For those familiar with the zillow api network, getting started may seem a daunting task. I’ve recently published pillow – a library aimed at making php development with zillow easier.

h4. Get a Zillow Web Services Id

If you haven’t done so already, get your Zillow web services Id here.

Download and Extract Pillow

1. Get the latest tarball or zipfile
2. Extract.

wget http://github.com/robap/pillow/tarball/master
  tar -zxvf robap-pillow-3cc404a.tar.gz

Set UP a Test File

//save as test_pillow.php
require '/path/to/pillow/lib/pillow.php';

$zws_id = 'your zws id';

$factory = new Pillow_Factory( $zws_id );

$address = '1405 W Golf Course Rd';
$csz = 'midland, tx';

$property = $factory->findExactProperty($address, $csz, TRUE);

print_r($property);

Run It

php test_pillow.php

You should see the returned Pillow_Property object and all of the object properties you can access. The Pillow_Property object has methods available to get comps and charts. Future versions of Pillow will contain methods for all of Zillow’s api calls.