter crosses the graphic in the same way that the “Zorro” character does. Furthermore, the developers redesigned the wide arrow into a house to further associate the icon with the site’s theme, and the bottom inscription was removed.
Zillow Logo Font and Color Scheme
The logo for Zillow has evolved alongside the company and its website. He received new features after each redesign that did not change its essence but emphasized its focus. As a result, the emblem is a vivid demonstration of the transformation of the simple into… the simple. Initially, The branding was minimalistic, then overgrown with details, and finally dropped everything unnecessary. As a result, the name and the graphic element of an upward-pointing arrow or a house remained.
Zillow Symbol
Despite the differences in typeface, all emblems use a variation of the same font family, Sans Serif. Because the wide sans serif letters are stable, the grotesque lettering looks harmonious. The palette previously consisted of pastel blue (# 5477bb) and green (# 87bc43). It is now only bright blue.
What Font Is Used in the Zillow Logo?
The inscriptions are made in the Sans Serif typeface, despite the differences in the texts of the logos of different times. They use a sleek sans serif font in lower case, except for the first letter in the name, which is capitalized.
Why Did Zillow Change its Logo?
The logo was changed as part of a large-scale rebranding effort, including launching a mortgage lending service and a complete website redesign. According to Zillow, the new logo represents the ease and convenience of finding properties.
What Company Did Zillow Recently Acquire?
Zillow paid $ 500 million for the Chicago service ShowTime, which specializes in real estate and produces software for the home display of objects, at the end of September 2021.
How Do You Obtain the Best Zillow Badge?
Employees of the agency who receive 90 or more points on a home sale are awarded the Best of Zillow badge. They are marked on the website. Realtors must serve their clients as efficiently as possible to obtain it.
The Origins of Zillow
Zillow is a web-based real estate company whose mission is to assist agents, buyers, home marketers, sellers, renters, landlords, property managers, and mortgage professionals in finding and sharing vital information about homes, real estate, mortgages, and home improvement.
The Zillow brand also operates many other departments, the most popular of which are Zillow.com, Zillow Rentals, Zillow Mortgage Marketplace, Zillow Digs, and Zillow Mobile.
The Zillow portal contains information and data on numerous homes in the United States and Canada. Zillow joined the NASDAQ Stock Exchange in July 2011.
History from the Beginning
Rich Barton discovered that the real estate industry needed to be transformed while working at Microsoft, inspiring him to seek Zillow funding. Zillow was founded in December 2004, but its website didn’t go live until February 2006. In 2010, Spencer Rascoff was named CEO of Zillow, with Barton remaining as executive chairman.
Zillow entered the property buying market in 2018 with Zillow Offers. The following year, Zillow and Century 21 Canada agreed to list Canadian home listings on Zillow’s website. Canada was the first country outside of the United States to be featured on this website.
Although Zillow has seen notable highs in the real estate market, the company has also seen some lows. After falling for four years, Zillow’s stock rose 18% in 2020. When the COVID-19 pandemic hit in March of the same year, Zillow’s CEO announced a 25% cut in expenses and a hiring freeze.
In 2018/2019, Zillow began purchasing homes to become the market leader. Rich Barton announced in November 2021 that Zillow would lay off 25% of its workforce, sell its inventory, and shut down its online purchasing platform.
When Zillow announced that it would stop buying homes, it owned approximately 7,000 properties. Zillow Offers, the company’s department in charge of buying and selling homes, cost the company $420 million in the third quarter of 2021.
Zillow’s Business Model
Zillow describes itself as a media company that makes money by selling advertising on its official website. As part of the Zillow Newspaper Consortium, the company announced a collaboration in April 2009 to lease its real estate/property search engine to the websites of over 180 US newspapers. The company splits advertising revenue from co-branded websites with the papers and expands its market penetration in local markets.
According to comScore Media Metrix, Zillow signed an exclusive partnership agreement with Yahoo! Real Estate in February 2011, creating the largest real estate ad network online.
Renters can pay their landlords online for properties listed on Zillow Rental Manager. Renters who pay with credit or debit cards are charged a transaction fee. On the other hand, renters can avoid fees by using ACH.
In 2018, the company launched Zillow Flex, a flat-fee referral program with no upfront costs. When a broker completes a real estate transaction with a customer, they pay Zillow a referral fee through escrow. Blanket referral fees received by Zillow Group are not disclosed to customers but are likely in the 30% to 40% range of the total broker’s commission. Real estate brokers in the Zillow Flex network must be willing to pay a flat referral fee when a transaction is completed.
