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Zillow announced the professional side of their mortgage offering, last night:

As a mortgage lender (broker, loan officer, originator, bank), you have an opportunity to be one of the first through the door for Zillow's new mortgage offering, launching in the coming weeks. Based on our research, we are certain this service will be enormously valuable to both lenders and consumers. Since the product hasn't launched, we're not sharing specific details just yet. But we can tell you that lenders will receive FREE and unlimited access to Zillow consumers who are in the market for mortgages.

Greg Swann covered the offering in usual detail with Do you want some earth-shaking news? In showing us a first tentative glimpse of its new mortgage lending product, Zillow.com may in fact be reinventing — and perfecting — Capitalism:

This is what Zillow is doing — national, verified reputation management for loan originators. It’s really, really nothing for now, not much beyond a pulse check. And yet it is everything, because it is the free-market asserting its natural right, its sacred obligation, and its uniquely-inescapable power to police itself.

Do you understand? Where markets do not self-police — as with Craigslist.com and, more importantly, as with state occupational licensing laws — endemic, epidemic, pandemic corruption is the only possible outcome. These results, which we patiently observe almost without exception, all the while insisting that they are only temporary aberrations — these results are the only possible outcomes of arbitrary decision-making systems.

Todd Carpenter has been following the Zillow Mortgage Offering the longest.  His initial remarks can be found at Zillow Mortgages to give loan originators “absolutely free and unlimited access to consumers looking for a mortgage” :

No matter what sort of product they offer, the one indisputable fact that they have going for them is that they know how to develop traffic to their site. After a conversation with Zillow’s Community Relations Director, David Gibbons, the good news is, they’re going to offer up that traffic to you for free.

“Absolutely free and unlimited access to consumers looking for a mortgage”

He must of told me three times. I’m not surprised either. I asked my readers, and other mortgage bloggers from around the net to predict Zillow’s mortgage play. Then I offered up my own predictions. It still don’t know exactly what they have up their sleeve, but I think I’m more right than anyone else. David did admit to me that he doesn’t think I’ll be to surprised at what they have to offer.

Zillow’s business model is to create conversations between real estate professionals and consumers. They are trying to create as much content as possible to sell adds on. I think the mortgage play will be largely the same.

In typical fashion, Todd's scheming to find a way for originators to hugely benefit by leveraging the Zillow offering and wants to document it in our Mortgage 2,0 world by

I’m looking for a temporary contributor to lenderama that wants to write about their experience with Zillow Mortgages. This would be a six month experiment where you will post monthly or semi monthly progress reports on how the system is working for you.

There’s no money in this, but you’ll get lots of link love, and personal coaching from me as to how best work through their system. I looking for someone with at least two years of experience as an originator, and has a record of writing on the Internet through blogs, Active Rain, Broker Oupost, MBL, etc… Please email me if you’re interested.

Rhonda Porter weighed in, before bed time with Catching Z-Z-Z’s Zillow on Mortgage:

I’m lucky to have been included as one of the Mortgage Professionals getting a scoop before the release. And this has all ready been covered very well at Lenderama, Blown Mortgage and Bloodhound Blog to name a few. What I like the most about this concept (which not all the details have been revealed) is the fact that Zillow is doing background checks by an independent third party before they will accept a Loan Originator to be a part of this feature.

Morgan Brown is cautiously optimistic withZillow Launches Mortgage Lender Sign Ups - Points to a New Way of Consumer Control of Mortgage Process:

Can they do it is the big question. Can the complex world of mortgage lending with it’s checkered past, dark corners and spaghetti-like regulatory, licensing and lending models be Zillow-fied? If Zillow can put the consumer in the driver seat of the transaction while educating and protecting them they will have made a major improvement in the existing mortgage marketing platforms online. This should provide them a massive competitive advantage above and beyond the lead aggregators that attracts mortgage-seeking consumers to Zillow. More consumers, more quality originators, more transparency, and better lending experiences creates a virtuous circle of industry improvement.

I personally hope they can do it. With the fresh eyes, the resources and the brand clout they are uniquely positioned to start a sea change. It won’t be easy but the opportunity is there and Zillow.com seems like the best shot out there to make it happen right now.

Finally, I offered some criticism with Zillow Mortgage: Zoriginators’ Delight or Bane?:

Now, here’s my opportunity to be critical of the Zillow mortgage offering; they may attract the very least talented originators. We’ll see when the consumer offering comes out.  The traditional “order takers” of the mortgage industry ,with time to engage in anonymous repartee with consumers, are not the most talented of our industry.  In fact, they may lack the courage (and financial reward) to properly educate consumers about the appropriate loan product for their financial situation.  Let’s face it; if you create a model that encourages the commoditization of a financial product, you leave little incentive to attract the heavy lifters who educate and monitor mortgage opportunities for clients.

The disincentive for talented originators to compete may very well have Zoriginators fighting to offer the most expensive loan product (for some consumers) at the lowest cost.

Greg reported my speculation about the consumer offering.  I believe it will be a Good Faith Zestimate of loan terms, based on the predicting algorithm they use to create the Zestimate for home prices.  Again, this is absolute speculation on my part.  Sara, David G, and Drew, immediately turn into poker players when I question their offering.  They surprised me (delightfully so) with their mortgage professional offering and could shock me in a few weeks.

Here’s the big thought:  For all my criticism about the speculated consumer offering, there is no way I question the amazing thing they’ve accomplished today.  With one fell swoop, Zillow may have started an irreversible trend towards professionalism and accountability in the mortgage industry.

…and that’s a good thing; we need it.

CONCLUSION:  There's an overriding theme among the Mortgage 2.0 originators; we like the registration process and welcome it.  Our industry has not addressed self-regulation in a an expeditious manner.  There is no doubt that I think that occupational licensing is bunk.  Zillow Mortgage, however, is attempting to provide the equivalent of a user-policed mortgage offering that lauds the best and crucifies the worst of our industry.

This is a victory for the consumer and the good guys and gals who originate loans.