Realty is an important field. When Canadians are out there looking for houses and apartments, they need to make sure that they can find one that suits them.
Housing is a personal choice, and one needs to find a realtor that really cares about their job to find one that suits them right. Most Canadian's need more than just basic knowledge to make a proper decision, so realtors need to be willing to educate as well.
Enter Zolo Realty, one of Canada's more popular realtors. Every year, tons of people choose to find a house through Zolo. But how do they stand up to close scrutiny?
This article will act as a deep dive into Zolo realty letting you know the services they offer, and what people out there generally think of these realtors.
What Is Zolo Realty?
As their website states, Zolo is Canada’s largest, independent real estate marketplace. With over 8 million homes in their database, and over 10 million people finding homes with them every year, Zolo towers over the competition when it comes to Canadian realty.
With a company this big, we suggest that you take any individual review with a grain of salt. So many people use it, that some are bound to have outlying great or terrible experiences. Try to read between the lines.
Zolo is largely based online, with the Zolo online database and Zolo app being their most popular features. They seek to use the technologies we associate with the 21st century to give people more options than any of their competitors.
Short History
2012 was a huge year for people as there was more of a shift towards digital products than ever before. Zolo optimized their platform by working with technology gurus from Zilllow, Kijiji and Uber. They also sought out the assistance of award winning journalists and professionals in the real estate space. Smart moves such as those helped the platforms grow from a few, to millions of users every month.
How Does Zolo Work?
Once again, we can't emphasize enough how online Zolo is. If you're looking to deal with a real in-person agent, we recommend you go elsewhere. However, if you love 21st technology, proceed with Zolo.
The experience on Zolo is a completely free one. It provides users with detailed pictures of houses and rental properties in whatever location the user desires. Live updates will constantly keep customers in touch with what each individual property costs.
People will also be able to put their own properties up for listing on Zolo. It's not just for buyers, it's for sellers as well. If you're not sure you'll be able to sell your home by a certain deadline, consider making use of Zolo.
They also have an exclusive market feature. With this, they claim to be able to provide accurate readings on what your house will go for in the current market.
Zolo also has a list of realtors that you can make use of to help you find the home of your dreams. As stated earlier, Zolo realtors can sign up to specifically work for Zolo. You can look not only for the best houses but the best realtors for you.
This means that, if everything goes right, someone looking to move will be able to list their house on Zolo to find out how much they might get for it, find their dream home, see how much it costs, and find the right agent to help them check this house out.
Zolo Realty Brokerage
Zolo owns the most popular brokerage-owned search portal in Canada. If you're looking for the Google of Canadian homes, look no further than Zolo realty.
They boast that they're the only online brokerage that provides live coverage of updates within the market. They're able to do this via a special algorithm that reduces lag and allows those real-time updates.
With plenty of employees working for Zolo, there are a large number of brokers for you to choose from. This is also something you should take into consideration when reading reviews — certain reviews might be written toward a particular broker and may not entirely represent the company.
Zolo Realty Agents
Speaking of which, let' stalk a bit about their realty agents. Through websites like Crunchbase, it's easy to find the names and contact information of each of their realty agents.
Zolo boasts on their website over 750 realty agents, so there is a number of which you can choose from. For the most part, you'll be working with them online through phone, text, or email. They also employ plenty of tech experts from companies as successful as Uber and Zillow, so their online service is constantly becoming more and more advanced.
Zolo Realty Commission
There are a lot of terms, fees, and transactions you have to deal with when buying a home. Thankfully, Zolo has some articles on their website that serve to help you understand what you'll be going through.
Zolo's website states that the average real estate commission is between five and seven percent. However, we recommend looking through this whole article for more information.
Zolo Realty Commission Split
As is standard, all commissions on Zolo properties are split between the buyer's agent and the seller's agent. This ensures that both sides of the transaction wind up happy.
Buying on Zolo
Most people who make use of the services offered by Zolo will be seeking to buy a house. All you need to do to start is to head to their site and click on the "buy" section.
Right on the first page, you can see houses ranging in styles, prices, and locations. Just this first page will give you a selection of many different abodes to buy from.
You'll notice quickly that certain houses you can't view without an online Zolo account. However, don't worry about this. You won't have to pay any money to create this sort of account, Zolo usage is completely free.
If you have questions on whether you should buy or rent a house, we recommend reading our article on the topic.
