At the beginning of the month, I asked for a guinea pig to help us evaluate Zillow’s new mortgage product. Ronnie Roach wasted no time in volunteering. Zillow wants to create a transparent mortgage marketplace where consumers and mortgage professionals connect.
From what we know so far, it will be free for loan originators to participate. [...]

In February of 2006, real estate blogs and internet forums from across the land lamented the very idea of Zillow. I thought it was pretty cool. Many delved into the inaccuracies of the Zestimate. I tried to think of ways to leverage it. Maybe it was easier for me. I was not a [...]

In Part 1 of this story, I talked about giving away credit scores as a foundation for attracting potential borrowers to Zillow’s new mortgage division. While it might be possible to eek out a profit by selling more advanced credit monitoring solutions, this is not why Zillow should offer the scores.
Instead, the “Zcore” should be [...]

Hat tip to Owen Raun for this informative interview. In the course of their conversation, Amy Bohutinsky, Director of Communications for Zillow, hints at the direction Zillow Mortgage will take. The cliff notes:
Launching in 2008
“It will help consumers find free information, and open up some transparency into finding home loans”
There will be free marketing opportunities [...]

A couple weeks back, I posted about Zillow’s looming entry into the mortgage industry, and lobbied for opinions from all of you as to how you thought Zillow might, or should operate. Today I want to reflect upon how I think they should do it.
I think it’s important to first look at how Zillow [...]