Why do buyers use Zillow instead of our brokerage website?
Buyers may choose you as their agent and still use Zillow to search. Their saved homes and alerts may already be there. Your site may also make search harder. Ask what brings them back before you buy new tools. The cause on your site needs a check.
| What the buyer says | What to check on your site |
|---|---|
| “My alerts are already on Zillow.” | Can the buyer save the same search on your site? |
| “I can’t find that home.” | Does your feed include it, and do your filters hide it? |
| “The map is hard to use.” | Can the buyer search and open homes on a phone? |
| “I don’t want a sales call yet.” | Does a form block the home before the buyer can view it? |
These are clues to test, not facts about every buyer.
A buyer calls you on a Tuesday. She wants three bedrooms, two baths, a yard, one school district, and a price ceiling she already worked out with her lender. You promise to send anything that fits.
Then a closing and an inspection take up your week. On Friday you finally email her a match. It’s already pending.
The follow-up lived in your head and on a to-do list. Nothing on your website was doing that job while you were busy.
A saved search does that job. It is a stored set of listing criteria that emails a buyer automatically when a new or updated listing matches it, so the buyer never has to run the same search twice.
Many buyers start the search on their own. In the NAR 2024 Profile of Home Buyers and Sellers (buyers who purchased between July 2023 and June 2024), 43% said their first step was looking at properties online. 21% said their first step was contacting an agent. Those buyers searched for a median of 10 weeks. (NAR’s published highlights give no figure for how many buyers use saved searches, so I can’t give you that number.)
So a lot of that searching can happen without you. Saved searches on a real estate website can do it for her, and they run either on your site or on a portal.
Who holds the buyer’s attention, you or the portal
Zillow’s help center (page updated December 2023) says the visitor is prompted to sign in, name the search, and set how often updates arrive. Redfin puts the account first. Its help page on saved searches (updated September 2022) tells the buyer to create an account and log in before she can save a search.
Every saved search your buyer builds there sits in her Zillow or Redfin account. In my view, the portal gains the most here. It sends the alert, and her habit of opening it and clicking through stays with the portal, even if she already works with you.
On your own site, the email comes from you and the click lands on your listing page. The criteria also tell you what she wants in her own words: the area, the beds, the top price.
Some IDX saved search setups make the visitor register first. Since version 7.2.2 (per the plugin’s changelog), MLS Import has saved searches in its standalone mode only. The visitor gives a name and an email and doesn’t create an account. Nothing is sent until she clicks a confirmation email. The site owner gets an email when she confirms, and the searches appear in a plain wp-admin list (name, email, criteria, status, last sent). After that, the site sends at most one email a day, and only when imports added or updated a matching listing since the day before. No match means no email.
Do I need a CRM for saved search emails?
No. MLS Import sends saved search emails in standalone mode without a separate CRM. A CRM helps when you also need contact notes, call tasks and deal tracking. See what MLS Import includes and when to add a CRM to plan your setup.
Confirmation is consent
A confirmation click tells you she wants these emails.
The law doesn’t ask for that click. The FTC’s CAN-SPAM Act: A Compliance Guide for Business says you don’t need to get members’ consent to send them marketing emails. The rules the guide does spell out include letting people opt out. A confirmation step is your own choice.
Your saved search email alerts still fall under that law. The FTC’s list of “transactional or relationship” messages is short, and the guide says the law reads those categories narrowly. A new-listings email doesn’t fit any of them. I read it as commercial email, whether Zillow sends it or your one-agent WordPress site does.
Every alert needs your valid postal address and an unsubscribe that works. The guide says the opt-out must keep working for at least 30 days after you send, and you must honor a request within 10 business days. Each email that breaks the rules can cost up to $53,088 (the FTC’s figure after its January 2024 inflation update).
The confirmation click makes it hard to sign up by accident. The unsubscribe link makes it easy to leave.
An alert is only as good as the feed behind it
Zillow’s help page on email types consumers can receive (updated December 2023) says a saved search for “sale listings in Seattle” will not generate an email at all. A narrower search, one ZIP code with a price range, will. And when a search is too wide, the email shows “a randomized collection of all available results.”
So on Zillow, how the search is set up changes what the email shows. Property alerts for buyers on your own site have a separate weak point, and that’s your data. An alert can only send what’s in your listing feed at the moment it runs. If a price drop hasn’t reached your site yet, the email can’t include it. If a sold home still shows as active, she gets excited about a house she can’t buy.
