A little good news is always a good thing – especially now. As such, we were elated this week when we got a peek at our December traffic numbers. In the midst of a gloomy real estate outlook, and traditionally the slowest month of the year for real estate activity, we posted a record month at Zillow.
How much of a record? 5.8 million unique visitors, which is the most for any month since we launched, and is up 62% over December 2007.
It’s clear that with all of the uncertainty surrounding the housing market, people are searching for information and answers, and we’ve had some great interest in our new Zillow Advice feature that launched in early December. Each day, more than 40,000 contributions are now made to Zillow by our community.
December was also a month for record drops in mortgage rates – dipping below 5% for a 30-year fixed-rate loan. As such, loan requests in Zillow Mortgage Marketplace shot up 162% over November, with more than 22,000 consumer loan requests.
Good news is a great way to end a year, and a great way to start a new one. Let’s hope there’s more good news for everyone in 2009.