Having survived the dot com bust of 2000, the slump of 2001 and the housing collapse of 2008, ZipRealty.com finds itself celebrating its 10th year in business – and despite national market conditions, it’s still growing.

The Internet-based real estate brokerage was started in 1999 in Berkeley, Calif., in the heart of the dot com boom, when technology reached the point where running a business solely on the Internet was possible.

ZipRealty.com, however, stood apart from many of the other dot coms in one important way: it made money. It used the new technology to improve efficiency of its Realtors, so in turn, customer satisfaction would increase.

“We started with the idea that the way that the real estate industry was structured, that agents had to work really hard, always be finding the next client, and were not very efficient,” said Leslie Tyler, vice president of marketing at ZipRealty.com. “Customers were not happy, agents were not happy, brokerages operated on a very thin profit margin – there had to be better way. We set out to make a company where customers would have a great experience, agents would be more efficient, and therefore make more money, and the company could gain value.”

The system worked, so when the dot com bust swept through the country, culling out the businesses that concentrated more on accessibility and innovation than profitability, ZipRealty survived. It started in the Bay Area, thrived, and quickly added three more California markets, Los Angeles, San Diego and Orange County. Within a year, the company opened offices in Boston, Seattle, Washington, D.C. and Dallas.

ZipRealty has found another way to increase customer satisfaction: cash back. The company’s Realtors give 20 percent of their commission back to their buyers, as long as the purchased property is sold for more than $100,000.

Tyler said much of the company’s success is based on the software systems the company created from the ground up. Their Web site allowed customers to search listings online – a unique concept in 1999 – despite objections from much of the local Realtor community, who were used to controlling real estate information tightly.

“We tried to put as much information as we could think of up there,” Tyler said. “We had a lot of push back from MLS and other brokers.”

ZipRealty also created a proprietary management system to allow agents to anticipate and provide better information to clients based on the information they provide when searching for properties.

“Today, there is a lot of choices [for similar software], but not then,” Tyler said. “As a result, it’s built just for us.”

During the economic downturn of 2001, the company stopped expanding, and focused on “building our presence in the markets that we were in,” Tyler said.

All In The Acclimation

In 2004 ZipRealty went public, and since 2005, they’ve expanded 200 percent to 36 markets across the country, most recently into Portland, Ore. earlier this year.

Boston, however, was ZipRealty’s second East Coast market, opening in April 2000. The company splits Massachusetts into two offices, on dealing with property north and west of Boston based in Framingham, and another for property south and east of Boston in Raynham.

David Previti has been with ZipRealty for six years, and serves as the district director for the Raynham office after several years as an agent.

Previti said the key to success is the company’s proprietary software, which handles most aspects of the job for Realtors and allows them to focus on the customer.

“It is always about the clients, which I always loved,” Previti said. “The leads, the systems themselves, the management, the platform, it’s all done for you. Zip had those tools in place. You still have to work the database, you still have to understand people’s behavior patterns, but the technology really works for you.”

‘Light-Years Ahead’

Previti was new to real estate when he joined ZipRealty, but said he had plenty of sales and management experience going in. And once he acclimated himself to ZipRealty’s system, it was easy to get rolling.

“You have to have a modicum of intelligence, know the Internet, not be afraid to click on buttons and see how it works,” Previti said. “You just dive into it. If you just use the tools, you can grow and sell homes.”

Patricia Deperry is the district director for the Hartford office, which is the company’s second-newest, opening on July 8, 2008, in Rocky Hill, Conn. She is a former manager at Cendant’s real estate division, now known as Realogy, and has been in real estate for 30 years.

Deperry said ZipRealty’s Web site generates leads for her agents far faster than any brokerage she has ever worked for.

“Coming from a traditional brokerage, I really have to tell you [ZipRealty] is light-years ahead,” Deperry said. “My agents don’t have to focus on anything other than taking care of the client. Every day, all they need to do is take care of the client.”

The agents can use the Web site to host webinars every day, where Deperry said 200 to 300 agents from around the country sign in to discuss topics, offer experience and teach best practices.

“They’ve already been through the short sale debacle, so when my agents have an issue, we just get on the phone with them and they give us all their tips,” she said. “We feel like we’re a step ahead all the time.”