Zillow Launches New Tools to Answer Uptick in Rental Traffic

With constrictions brought on by lockdowns across the globe, companies are scrambling to churn out digital solutions for their staff as well as their consumer-base. Latest in the technological endeavors of property portals, Zillow has launched new tools to help prospective tenants search, apply for, and lease a property through one platform. 

Zillow’s Rental Manager has been updated with new digital signing tools to allow landlords to easily upload their leases and send them to tenants to review and sign electronically. 

Zillow’s Vice President of Rentals Product Teams, Douglas Pope, said: 

"Zillow is reimagining real estate to make it easier than ever for people to move from one home to the next, whether they're buying, selling, financing, or renting.

"That mission has never been more important, and it's the reason we're providing these free tools to landlords and property managers to help renters who still need to move but can't complete the transaction in person."

Zillow’s search traffic for rentals is up 5% above what it had expected before the pandemic started gaining traction. The launch of these new tools comes at the perfect time to help prospective renters continue their hunting while obeying government-issued shelter-in-place orders. 

With these new tools, users can:

• Search for a home to rent on Zillow, Trulia, and HotPads
• Watch a virtual tour of a property through a Zillow 3D Home Tour
• Apply for a rental for a flat free
• Digitally sign a lease
• Pay rent, security deposits, and utilities all through Zillow Rental Manager

Zillow is seeing hope on the other side of the chaos. We recently reported that the property portal was seeing spikes in website traffic. After the uncertainty in March and the stress and panic that came with the pandemic, consumers are slowly slipping back into the status quo, beginning their searches again while stuck inside. Whether that is due to boredom or gathering up their resources and beginning the moving process again, Zillow still plans to implement these tools to help in whatever a consumer would need to make a seamless move into a new property.