Zillow just rolled out a messaging feature that lets you chat about listings directly in the app instead of juggling text threads and shared links. The real estate giant wants to streamline how couples and families collaborate on home searches, keeping all those "what do you think about this kitchen?" conversations in one place alongside the actual listings.
Zillow is betting that home shopping works better as a team sport. The real estate platform just launched an in-app messaging feature that lets you invite shopping partners - whether that's your spouse, best friend, or that one relative with surprisingly good taste - to chat about listings without leaving the app. According to Zillow's announcement, users can now create dedicated chat threads around their house hunting adventures, complete with shared listings and real-time discussions about everything from curb appeal to questionable bathroom tile choices. The feature works through invitation links - you open your inbox, invite someone to join your search, and Zillow generates a shareable link that brings them into your home shopping circle. It's a surprisingly logical evolution for a platform that's watched millions of users screenshot listings and fire them off via text message for years. The timing makes sense for Zillow, which has been working to deepen user engagement beyond simple property browsing. While the housing market remains challenging with elevated mortgage rates keeping many potential buyers on the sidelines, the company needs users spending more time in the app. This messaging feature creates what product teams call "sticky" behavior - instead of a quick search-and-exit pattern, users now have reason to return for ongoing conversations with their shopping partners. From a competitive standpoint, this positions Zillow more like a social platform for one of life's biggest decisions. Redfin and other rivals have focused primarily on search functionality and agent connections, but Zillow's betting that the collaboration layer could become a differentiator. It's not unlike how Pinterest evolved from a simple inspiration board to a full shopping platform. The feature addresses a real pain point that anyone who's house-hunted with a partner knows intimately. Trying to keep track of which properties you've discussed, what each person's thoughts were, and where you left off in conversations scattered across text messages, emails, and random photos becomes genuinely overwhelming when you're looking at dozens of listings. Zillow's inbox approach creates a dedicated space where all those "but did you see the kitchen in that Colonial?" conversations live alongside the actual listings. The broader implication here is Zillow's continued push to own more of the real estate journey. The company has experimented with everything from direct home buying (the now-shuttered Zillow Offers program) to mortgage lending. This messaging feature represents a different approach - instead of trying to replace existing players, it's making itself indispensable to the discovery and decision-making process. Early adoption will likely depend on how smoothly the invitation system works and whether the chat experience feels native compared to texting. But for a generation that's comfortable mixing social features with major life decisions - think for splitting expenses or shared for wedding planning - having home search conversations happen where the listings actually live could feel perfectly natural.
