horned-rimmed-glasses.jpgDespite their zillions of dollars in venture capital (really millions, but I couldn’t help myself), their well known founders, and having slightly better digs than Redfin’s humble abode, I have always thought of Zillow as a bright eyed, innocent start up. Now trust me, I know this is not a reasonable feeling given the fact that they are the sixth most visited real estate website in the United States; however something about our Seattle commrades has always made me think of them as the smart girl in math class who wears horn rimmed glasses (… and who is really good at math). I mean this in a completely complimentary way. They just have always seemed so innocent. Perhaps it is the fact that they entered the game by providing zestimates that consumers loved, but that generally pissed off the real estate establishment. Perhaps its their clean website complete with non-threatening cartoons of Dad cooking burgers on the old family grill. I can’t quite put my finger on it, but Zillow just generally gave me good feelings. Good nerd feelings.

Enter T.J. Hagwood.

You all know T.J. Hagwood. He is the foul mouthed football star who can date just about any girl he wants. He is a bit arrogant, which for some reason makes the girls swoon all the more. He slaps men on the ass on the football field and women on the ass in the hallway. Despite all this, he still has this twinge of charm and social know how that makes you want to hang out with him. Oh yeah, and did I mention his family is loaded?

Lest I get carried away in my High School Musical 3 fantasy, let me just come out and say it: TJ is the real estate industry. The back room, cigar smoking, let’s have a scotch and sell a house real estate industry. 

Perhaps I missed all the gossip. Perhaps I ignored all the signs. Perhaps I just wasn’t paying attention. However, news flash to self, TJ and the horn rimmed glasses girl are dating. Yeah. Full on dating. They go out together in public. They see movies together. They’re going to prom together…. and I totally missed it.

It wasn’t until yesterday when I read that Zillow is sponsoring Bloodhound Unchained, that I realized that they had refocused their efforts from making money the old fashioned internet way that we all know and love, and started focusing their efforts on making money off of REALTORS. Once again, I know that ads like these have been around for a long time, and Zillow’s effort to market to agents is nothing new, but for some reason the magnitude of the effort just clicked with me.

Which brings me to the title of my post. I am afraid that Zillow dating TJ won’t be a good thing for the nerd world of real estate consumers. I’m afraid the horned rimmed glasses will come off, the hair will be cut into some edgy European style, and they will begin to care more about the color of their purse then their math homework. I don’t know if this has happened yet, I’m just worried for you horn rimmed glasses girl. TJ is a heartbreaker.