Zillow has introduced new Home Values and the Mortgage Rate widgets. These are very cool and useful for agents and mortgage brokers and add a great feature to their sites. (see Seattle Home Values widget on the right sidebar of this blog)
They have a very savvy co-branding feature option that allows agents to have their Zillow profile information displayed at the top of the re-directed pages if people click on the integrated Zillow link. This gives viewers an easy way to navigate back to your site when they are done with looking at home evaluations. I think this is brilliant and addresses agents concerns that we are going to loose potential clients if they click off our site.
I've decided not to implement the Mortgage Rate widget at this time because I'm worried people might think I support the Mortgage Marketplace function that it links back to. I'm uncomfortable with a business model that directs any of my clients to make a loan request with anyone other than the lender I use and prefer (Dani McDonough at Metlife Home Loans). I'm sure they have some good mortgage professionals there. But I never recommend someone for something as serious as a mortgage unless I know them or have experience with them.That being said, these are very neat tools and I am grateful for them. I think people are curious about home values and want easy access information . Zillow offers this up in a clear and accurate way.
Cool features in Zillow Home Values Widget