ZipRealty Reviews

Pros

Training on all aspects of the sales and listing process. Supportive and positive upper management.

Cons

Started out as an employee and a few months in they changed to independent contractors. Difficult for me as I was new to real estate and the only source of income for my family.

Advice to Senior Management

Keep providing stellar training to your new agents.

Pros

Great work/life balance. Managers are fair and generous with time off. Casual atmosphere and, at least with the manager and Director level and above, people don't watch the clock to see when you're there or not there. As long as you get the job done they are happy.

Cons

Company doesn't know where it's going and it's painful. One minute it's going one way only to make a 180 after a board meeting. No career growth and the company has a terrible legacy of promotions based on how the (former) CEOs liked you. The typical song and dance about "no bonuses or raises this year" only to learn there were in fact bonuses or raises given to some people. New CEO is smart but doesn't appear to recognize he's listening to the wrong people at times. Very frustrating.

Advice to Senior Management

You have a serious morale issue. Management isn't good about keeping its mouth shut so rumors spread like wild fire about everything. People don't feel appreciated (and I'm talking about HQ, not the agents...the agents are babied as it is).

Pros

most of the fellow realtors were wonderful

Cons

management lies to you and they take all the money leaving you with pocket change after you do all the work
You are treated like slave labor

Advice to Senior Management

pay people a decent wage and stopp stealing the sales peoples leads

Pros

They have a good CRM computer program to help agents

Cons

I went to ZIP because I was looking for more leads. Most of the leads have email only - no phone numbers, and tend to be non-responsive. I know that RE Lead companies are not producing nearly the number or quality of leads as a couple years ago so maybe it's just the market. Don't expect Zip to be a Silver Bullet - it's not.

Pros

For a new agent, you meet a lot of great agents who are willing to help you. There is always sharing of information and questions are answered promptly by colleagues and brokers/district directors.

Cons

Working from home can sometimes present a challenge- staying on task.

Advice to Senior Management

Change the marketing- all the advertisements on the site make us look less local and more of a web based site that only provides assistance via the internet.

Pros

Lots of leads generated from the website, agent software platform makes client and transaction tracking easy, expense reimbursement, management and broker support for new and inexperienced agents.

Cons

Lowest commisiom splits in industry. After buyer rebates and fees figure on about 0.5% of sale price if you handle all the paperwork yourself.

Advice to Senior Management

The agents do most of the work, pay them a living wage.

Pros

If you are brand new to the business, you may get a few leads. Because there is a 20% rebate in most of Zip's markets, some people will close deals with Zip agents based on that savings alone, so there is a motivation to use Zip Realty for some people.

Cons

Confusing and misleading tiered commission structure - new agents will receive about one third of the total commission, with the rest going to the company, with no annual cap.
Commission splits are so low that many agents are new or only part-time -- large turnover
Most of agent commission dollars go to large salaries and bonuses for corporate officers and Emeryville staff.
Recruiters promise new agents a large number of leads per month in order to get them to sign on; true number of leads is usually much less than that,

Advice to Senior Management

Zip no longer has the competitive edge that the website once provided, nor does the main office appear to respect the hard-working agents who pay their salaries. They started years ago with a unique idea (having employee status with benefits) and have since morphed into a less-than-average real estate company paying less-than average commissions while advertising a generous lead program that is, in many cases, grossly overstated.

Pros

Enjoyed meeting and working with lots of people

Cons

No job security and bad communication

Advice to Senior Management

Pay more attention to the committed and dedicated employees

Pros

Great Website, very informative and easy use.

Cons

Website abuse is to easy. Customers place phony info.

Advice to Senior Management

Improve comm. splits

Pros

Good website for searching, good back end platform for agents to manage leads. Good start for new agents.. training is geared to new agents

Cons

quality of leads is poor, most are low price point, you pay a rebate to buyer, compensation is way below industry standards, independent contract model is still being controlled by corporate..you really aren't running your own business, training geared to new agents. High turnover rate, leads are consisitency reassigned to other agents when an agent leaves the company..some of those poor zip leads have had 7-10 different agents trying to contact them. Don't leave the company with open transaction because they won't pay you your share..(at least in our district.) which stinks because other companies would pay let you finish out the transaction and pay you your portion of the commission ..

Advice to Senior Management

pay your agents, they work three times as hard to make money than at other companies....you need to close 3 deals compared to 1 at a 100% company to make the same take home pay.