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Bill Rice is the CEO of Kaleidico, a leader in lead management systems. Prior to founding Kaleidico he was the VP of National Home Equity and the Home Loan Benefit program at Quicken Loans and one of the founding executives of DeepGreen Bank, an Internet-only bank that was one of the first and (at that time) largest buyers of LendingTree leads in early 2000.

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Zillow Giving Out Free Mortgage Leads

March 15th, 2008 • Related • Filed Under
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Has Zillow gone mad? They are obviously pursuing an innovative path.

Zillow is not yet revealing the whole strategy, but here is a peek at what to expect from Zillow Mortgage:

“…our new mortgage offering is coming soon. While we’re still several weeks away from an official launch, effective today, lenders can apply to be one of the first through the door to obtain free, instant, and unlimited access to Zillow consumers who are shopping for a loan. That’s right, FREE access.”

It seems that they are certainly taking aim at LendingTree’s closing fee:

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.

Many mortgage brokers and loan officers are familiar with Zillow through their use of Zestimate to give some indicative home value in a roller coaster market.

There is one thing for certain the innovation comes with great anticipation:

What are your thoughts? I am really curious of current mortgage lead providers’ views on this model. Anyone courageous enough to tell mortgage brokers why they should pay for an Internet lead when they can get them for free?

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