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Zillow, the real estate social networking service is facing a cease and desist order in the state of Arizona. The order has been issued citing the fact that Zillow needs to be a certified appraiser in order to provide such information to the general public. Zillow gets its information from public documents and offers property estimates along with being a social network for home buyers, sellers and renters.

Zillow has been disliked from the start by many in the real estate industry, including Realtors and the National Community of Reinvestment Coalition, who insist that the real estate estimates provided by Zillow are way off the mark. Zillow on the other hand is obviously guilty of making real estate information, that was previously buried under loads of public documents, easily accessible to home buyers and sellers. This information was the only competitive advantage that Realtors had over general public, and also a prime argument and source of income for them.

The efforts of Realtors and their allies in order to stop, and suppress Zillow would be futile, because tools and services that make the playing field equal can never be squashed. Zillow has also recently added Q&A to all the house listings, thus allowing users to ask any question about any listing on Zillow. StreetAdvisor and YourStreet are some other services that are targeting the real estate market, in order to make local information more readily accessible.

[via. original source The Columbian]