Can I Remove My House Information From Rightmove & Zillow?
In countries like the United States and the United Kingdom, there is a great deal of information floating around about our homes. Some of this is public information that anyone is permitted access to, but much of it is not.
Sites like Rightmove and Zillow provide anyone with the ability to view photos of the interior of a home, detailed floor plans, and extensive histories of a house’s life. How do you remove this immensely personal information from the internet after you’ve purchased a home?
What Are Rightmove and Zillow?
RightmoveandZilloware real estate websites that help people buy and sell homes. More specifically, they show the locations of homes in a list or on a map and give you the option to click on an address to get more information. Rightmove is more prevalent in the UK, where the company is based and was founded in 2000. Zillow is an American company that appeared a few years later, in 2006.
On either site, you can expect to see a home’s current price (if it is on the market), its estimated cost, and how much it has sold for in the past. You can also see its square footage and other details, like the number of rooms and whether the home has access to high-speed internet. You may also see detailed photos, sometimes of every room in the house. Thesereal estate services also have appsthat allow you to peruse houses.
Some homes even have interactive tours, allowing you to walk through a 3D representation of a home. This is to help prospective buyers see a property without needing to arrange a visit in person.
Rightmove and Zillow are two of the most well-known real estate web portals in their respective countries, but they are far from alone. You may have heard ofcompetitors like Redfin or Realtor.com. Some real estate firms provide their own websites with similar functionality.
How Real Estate Sites Get Your Personal Info
How much information you see has much to do with how recently a house has gone on to the market. Realtors use bothwebsites to get their house listings in front of potential buyers. They can write elaborate descriptions and share as many details as they like—whatever information helps to sell the home.
While there are some houses that have never gone on sale since the early 2000s, many houses have actually entered the market more than once since then. Each time, realtors update the information to take into account whatever improvements new homeowners have made or other changes that have taken place.
Just like social networks, much of the data that Rightmove and Zillow have is information that people manually enter and share directly. Both sites augment this information with data that is publicly available, such as what school district a house is zoned for and what the average income is in an area. While this information may be publicly available, real estate web portals make the data accessible to far more people, many of whom would have no idea where to look otherwise.
What Can You Delete From Zillow and Rightmove?
You cannot delete a home from Zillow, since price history and other public records data is free for anyone to see, including real estate web portals.
Rightmove’s policy is the same. That’s why Rightmove, on asupport page, says it must keep this information accessible to anyone:
“We want to ensure that the insight we provide home movers are accurate and supportive; if we were to remove the sold price information on a property then the market trends and prices for an area would not be as accurate and useful.”
But you’re able to delete a property’s images and floor plan from both Rightmove and Zillow. You can also remove the description that a realtor may have added while selling the home. You can think of this as the kind of information that may appear in a physical sales ad, which no one expects to stick around forever.
How to Delete Home Details From Rightmove
For starters, you can ask your real estate agent to remove details from your property. They should have access to the web portal and are already familiar with how it works.
If that doesn’t work, or you prefer to take care of matters directly, you do have the option to reach out to Rightmove yourself. According to theRightmove Help Centre, you’re able to remove property information from Rightmove by sending an email and making the request.
Send the email tocustomersupport@rightmove.co.uk. Include the URL to the property, the full street address, and the phrase “sold price images.”
How to Delete House Details From Zillow
General Zillow searches only show homes that are actively available for sale or rent, along with houses that were recently sold. But you can see details for just about any home by entering its full address.
You canreport errors in price listings and public reports datato Zillow. Zillow also has aPrivacy Portalwhere you can request that data about your home be deleted.
The majority of information is data you have the ability to edit. With a Zillow accounts, it’s possible to select each field and manually delete whatever information you wish to see disappear. When it comes to photos, there is a “Delete All Photos” option.
If you would like step-by-step guidance, Zillow has provided a video showing the process of editing your information.
Do Rightmove and Zillow Share Too Much Information?
Using these websites to learn about houses is a quick way to understand the market and get information. Browsing them can even be fun. But things quickly feel different once you buy a house and the information on display is no longer someone else’s.
The thing is, neither Rightmove and Zillow generate much in the way of new information. They primarily share public data and information that users (typically real estate agents) provide. Like with social networks, if we want them to share less information, we need to stop giving it to them. And in both cases, you have the option to delete the information you’ve uploaded.
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