Zillow’s New Side-By-Side Tool Lets You Find Comparable Houses More Easily

Whether you’re actively looking for your dream home or you simply enjoy perusing what’s on the market for fun, there’s a good chance you rely on Zillow to get a thorough glimpse of available homes. But if looking at one listing at a time feels, well, daunting and difficult to seamlessly navigate, the platform has just released a new tool that allows you to compare up to five listings at the same time.

Now available on Zillow’s mobile app and desktop website, the new Homes to Compare tool gives buyers the ability to save up to five separate listings and see details on each property as part of a comprehensive side-by-side chart, according to a press release announcing the news. Users can now easily compare more than 70 key listing details for different homes, including price, square footage, lot size, property conditions, architectural style, interior features, and more.

Given the wild ways the pandemic has impacted the real estate market over the course of the past two years, it’s understandable why buyers feel immense pressure to search, tour, and bid on their dream home with exceedingly little wiggle room on budget or time. Adding to these time restraints is a recent Zillow survey finding that 75 percent of recent home buyers express at least one regret about their purchase.

The company cited recent research that shows a third of first-time home buyers aren’t quite satisfied with the current options available for comparing properties online. The new tool “reduces the need for the makeshift spreadsheets home shoppers often create to compare homes,” Zillow’s chief technology officer David Beitel in the release. “We know evaluating homes is one of the most overwhelming parts of the home-buying process. Our goal is to change that with Homes to Compare.”