Zillow Gone Wild, bringing unreal real estate to your screen

Sometimes real estate can seem a little unreal, which is good for Samir Mezrahi, who runs the popular social media account Zillow Gone Wild, which publishes houses “see it to believe it. “, to the surprise and delight of his more than two million followers. . From tall castles to underground bunkers, and seemingly everything in between, what was once behind closed doors is now just a click away, thanks to Zillow, the most popular online real estate market.

“You never know what’s going on in a house,” Mezrahi said. “The outside is normal, and the inside is just mirrors, or they have a basement with, you know, a stripper stick and lights.”

Zillow Gone Wild and similar accounts (such as Zillowtastrophes and The best of Zillow [sic]), have increased in popularity during the pandemic. With so many trapped at home, fantasizing about another home was irresistible. It has been dubbed “Zillow surfing”, meaning scrolling through the platform’s 135 million listings, often with no intention of buying, a pastime “Saturday Night Live” parodied last year:

A property in New Berlin, Wisconsin, had been on and off the market for about five years, but received offers a few days after Zillow Gone Wild showed its appeal outdoors and indoors.

Correspondent Nancy Chen asked Mezrahi, “How would you describe this decoration?”

“Flipstones,” he replied. “It’s very Flintstones style. Modern Flintstones, the rooms.”

Dustin and Tessa Maher bought it without seeing each other. “Sunday Morning” joined them as they experienced it for the first time. “This is the wow, the first wow,” Dustin said, entering.

Chen asked, “How did you know about this list?”

“This is Zillow’s list,” Tessa said. “One of my mutual friends had to share it and it immediately caught my eye.”

Knowing that it caught the attention of millions of others was a selling point for the Mahers, who plan to turn the house into a holiday rental property. But it also meant that they had to act quickly. Dustin said, “There’s just more eyes and more social evidence that it’s an interesting house. And I think the timing and everything was right for this thing to sell quickly. And if we didn’t understand it, someone else would.”

Amanda Pendelton, a Zillow home trends expert, said: “The appeal of online braking is definitely the new attraction of braking. And what we’ve seen is that agents really do their best to your listings stand out online and your list may go viral. “

Even if that means adding a little more to your list, such as cameos from a T-Rex or a medieval knight.

“So agents want their homes to go viral?” Chen asked.

“It’s free marketing for these marketers, isn’t it?” Pendelton replied. “You know, there’s a right buyer for each of these houses, but that right buyer isn’t necessarily in this neighborhood or city or even in this state. But when these listings go viral, they suddenly see them potential buyers from across the country “.

So, whether you are in the market for a tree house, whatever it is …

… With enough displacement, a man’s house can really be his castle.

For more information:

• zillow.com
• Zillow Gone Wild (Instagram)

Story produced by David Rothman. Editor: Erin McLaughlin.

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• Real state