A while back, I spoke to Daniel Oster, the listing agent for a property advertised on Zillow that featured lots of photos of Bigfoot going about its day. From cooking and gardening to exercising and working. According to Daniel, the idea to feature Bigfoot in the listing was spontaneous.

“During our initial photoshoot, the Bigfoot idea popped into my mind. The sellers immediately supported the idea, and we all hoped that it would bring a bit of levity to people on their home buying adventure,” he told Bored Panda.

“A lot of folks are under a lot of stress now, and we were hoping to lighten people’s day and make them smile. At the same time, hoping to spread awareness of their home for sale. And that does indeed seem to be happening. We’ve had an overwhelming amount of interest in folks calling to schedule appointments to see the property. And, we are anticipating offers soon,” Daniel, the listing agent, revealed to me at the time.

“I’ve been one of the most productive agents in my area since starting my career after college in 2003. I’ve never done anything like this before in my listings. Typically, just focusing on really high-end photography and targeted marketing approaches. With a combination of the right property for Bigfoot and the right timing, this seems to be going viral. I don’t anticipate doing this approach again because it could be overused. But it’s been a great success so far, and I love getting to use a bit of humor to market the property,” the agent said.

Previously, my colleague spoke to the founder of the ‘Zillow Gone Wild’ project. They talked about the roots of the Instagram page, why unusual home designs are a thing at all, and more.

The founder told Bored Panda that they came up with the idea for ZGW when they noticed some interesting and unusual properties on Zillow, such as “homes with bowling alleys, indoor pools, jail cells.”

According to the founder of the project, one home they noticed even had a mining shaft. And from all of these small bizarre examples, ‘Zillow Gone Wild’ was born!

In their opinion, it’s a “combination of taste and money” that leads to such unusual and weird home designs. What’s more, where the property is located can mean that you can get a lot more done with the funds available to you. That means you can experiment and test the boundaries of taste.

“For me, it’s been fun to see all the interesting homes that are out there. I’m surprised at how many people have built actual castles and how many insanely large mansions there are in places like Utah and Ohio,” the person behind ZGW shared with Bored Panda.

However, they wouldn’t like to live in a huge property themselves. “I’d worry about having to vacuum all of that space,” they joked.

The ‘Zillow Gone Wild’ project has been growing non-stop. In January of 2021, the account had just over half a million followers. In the span of 11 months, it’s grown to encompass nearly three times that number of fans on Instagram. And it looks like the growth won’t stop any time soon. Not as long as people keep coming up with unusual designs for their homes.