Before real estate listing alerts do your follow-up, test the feed. Pick a listing in your market that changed price this week and check whether your site shows the new price.
None of this replaces a phone call. Saved searches on your real estate website are help for the weeks you can’t follow up by hand, and your buyer still needs to hear your voice.
This week, ask your three most active buyers where their listing alerts come from. If they say Zillow or Redfin, those alerts come from the portal, not from you. Offer to set up the same criteria on your own site, then think about what that lead should turn into once they’re back on your site.
If your buyers keep going back to a portal even after they meet you, start with this checklist: why buyers who find you still search on Zillow.
This video shows how saved searches work on a website with MLSImport.
Where do your buyers get their alerts today? Tell us in the comments!
Test the search before you ask buyers to switch
Test your website with a buyer’s real search before you ask them to change a habit. A working feed is one part of a useful search. The map, filters, saved search, and email links must work too.
- Ask a buyer for the area, price, and home type they want.
- Run that search on your site using a phone.
- Check a few homes against your MLS.
- Save the search and confirm the email.
- When a matching home changes, check that the next alert opens the right page.
- Ask the buyer to try it. Record what still feels hard.
Count return visits and saved searches before and after the change. Keep the test dates and buyer feedback. More listings alone do not prove that buyers prefer your site.
Frequently asked questions about keeping buyers on your website
Can MLS Import help buyers search on our own site?
Yes. MLS Import puts approved MLS listings on your WordPress site. You can use its own search tools or connect listings to a supported real estate theme. Start with the MLS access requirements, then choose the setup that fits your theme. On supported real estate themes, check the theme’s saved-search tools.
Will adding MLS Import make buyers stop using Zillow?
No. MLS Import gives you tools for search and follow-up on your own site. Buyers still choose where they browse. Help them set up a useful search, test it on their phone, and ask what would make them return. Your local advice gives them another reason to stay in touch. Read do imported listing pages get more buyers to search on our site instead of Zillow.
What does this setup cost, and how long does it take?
MLS Import starts at $49 a month for one MLS board, with a 30-day free trial. Hosting and any board fees cost extra. You need WordPress and approved feed access. There is no fixed launch time: board approval, page setup, and testing all affect it. See current plans.
What should we do when a buyer finds a home on Zillow?
Ask them to send you the link and tell you what they like. Help them judge the home, then offer a matching search on your site. Use listing change alerts to help plan your next call.
What makes your buyers come back to your site? Share what you tried in the comments.
Three things worth your time
MLS PIN now sends Coming Soon listings to IDX sites
On September 24, MLS PIN in Massachusetts started sending Coming Soon listings by default to brokerage IDX websites, VOW sites and the portals an office has opted into. A broker can turn this off for the whole office, and a single listing can be opted out in Listings Manager. The same morning, Massachusetts broker Steve Novak pulled his live MLS PIN feed. It had 39,195 listings in eight statuses and no Coming Soon listings, so the change may take time to reach every feed. If you’re an MLS PIN member, check whether Coming Soon listings arrive on your site, and what label and search filter they get.
Read more: MLS PIN · Steve Novak
Hernando County’s MLS is closing, and Stellar MLS takes over
On September 23, Stellar MLS announced that the West Pasco Board of REALTORS and the Hernando County Association of REALTORS have merged into West Pasco Hernando REALTORS. Hernando County’s single-association MLS will be discontinued, and Stellar MLS becomes the only MLS for the merged association. The announcement gives no date for the change. If your website gets its listings from the Hernando MLS, ask the association which MLS access your site will use after the change. When the new feed starts, compare your listing count and statuses with the MLS before you turn off the old connection.
Read more: Stellar MLS
Someone copied your listing: two MLSs now watch for it
ARMLS in Arizona now gives its members Property Shield at no extra cost. The service searches the web and social media for fake listings and brand impersonation that use a member’s active MLS listings. When it finds a suspected copy, the member gets an email and says whether the ad is legitimate. If the answer is no, the removal process starts. On September 23, MetroTex in Texas described the scam: fraudsters take the real photos and the real address and post fake rental ads with their own contact details. MetroTex subscribers have the same tool. If your MLS offers it, answer the alerts quickly.
