Zillow Launches On-Line Mortgage Rate Quotes April 2, 2008
Earlier this month I wrote about Zillow stepping into the mortgage rate quote arena…well tonight’s the big night. They are scheduled to launch at 9 p.m. PST. I’m honored to have been included as one the mortgage professionals to review their product and it will be interesting to see how it develops.
Zillow is not creating a mortgage company; they are attempting to create an online tool consumers can use to shop lenders. Once I get past my first objection of rate shopping, here are some of the two features I like the most:
The consumers privacy is protected while shopping–the Loan Originator will not see their names and they do not provide their social security number. This is unlike other online rate-comparison tools where a consumers private information is resold to calling centers all over the world.
Consumers will have the ability to shop lenders by rate, cost and the Loan Originator’s Zillow reputation. Zillow has a rating system from 1 (bad) to 5 (great) that consumers can use to grade the LO. So let’s say LO Sally has an incredible rate and low costs but she’s rated a 1 vs. LO Joe who has a competitive rate and cost with a 5 rating: the consumer can make a choice between the two (or however many LO’s have submitted a rate quote). The consumer will be able to review the LOs lined up in an easy to read column format with this information easily viewed.
My only real concern, as I’ve voiced many times is that shopping for rate will not always land you the correct mortgage. The wrong mortgage with what appears to be a low rate/payment may be a very expensive mistake. Especially in this volatile market where mortgage rates can change 3-5 times per day. Any rate quote may be invalid the moment it’s sent to the consumer if the rate is not locked…this is true with Good Faith Estimates as well. Speaking of GFE’s, Zillow Mortgage quotes are not the same as a GFE–I do recommend that consumers who are seriously considering working with any of the Loan Originators participating on Zillow Mortgage obtain a Good Faith Estimate with the Federal Truth in Lending.
I’ll still stick to my guns and say that referrals from the people you trust and respect are the best way to select a Mortgage Professional…however for those of you that have a need to shop rates on line, Zillow’s mortgage tool could be the ticket.
Sphere: Related ContentI Dig Dueling Digs April 1, 2008
Zillow, which seems to produce new features almost daily, has birthed something totally unique. As a member of Zillow’s board of directors, I usually get previews into what’s coming through the pipeline, but with this release, I hadn’t seen too many of the details.
Dueling Digs is like nothing I’ve ever seen on a real estate site. It’s pretty simple, really: You are presented with two photos, and click on the picture that you like better. After ten “duels,” Zillow tells you how many pictures your final photo has vanquished. It also provides you with a link back to the Home Details Page for the home from which the photo was taken, so you can see more of what that property looks like.
For example, I’d like the pool in my backyard:
rather than the picnic table:
Not surprisingly, 72% of voters agreed with me (the other 28% are either gaming the game, or they’ve actually had to maintain a pool!).
Where do these photos come from? Well, from you of course. These are photos that have been uploaded by users to Zillow. So you might see YOUR kitchen there. But with thousands (zillions?) of photos, you likely won’t see how your kitchen does in head to head combat quite yet – wait for the next upgrade.
And here’s what I think is really neat: If you like a particular kitchen, you can right-click, save the photo, and print it out for your own personal house planning. For several years before we built our home I subscribed to Architectural Digest and Fine Homebuilding magazines, among others, for the main purpose of clipping the things we liked and putting them in our scrapbook of features we’d like to incorporate into our new home. Of course not all of what we saw was feasible (read: affordable), but it all helped us to clarify what we did want in the finished product.
So if you’re thinking about remodeling, or just are one of those that loves to flip through “Better Homes and Gardens” to see different home designs, this is for you. If you haven’t already checked out Dueling Digs, it’s worth a minute. Or an hour. It’s a little addictive.
Sphere: Related ContentHave you heard about Zilpy? New site for tracking rents in cities across USA… March 11, 2008
A title rep sent me an email today that gave me a head’s up on a new site I’d not seen before called www.Zilpy.com. It looks a heck of a lot like Zillow but with data on rents instead of home values. I’ve been playing around with it a bit and while I can’t figure out exactly yet how they’re getting the data, I’m intrigued. Most likely I’ll make mention of it to some of our investors to get their feedback on it as well and see if they think it’s a worthwhile site.
Check out the function of “heat maps” for rent levels in Washington. More states and cities are covered so it’s not just a Seattle gig. I believe it’s come to life from Silicon Valley.
Catching Z-Z-Z’s Zillow on Mortgage March 6, 2008
No…Zillow with mortgage is NOT boring…quite from it. I’m just a bit worn out after the historic day we’ve all gone through in the mortgage industry today and I’m ready to call it a night. However, just when I’m going to unplug my laptop…Zillow finally provides the public with some more clues on how Zillow will integrate mortgages on their site.
I’m lucky to have been included as one of the Mortgage Professionals getting a scoop before the release. And this has all ready been covered very well at Lenderama, Blown Mortgage and Bloodhound Blog to name a few. What I like the most about this concept (which not all the details have been revealed) is the fact that Zillow is doing background checks by an independent third party before they will accept a Loan Originator to be a part of this feature.