Features of the Zillow Website
Zillow has information on approximately 110 million homes in the United States. The company provides several features, including estimated home values, value fluctuations for each home over a specified period, prices of comparable homes in the neighborhood, and aerial views of properties.
It also includes basic information about each home, such as the number of bathrooms, bedrooms, and square footage. Users can also find estimates for properties that have undergone significant improvements, such as a kitchen remodel.
Zillow introduced features toward the end of 2006 that allowed users to list homes for sale online and set a price and a real estate online encyclopedia. The same year, Zillow collaborated with Microsoft to offer Microsoft Virtual Earth, a feature that displays aerial photos.
In December 2009, Zillow expanded its listings by including rental homes.
At the end of 2013, Zillow took over AOL Real Estate. The following year, Zillow acquired control of the MSN Real Estate portal. In October 2017, the company announced plans to include 3D tours to capture 360° photos of properties customers were interested in buying or renting.
In July 2018, Zillow launched a tool for potential renters to send landlords an eviction history and credit check report.
According to reports, the company received 36 million unique visitors to its website in January 2019.
Mortgage Marketplace on Zillow
Zillow launched the Zillow Mortgage Marketplace service in April 2008. Borrowers can use the service to get personalized loan quotes without revealing any personal information.
Zillow Tips
Zillow launched Zillow Advice in December 2008, allowing users to ask real estate-related questions online and receive answers from the site’s expert community.
The Zillow Mobile App
Users can view homes nearby using Zillow Mobile apps based on their location.
Data on the Real Estate Market
Zillow generates property value data for over 130 metropolitan statistical areas and the rest of the United States. Home value reports from Zillow categorize market trends such as negative equity, foreclosure transactions, short sales, and 5- to 10-year annualized change.
Furthermore, Zillow conducts a survey to assess homeowner confidence. The survey, conducted by Harris Interactive, assesses homeowners’ perceptions of home value fluctuations in their local market and their own homes.
Maps of Neighborhood Boundaries
Zillow’s data team created a database of nearly 7,544 neighborhood borders in America’s largest cities and made it available under the Sharealike license.
Zillow’s Most Recent Purchases
- Zillow purchased postlets in April 2011. Postlets is a web-based platform for creating and distributing real estate lists. The terms of the transaction were not made public by Zillow.
- Zillow purchased Diverse Solutions in November 2011 for $7.8 million.
- RentJuice was purchased by Zillow for $40 million in May 2012. RentJuice is a SaaS company that provides online tools to help property managers and landlords lease and sell rental properties.
- In October 2012, Zillow acquired the real estate collaboration and shopping platform Buyfolio.
- Zillow paid $17 million for Mortech, a mortgage technology firm based in Lincoln, Nebraska, in November 2012.
- Zillow paid $16 million for HotPads in November 2012. HotPads, founded in 2005, lists rental and real estate listings on an online map-based interface.
- In August 2013, Zillow paid $50 million for StreetEasy.
- In July 2014, Zillow acquired Retsly, a Canadian startup that allows developers to access real estate data from various listing services.
- In addition, Zillow paid $3.5 billion for Trulia in July 2014. The following February, the company completed its acquisition of Trulia and launched the Zillow Group company portfolio.
- Zillow Group acquired Dotloop for $108 million in July 2015.
- Zillow Group purchased Naked Apartments for $13 million in January 2016.
- Zillow Group purchased Bridge Interactive in August 2016.
- The Zillow Group announced a deal to acquire ShowingTime in February 2021. ShowingTime had purchased Showing Suite for $500 million.
Since its launch, the Zillow website and mobile app have been visited by over 35 million people. With new and improved features, an increasing number of people visit the company’s website and app. Many regularly visit the site and app to learn about new updates and features.
Conclusion
Ex-Microsoft executives Lloyd Frink and Rich Barton and colleagues Spencer Rascoff, David Beitel, and Kristin Acker founded Zillow in 2006. While working at Microsoft, Frink and Barton founded Expedia. For nearly a decade, Spencer Rascoff was Zillow’s CEO, but Rich Barton took over in 2019.
Zillow is one of the most popular online businesses in the United States. When people viewed more than 480 million homes on its mobile app in May 2014, the company broke all sorts of records. As a result, Zillow is regarded as one of the world’s leading real estate apps.
Zillow now has approximately 110 million home/property listings on its website. Despite many listings, the Zillow website includes extra features to help with home buying. The website includes features such as aerial views of homes, the estimated value of a home, the fluctuation in a property’s value over time, and so on.
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