The real estate industry is going through a large digital transition. For many players in the market, this means constantly working on innovation and developing new ways to help individuals and firms invest, market, and transact within the built world. The last couple of years saw a rise in the real estate online platforms, with different players offering different services to their customers in order to gain a piece of the market share.
One of these players that recognized the wave and decided to create their own market is Zimmo. “As a start-up bought by the publisher Mediahuis, Zimmo’s main value proposition is to facilitate the process between the seller, the broker, the buyer as well as the notaries” tells Yves Vanderveken, Zimmo’s Business Director. While several real estate agents and platforms have been acquired by banks or other financial institutions, Zimmo has remained true to itself as an advertising & service powerhouse to all real estate agents and real estate firms.
To ensure the future of real estate pro’s – and help them in coping with challenges ahead- Zimmo wants to enhance the collaboration between real estate agents. That’s the reason Zimmo for example will be soon launching its own MLS: Multilist. Self-evident in the US, but never done before in the Belgian real estate ecosystem. Besides this, the Zimmo Group is also active in the real estate software with the Zabun CRM.
On the other hand, now, more than ever, they are focused on customer centricity and customer satisfaction. For example, Yves explains that in real estate, people want to know more, and they want to be more informed, this is why transparency is key, especially to their 6.2 million website visitors per month. With that in mind, Zimmo provides an online free property valuation simulator, an innovative tool – a lot of effort on working with data and building on this model was needed to succeed. On prijswijzer.be the buyer or seller can obtain accurate information on price, energy score, characteristics of location …etc. just by the input of minimal information such as location and property type.
More so, innovations in proptech have a lot of room for growth. For example, on the micro and macro-levels of the industry, the technology has barely changed. Some may argue that the user experience and the services are different, but comparing the state of technology, of the industry, to 10 years ago, it is still very similar. Yves mentions that while the Belgian market is not getting the traction that it deserves, it is moving fast in the right direction as startups, scaleups and corporates are trying to broaden the scope of the market. This can be true if companies are able to leverage the internal and external capabilities of the industry. One-way Zimmo has been successful in this domain is through their close-to-100 individual employees, the online media shop has recognized their internal technical expertise’ skills and resources and has been constantly innovating their platform and user experience.
However, while Zimmo has become a referral partner to the real estate agent & developer or even the notary office, improving the customer’s journey on the backend, is not enough. Yves explains that even though their platform is a multi-purpose platform, such as a multiple listing service, automated valuation, correct amended information for where to build and vacant plots, there is still a lot of room for growth and new initiatives.
A new Zimmo APP
The Belgian real estate market is gaining speed during/after the recent Covid-19 lockdowns. For that reason, consumers need to be on top of the latest listings published online. As a potential buyer, you simply don’t want to miss out on your new home-office with a large garden. That’s why -among other features- the new app from Zimmo uses real-time push notifications. App users get notified immediately when a new listing matches their needs. The new Zimmo app also provides a solid and simple UX/UI in which users can search for listings, draw polygonal search regions on the map, set alerts and off course easily can get in touch with the provider of the listing -be it a broker, notary or private person- to strive to a transaction.
Also very important is that someone looking for a place to live can be sure he or she is not missing out on properties. With more than 1750 agents and developers publishing their properties on the Zimmo website and app, Zimmo provides the best inventory of the market and takes away the fear of missing out.
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