What Is Zillow and What Can You Do on the Site?

Zillow is an online real estate marketplace where you can search for-sale and rental listings, look up home values through its Zestimate® tool, and connect with local real estate professionals. It also bundles mortgage tools, rental management tools, and housing market information into the same platform, so buyers, renters, sellers, and landlords can handle most home-search tasks in one place. It's most useful if you're in the U.S. or Canada market and want listing data plus supporting tools rather than a single-purpose search site.

Core things you can do on Zillow

The site organizes its main functions into a few clear areas, each with its own sub-tools.

Buy

• Browse homes for sale, including foreclosures, for-sale-by-owner listings, open houses, new construction, and coming-soon properties.
• Review recent home sales and explore regional market insights (for example, city-level real estate pages).
• Use resources like a home buying guide, a foreclosure center, and down payment assistance information.

Rent

• Search rental listings, including apartments for rent, houses for rent, and rental buildings.
• Estimate what you can afford, track your applications, manage tours, pay rent, build credit, and get renters insurance.
• Explore housing voucher programs and general renting guides.

Sell

• See your home's Zestimate and explore your selling options.
• Read a sellers guide, compare selling options, and find a seller's agent.
• Post a For Sale by Owner listing.

Get a mortgage

• Access a Zillow Home Loans dashboard to pick up a loan application.
• Calculate your BuyAbility, get pre-qualified, estimate your mortgage payment, and see current mortgage rates.
• Learn about financing a home.

Find an agent

• Search for real estate agents and home builders.
• If you're a professional, access agent solutions, advertising, a resource center, a free agent account, business plans, scripts, and listing flyer templates.

Manage rentals

• List your property for rent, view your properties, and read messages.
• Check your property's rental value, screen renters with applications, create and manage leases, and collect rent.
• Learn about renting out your property and explore Zillow Rental Manager.

How recommendations work

Zillow's recommendations are based on your location and search activity, such as the homes you've viewed and saved and the filters you've used. The stated purpose is to surface similar homes so you don't miss listings. The site also notes a right to fair housing and links to New York Fair Housing protections.

What to keep in mind

• Zillow is a marketplace and tools platform, not a single service — what you can do depends on whether you're buying, renting, selling, financing, or managing a property.
• Some features (like a loan dashboard) are tied to having started an application, so availability depends on your situation.
• The site spans many regions; the excerpt references both U.S. and Canadian cities (for example, Calgary), so listing coverage varies by area.

If you're starting a home search, the practical entry points are the Buy and Rent sections for listings, the Zestimate lookup for value estimates, and the mortgage tools if financing is part of your plan.