Zillow: Real Estate, Apartments, Mortgages & Home Values

Founded in 2006 by two former Microsoft executives, Zillow offers the most robust suite of tools for buyers, sellers, landlords, renters, agents, and other home professionals. Zillows power and flexibility make it the best overall real estate website in our review.

Zillow has one of the most downloaded apps in both Android and Apple platforms. In Google Play, it has over 10 million downloads and has a rating of 4.7 stars out of 5 by more than 760,000 users.2 In the Apple Store, over six million people have given the app an overall rating of 4.8 stars out of 5.3

The primary Zillow app lets you search for homes and apartments, list yours for sale or rent, tour the home through pictures and videos when available, connect with agents and lenders, save your searches, and receive push notifications of updates to your search criteria.

Zillow sources postings from both the MLS, or multiple listing services, and non-MLS sources. Non-MLS sources include for sale by owner, non-MLS foreclosures, and auctions.

In short, Zillow is free to buyers and sellers and instead makes its money by charging advertising fees to agents, lenders, and other home service providers. It is a source to drive leads to the advertisers.