Zillow unveils interactive ‘drone-like experience’ along with other new features

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Zillow on Tuesday announced a slate of five new features, all geared toward giving renters and homebuyers insights and the competitive edge in a topsy-turvy market.

The features include:

• SkyTour: SkyTour is a Zillow Showcase exclusive that transforms aerial drone footage into a 3D tour experience. The feature leverages Gaussian splatting, an emerging rendering technology used in gaming and virtual production. SkyTour gives homebuyers a panoramic view of a home’s exterior and the surrounding lot.
• Offer Insights: Available on all for-sale listings, Offer Insights leverages Zillow Zestimates, sales history, days on market, and real-time local market data to help homebuyers understand what makes a winning offer. Offers are categorized into “strong,” “competitive,” “moderate” and “weak” categories, and include a call-to-action to contact a local agent for additional advice.
• Rental costs and fees breakdown: Zillow Rentals listings will now include detailed rental costs and fees breakdowns. The breakdowns include application fees, move-in expenses, monthly rent, and additional recurring fees, such as trash pick-up or parking. Renters will also have access to an affordability calculator, so they have a personalized estimate on one-time and repeat expenses for a listing.
• Tour itineraries: Buyers’ agents and clients can easily coordinate their touring schedules through a shared tour list. The feature will map out the location of each listing on the shared tour list, helping agents and homebuyers maximize their time.
• BuyAbility: An affordability tool powered by Zillow Home Loans, BuyAbility has been around since November 2024. However, the tool has received an upgrade, with expanded real-time affordability estimates for homebuyers’ target price, based on their desired monthly payment, and their maximum budget, based on what they may qualify for — both of which are important for calculating an accurate budget.

“These updates simplify home shopping headaches, such as hidden costs and budget uncertainty, while making it easier (and more fun) to browse, plan and tour,” the portal said in a statement. “With these tools, Zillow is leading the category for the kind of smart, seamless digital experience people expect throughout their real estate journey.”

In a conversation with Inman, Zillow Group SVP of Agent Software and Advertising Cynthia Taylor said she and her team are excited about all of the new features; however, SkyTour will be a main differentiator.

Taylor said SkyTour gives listing agents and their clients an additional way to make a listing standout, and gives homebuyers another layer of insight to envision themselves in a home.

“When you’re shopping for a home, you really want to get a deep sense of that home,” she said. “SkyTour has this interactive drone-like experience to showcase listings. And I say drone-like because there is not anything like it out there today. Instead of just passively watching a video or watching a drone fly over, buyers actually control their view.”

“They control panning around the house, zooming in from above, getting that deep, all-encompassing view of how that house sits on the lot, what the yard looks like, what the surroundings are,” she added. “And it just helps buyers build confidence and clarity, especially if they’re shopping remotely and they want to get a deeper feel for the property before committing to an in-person tour.”

Taylor said SkyTour and the other four features address several crucial pain points that consumers identified in several surveys, including affordability, effective tour scheduling and coordination, and additional context about a home’s features and the wider market.

“… Empowered shoppers are ready, and they are coming to agents better informed and better equipped to get going faster,” she said. “[That] just helps the agent better provide an elevated level of service, because this client is coming to them knowing the questions to ask, the things to bring up, and the things that are, you know, really important to discuss as a part of the process, so they can actually land that home or find that rental.”

Ultimately, this year’s summer launch all goes toward fulfilling Zillow’s mission of creating what CEO Jeremy Wacksman calls a “delightful homebuying experience.”

“I’ll speak about it from the agent side first because my team spends all of our time thinking about the real estate professional and how we can help them serve their clients better,” Taylor said. “So when we’re thinking about features that can both make homebuying or selling more delightful for the consumer, the best type of solution also has a corresponding agent benefit.”

“Agents are super busy. They’re working with a number of clients, both buying and selling at the same time, and it’s really hard to manage a lot of the aspects of the day-to-day,” she added. “And so when we’re thinking about product development, we’re looking for features and products that address real pain points for the professional and for the consumer.”

Email Marian McPherson