Selling on Zolo
If you want to sell on Zolo, all you need to do is head over to their website and put your cursor over the button that says "sell". You'll get two options, "Sell with Zolo", and "How Much is My Home Worth?"
The "Sell with Zolo" section won't give you any home listings, but will instead walk you through the process of putting your home up on the digital market. You'll start by putting in your address, and then Zolo will walk you through the process of photographing your house and listing it.
They'll also walk you through the process of creating an online 3D walkthrough, which is one of the best ways to make sure that people understand what your house is like.
If you want to understand more about the market, check out this article on the real estate bidding wars in Canada.
Renting on Zolo
There's not actually a specific "rent" button on the Zolo website, which is a potential flaw. All of the rental properties are under the "buy" section. However, you'll be able to spot them right away, since their prices are monthly, and significantly lower than those of properties you'd buy.
On Zolo, you can view images of all sorts of rental apartments, everything from several bedroom apartments that you can live with several people in, to a little one bedroom for you to live in on your own.
Zolo doesn't discriminate on the type of living spaces different people are looking for. It's not just for those making the giant move of finding a new house. It's also for those trying to simply find a new place to dwell in temporarily.
Zolo App
According to Crunchbase, the above-cited source, there have been over 27 thousand downloads in the past thirty days.
You might be surprised to learn that there's more than one Zolo app. Zolo Real Estate & Apartments and Real Estate in Canada by Zolo are the most popular Zolo-based apps, one for Apple Store and one for Google Play. This means that no matter what device you use, you can download Zolo.
While you can also pull up Zolo to use right on your browser, the Zolo app allows anyone to check the market on the go. If that house you're looking at suddenly drops in price, you'll be able to find out about it immediately, no matter where you are.
Zolo even works to create a completely integrated experience. You can log into the account you create on the Zolo browser on the app, in order to continue viewing your preferred houses when you're on the go.
Zolo Realty FAQs
Below are the commonly asked questions online:
Since Zolo operates for free, you're probably wondering — how do they turn a profit?
Zolo, much like other free services such as YouTube, turns a profit through their partners. Zolo partners with certain realtors and provide them with leads in return for a cut of the profit. Zolo works as a base whereby not only can people looking for houses find a place to live, but realtors can also find a way to kickstart their business.
As of 2018, Zolo also has a lead subsidiary program. Through this program, they work with lenders and provide them with leads who fight for your business.
If you're concerned about your cybersecurity, we can understand why. Canada is now 3rd in the world when it comes to cybersecurity breaches. The slightest mishap can lead hackers from around the world onto your device.
However, there's nothing to worry about cybersecurity-wise when it comes to Zolo. Tons of people use Zolo yearly, so you can trust that it isn't some hole-in-the-wall website.
You also never have to give out your personal information on Zolo, so you're almost certainly safe.
If you're selling your home or looking for someone to rent/sublet your apartment, you likely can post on Zolo.
The idea is that it's sort of like a YouTube for houses. Zolo makes it extremely easy for anyone to make a listing, assembling a database for anyone who's looking for a house.
As stated earlier, Zolo makes money getting a cut of what their licensed realtors make. The more houses they have on the market, the more likely their realtors are to make a sale. This is why Zolo doesn't only allow but encourages users like you to list your locations.
The Reviews
As stated earlier, Zolo reviews are largely based on experiences with individual realtors. Each realtor comes into Zolo with their own levels of experience and personality.
That being said, it's easy to get off-put by people's experiences. We'd say that around 70 percent of reviews currently out there for Zolo Realty are actually negative.
However, on the other hand, you have to consider that people's negative reactions are generally to Zolo's agent service. Zolo's reliance on building an online database might mean they've slacked a bit when it comes to hiring agents.
Generally, the people who just used Zolo online to find places have a positive experience. We recommend using Zolo as a search engine but hiring your own realtor.
If you've read our other reviews of similar companies, you'll know that a diversity of opinion is nothing new.
Understand Views of Zolo Realty
At the end of the day, it's hard to give Zolo Realty one "review". Zolo is bigger than the experience one company provides, it all comes down to the individual homes, buyers, sellers, and brokers. Trying to review Zolo would be like trying to review Uber — there are too many X factors to count.
However, at the end of the day, we have to applaud Zolo for creating such a vibrant online community. As far as Canadian realty goes, there's no one who provides so many wonderful options.
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