From Zillow’s blog:
While we’re not sharing more details right now, we can say that we’ve built our product around Zillow’s model of openness and transparency that is increasingly important in today’s home lending environment. And, consistent with our information-based model, we have no intention of being part of the transaction. After speaking extensively to both consumers and mortgage professionals about the product, we’re confident that all parties will ultimately benefit from Zillow’s unique approach to home lending that is unlike any other in the market today.
This is the phase for interested loan originators to apply. More zetails to follow…time for me to catch my real z-z-z-z’s.
Sphere: Related ContentWhat are they doing now? February 27, 2008
Geez, just when I wanted to get a quick Zillow fix, they go sprucing & fixing. Maybe spring refactoring is coming early this year? And why don’t they deploy the new & improved bits to their production servers at 2 AM, when I’m not using the site! Oh well, at least Eppraisal and Cyberhomes were still up. 
Dear Zillow-meisters – Better start makin’ copies of the Trulia-nator January 9, 2008
The folks at Trulia, have just released a new feature that is cooler than the frozen tundra of Lambeau Field. In fact, I think Zillow and Realtor.com will need to order more photocopiers. Trulia has just released their Trulia Publisher Platform, and the coolness of this feature is that it lets publishers use their search technology, with your listings, with a publisher’s co-branding, and at no cost to the publisher. This is the real estate equivalent of Google AdSense and will change the nature of the real estate web advertising game, perhaps drastically.
Currently, Trulia has signed up Kiplinger, American Towns, and perhaps most interesting, Seattle Weekly. Getting Seattle Weekly as a publishing partner has to annoy Zillow more than Apple giving free computers to Redmond-area schools annoyed Microsoft. If Trulia can sign up more publishers (frankly the value proposition is so simple & compelling for small to medium sized publishers, I can’t think of a reason why they won’t sign up) they are going to have to upgrade their servers to handle the increase in traffic.
What’s this mean for publishers? Well if they are small or medium sized, they just got a much more effective way of associating their brand and increasing real estate related web traffic. Granted, Trulia controls the listings and the technology, but if your core competency isn’t real estate search, getting a co-branded search tool is much more cost effective. And since Trulia has over 2 million listings, the publishers will probably get more traffic & ad revenue too. Seems like an easy decision to me.
If you’re a big publisher, it’s a much harder decision. But since developing technology is expensive and getting listings critical mass is difficult, I suspect the desire to partner w/ Trulia got much stronger unless you’re a direct Trulia competitor. If Trulia gets big web media players to partner with it, things could get very interesting.
What’s this mean for Realtor.com? I dunno, but it’s increasingly looking like they are going to get HouseValued (yes, I just made that verb up), if they don’t show some brain activity.
What’s this mean for Zillow? Just when Zillow’s listings feed program was getting off the ground, Trulia does this! I’m guessing the sales & engineering departments just learned what they are going to be working on for the next several months.
What’s this mean for the broker in the trenches or realtor on the street? Well, if you have a Trulia listings feed, you just got more free exposure. If you pay Trulia to feature your listings more prominently, well you just got a much better return on your investment. If you liked the free traffic Trulia gave you before, you’re going to LOVE them now. Perhaps even more than the 12th man, loves his Seahawks.
Sphere: Related ContentDeep thoughts & a shameless plug January 5, 2008
Happy 2008 everybody
For most of the past 6 months, I’ve been working too hard writing e-commerce software at my day job. So, in case you’re curious why I’ve had a lower profile than usual, it’s because I’ve been spending too much time living in e-commerce land, instead of real estate land. On plus side though, our big project is nearing completion and my software engineering skills are approaching Ninja Warrior levels, so I feel good about the year that just passed. Fortunately, I’ve still been reading RE.net blogs actively, despite the fact I haven’t been writing as much as I’d like. Frankly, my brain is kind of tired from trying to co-develop an Amazon clone for the past year.
As 2007 has come to a close, I’ve had to a chance to reflect upon what the past year has given us and where the future may take us. Despite the bearish real estate industry outlook nationwide, I’m an optimistic that 2008 will be a very interesting year. Here are my thoughts on the year ahead
Inman missed somebody
Although, Inman’s list of 10 people to watch is insightful, I personally would add Michael Wurzer of FlexMLS to that list. His recent passionate and tireless efforts to be an advocate for RETS, and his current efforts to bring many of the players of the industry together is very encouraging. I’d almost be willing to say 2008 will be the year of RETS, like 2005 was the year of the blog, 2006 was the year of AJAX maps & 2007 was the year of the feed. I’m starting to feel like RETS will be like NBA basketball in Seattle (just because it’s not here, don’t mean it’s not the real deal elsewhere), which is a marked improvement to how I felt a year ago. Perhaps, I need to write an Open Letter to NWMLS brokers, agents and vendors, similar to what Michael & David Harris have done to toward the industry?
Will data visualization be the next big thing?
