Baron Briefs

Zillow launched MyZillow earlier this week allowing anyone to save a list of favorite homes and track their Zestimates after signing up for an account. It didn’t take long for mortgage brokers to figure out how to profit from it:

Every time a broker does a refi, they can use the appraisal to work up the estimate to match the real value. Then you can save that estimate in MyZillow. You get a monthly report on that homes value. Now you know about how much the home has appreciated, and how much of the mortgage is likely paid off. With this data, you have a pretty good idea of your existing client base’s equity, and can market to them accordingly.

Based on this information, you could send out reminders that they may have reached 80% LTV, and should look into getting their MI dropped. Or, you could send out offers on HELOC’s, or Cash Outs.

Not only do I fail to see how Zillow can possibly prevent this, but it’s also an end run around Zillow’s core business model–advertising. How long before we see a website using Zillow’s API to help manage marketing campaigns on behalf of mortgage brokers?

FYI, I’m not Zillow-bashing here. I’m hoping someone–Zillow or otherwise–can debunk this because the last thing I or anyone wants are more mortgage offers in the mail.

CORRECTION: False alarm. Somehow I skimmed over the fact the broker was referring to a previous client…not a prospective client as first thought. Not so sinister after all.

This entry was posted on Thursday, September 21st, 2006 at 9:56 am and is filed under brokers, leads, mortgage, realestate, realtor, realtors, zestimate, zillow. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.