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Zillow Officially Launches the Zillow Mortgage Marketplace
By Drew Meyers | April 2, 2008
Tonight, Zillow officially launched the Zillow Mortgage Marketplace!
I’ve been at Zillow for over 2 years, and this defintitely is the release I’ve been most excited for since Zestimates launched in February of 2006. When talking about this product with close friends and family (I know, I spilled the beans to a few people early), the general reaction was a mixture of “holy cow, this is going to work” and “WOW”. Both my step-dad and dad have filled out a loan request in the last year, and both have been hounded repeatedly with phone calls and e-mails from mortgage brokers wanting to sell them a loan. I’m not blaming mortgage lenders for wanting a return on the $60 (or whatever the $$ value is) they paid for the lead, but that doesn’t mean its a consumer friendly process. Zillow is putting the power back in the hands of the consumer during the mortgage request process, which I think is long overdue. I’ll spare the details about how the product works — you can read Rich’s overview at Zillow Blog or go check out the actual Zillow Mortgage Marketplace. Remember, if you know anyone currently looking for a loan, please tell them about Zillow’s mortgage offering!
I’m not sure how long I’ll be able to track everything, but here’s a list of coverage for Zillow Mortgage Marketplace:
- Spencer Rascoff — yes, he’s my boss’ boss and it might be considered cheating since he knew about it ahead of time — takes the nod for the 1st blog coverage.
- Todd Carpenter writes “Zillow Mortgage Marketplace launches. What it means to consumers and loan originators.”
- Mark Hendrickson at TechCrunch wrote “Zillow Disrupts Lending Market With Mortgage Marketplace.”
- The OC Register’s Matt Padilla posts “Zillow takes on mortgage industry.”
- Rhonda Porter posts “Zillow Launches On-Line Mortgage Rate Quotes” at Rain City Guide.
- Greg Swann writes “Zillow.com takes advertising demographics to never-before-seen places” and “Zillow.com’s long-awaited mortgage lending service offers anonymous customized loan quotes to consumers, affording loan originators the opportunity to compete transparently for free mortgage leads.”
- John Cook at the Seattlepi writes “Zillow unveils new mortgage marketplace.”
- Elinor Mills at CNET reports “Zillow Launches’Mortgage Marketplace’.”
- The Daily News Tribune writes “Real estate Web site Zillow launches mortgage site.”
- Joel Burslem at FOREM posts “Questions About New Zillow Mortgage Marketplace.”
- Kevin Boer over at 3Oceans posts “Irony Of Ironies: The Mechanical Turk Behind The “Zestimate of Mortgages” Turns Out To Be Not An Algorithm … But A Real Live Mortgage Person!“
- Jay Thompson posts “Zillow.com Releases Mortgage Marketplace.“
Update 4/3:
- Modelry presents “Zillow Mortgage MarketPlace Launches: LendingTree in Reverse, For Free“
- Trace Richardson writes “11.5 Reasons Why the Zillow Mortgage MarketPlace Will Not Work in its Current Form and Will Likely Move to Exclude Most Lenders in the Future.”
- Morgan Brown at Blown Mortgage posts “Zillow Mortgage Launches - How do you rate?“
- The USA Today reports “Zillow launches mortgage marketplace site.”
- Peter Viles at the LA Times writes “Zillow enters mortgage marketplace.”
- Kristin Nicole at Mashable posts “Zillow Marketplace Makes Home Loans More Transparent.“
- Dustin Luther posts “Zillow took the fun out of mortgages.”
- Greg Sterling writes “Real Estate Search Engine Zillow Opens “Mortgage Marketplace”” and “Zillow Creates Free Lead-Gen for Lenders.”
- David Rodnitzky posts “Zillow Enters The Lead Gen Fray for Mortgages.”
- Owen Raun writes “Zillow Mortgage Option – our first few hours.”
- Saul Hansell at the NYTimes posts “Zillow and the Idealism of Engineers Going Shopping.“
- Joseph Ferrara posts “Zillow Mortgage Marketplace is Lead Generator for Mortgage Lenders“
- Pat Kitano writes “Zillow Mortgages is essentially a free open marketplace.”
Last 5 posts in Zillow
- Zillow is Starting it's Venture into The Mortgage Industry - March 6th, 2008
- Transforming Customers into Evangelists: The Art of Listening and Engagement - February 12th, 2008
- Zillow is Awakening - December 17th, 2007
- Seattle Startup Index for December - December 3rd, 2007
- "Blogmenter" - October 4th, 2007
Topics: Zillow |
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