I also think that Real Estate data visualization or analytics is bound to become a real big deal in the near future. The efforts of Altos Reasearch and Zillow are making it easy to convert market information into pretty pie & bar charts, and the heat maps from Cyberhomes and HotPads are very insightful. Granted, Wall Street has been doing some of this for quite some time, but I think the real estate industry is ready to take the next step. In order to create cool charts, you need the raw data, and RETS will make that possible (or at least much easier). Once Joe Broker can get at the raw data, the cool charts can come courtesy of Microsoft Office, Google’s new charting API, or something a bit more powerful. I get giddy just thinking about the possibilities.
I think it’s going to take more time, but I think heat maps are going to get much bigger / better too. With Microsoft finally adding first class geospatial support to SQL Server this year (finally joining the party that Postgress, IBM DB2, and Oracle were already at), and Microsoft’s & Google’s ongoing battle for control of digital earth becoming a fertile playground for other map/data vendors, I think the MLSes / big brokers will probably start embracing data visualization on their web sites, since the technology is becoming more affordable, easier to use, and because most brokers / agents want pretty charts & maps with their name & brand on it, instead somebody else’s.
The glass is still half full
Having lived through the great tech wreck (or dot.com bubble if you prefer) I think it’s helpful to remember that someday the mortgage meltdown and real estate slump will come to end. If you believe in the future of real estate in your community (and most of you wouldn’t be reading this blog if you didn’t), now is a great time to invest in your business or yourself while your competitors exit the business in bad times. If that means adding great people to your staff, encouraging the less effective agents to get out or get better or finding better opportunities elsewhere, learning more about technology, or just plain blogging more often, just do something, to make yourself better. When the market turns around, you’ll hopefully be more successful than ever with fewer competitors.
Also, despite the fact I often complain about the state of MLS data in the industry, the real estate industry aren’t the tech laggards they portray themselves to be. After the tech industry, real estate is probably a very close second in terms of blogging and consumer transparency. You’re probably among the leaders in using mobile technologies, you’re your helping push the limits mapping technology and helping vendors define the direction. For example, a typical e-commerce store finder is way inferior to the AJAX maps so many real estate web sites now have.
Warning: Shameless plug ahead
My star client (Gordon Stephenson of Real Property Associates) finally set up his Real Estate from the Trenches blog at http://blog.seattlehouses.com/. I especially enjoyed his predictions for the new year post. I also had next nothing to do with it (I only helped w/ domain black magic and added links to their blog from their main web site), he did all the heavy lifting himself (see anybody can set up a blog). I also want to thank him for his business this past year, and introducing me to Rod Mar’s (Seattle Times Sports Photographer) - Best Seat in the House blog. I have a new appreciation for photography & the Seahawks thanks to his entertaining blog. Anyway, add them both to your favorite feed reader.
$30 Million for Zillow.com September 20, 2007
That’s all she wrote.
Not much more to this story besides more money for Zillow.
A Fistful of Feeds September 15, 2007
Cue up the Ennio Morricone music and head for the hills! There’s been some recent talking among the town folk, about the feeding frenzy that’s happening out there on the wild web of the west. Let’s just say San Miguel will never be the same once the schema with no XSD enters town.
Just when you thought it was safe in digital listing land, it’s going to get a little wilder. You see, Jesse ‘Zillow’ James has got a new six shooter and is getting ready to take your listings, publish them for the world to see, and give the town sheriff something else to think about. Right now, Jesse is just at target practice, but high noon at the O.K. Corral is coming soon enough.
Even better, Jesse has been taking marksmanship lessons from Wild Bill Gates’ old play book. It’s every bit as clever as the lead shield old Clint used in the movies. You see, Zillow’s doing 2 things which show they’ve learned the “embrace and extend” tactics from yesterday’s web slinging masters.
First, Zillow is embracing Trulia’s feed format – This move means that anybody who already has a Trulia listings feed will be able to get their listings onto Zillow with than less than 10 minutes of effort (the amount of time it takes to fill out a form with your feed url). It’s entirely possible that by doing this, Trulia’s feed format will become the “de-facto” industry standard. (Which wouldn’t be all bad)
Secondly, Zillow’s extending the purpose of Trulia’s format, by coming out with their own feed format – OK, some of you are already thinking, oh great, another XML format I need to implement and support. However, I think Zillow will be able to garner support for their ZIF format because of the following reasons.
- Their spec is simple to understand. Unlike GoogleBase & edgeio, which seem to be trying to win an Obfuscated XML code contest with their name spaced RSS mess, Zillow’s feed documentation is every bit as clear as the current industry feed leader, Trulia.
- Their spec is comprehensive. The only industry schema that compares to the breadth and depth of the Zillow’s XML Schema is RETS. Except Zillow has the benefit of not having to getting 900 MLS boards to play nice together.
- Doc ‘Trulia’ Holliday is not dumb. A master gun fighter in his own right, nothing is preventing Trulia from embracing the Zillow feed standard as their V2 spec. If that happens, RETS may suffer the same fate as Lester Moore. Out here on the wild web of the west, there’s the quick and the dead.
- Oh yeah, they also get about 4+ million monthly visitors on their web site.
Anyway, grab the popcorn; it’s going to be show!
Sphere: Related ContentHey Zillow! Yeah, you have fun, but do you have a George Foreman Grill? September 12, 2007
Zillow may have fun playing around in the office, but unless you have a George Foreman Grill in your office….
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