ZILLOW UNVEILS NEW “MORTGAGE MARKETPLACE” OFFERING

About eighteen months ago we wrote about the emergence of Zillow.com - the innovative real estate site that allows one to obtain a “Zestimate” of a residential property’s market value based on the company’s proprietary formula. While most people associate the Zillow brand primarily with home value estimation services, the company has increasingly expanded its product offerings.

In April of this year Zillow launched a mortgage service called “Zillow Mortgage Marketplace”. The marketplace enables consumers to create a request for a purchase mortgage, home equity loan, or refinance loan. However, unlike other home loan aggregators, Zillow enables the potential borrower to remain completely anonymous throughout the process. For instance, consumers are not required to enter their social security #, address, or even their name at any point during the online application experience. Borrowers ultimately receive loan offers from multiple lenders sent directly to an anonymous Zillow account. Clearly Zillow believes that by keeping the application process anonymous users will be more likely to fill out an application to gauge potential home loan financing options without fear of being inundated with marketing solicitation from lenders.

At this point you probably are wondering what type of traction the “Mortgage Marketplace” is gaining with consumers. As the chart below illustrates, traffic to this section of Zillow’s site has steadily grown from the time of product launch.

It is clear that this offering is an increasingly important piece of Zillow’s overall portfolio, as ~25% of total site visitors in May went to the Mortgage Marketplace. It certainly will be interesting to keep an eye on the rate of consumer adoption for the Mortgage Marketplace in the months ahead.