David Gibbons's Q&A

Done!

In some areas, Zillow does receive (either full or partial) listings directly from the MLS and in others, they come direct from individual brokers or agents. One of the primary roles of the MLS is to privately communicate the cooperative agreement between the buyer and sellers' agents. Zillow doesn't plan to perform that function. It's for this primary reason that I'd go with Sunnyview's advice. That said, many MLS' are independent of and don't require membership to the association -- the NWMLS here in Seattle is one example of that. 

Yes! Watch this space.

Here you go.Also take a look at our Real Estate widget library -- widgets are FAR easier to add to your site that API data.  

I nominate Robert and Gregorio both for best answer.Wayne - Zillow has no plans to create a "confirmed lender advisor" category. Confirmed lenders will continue to give advice on Zillow and will continue to benefit from the reputation and business that that generates at no cost to them. We love the fact that borrowers get great advice here and encourage lenders to use mortgage advice to brand themselves as local experts.

Rudi - 4) You accept Zillow's terms of use (which are changeable by Zillow) whenever you quote. It is your responsibility to read the TOU but I hope you'll agree that we've also put a lot of effort into repeatedly communicating these changes. I hope you've been receiving our emails in this regard - it's also why I sit here typing to you on a Saturday morning ;-)

Rudi - I'll try to answer your Q's:1) What licensing exactly is it that you're referring to here?2) Zillow is not charging a referral fee. 3) Recording callsis not illegal. All participants are informed that calls are being recorded. Yes, you don't have to participate in ZMM to be a "lender" on Zillow. Confirmed Lenders are ZMM participants. 

Bert - No-one is saying that they would. You guys set the maximum price we get paid per contact. In December, when the pricing engine turns on, we'll find out what that is.Wayne - I understand that you consider this an urgent matter but your bold and underlined dire predictions are not particularly helping me understand what it is. Do you have any facts or can you cite any part of the regulation that you are particularly concerned about that I might address those for you. If we've missed something we'd love to know about it.Joe - I apologize that you don't have the visibility you'd like to the pricing of individual contacts today but please consider that funding your account is no risk regardless of that fact because:a) You cannot be overcharged. Since you set the maximum you're prepared to pay for a contact, you will never pay more than you want to.b) The unspent portion of your account can be refunded to you at any time.You don't have to fund your account before pricing goes live but the added incentive to being an early bird is that we're giving a 25% discount on month 1.

Wayne - Right; I am certainly not a lender. No offense taken for that. I understand that the red flag rules require that lenders report any potential compromise to their clients' privacy. It sounds like sensible legislation and I applaud any initiative that will help clean up this industry. There's nothing however in the red flag rulings that precludes your use of Zillow. In this regard, ZMM is a communication mechanism between borrowers and lenders and like most of the digital communication mechanisms you use, digital archives are created along the way. You obviously need to do due diligence of the tools you use but your approach to ZMM should be no different than your due diligence in selecting an ISP, email service provider, pricing engine etc. w.r.t. ZMM, you will find the information you need regarding Zillow's archival and use of private information detailed in our Privacy policy; if you think anything in there violates the red flag rules, please let me know. As an aside, you should note that e-mail communications between borrowers and lenders have been archived by Zillow since the site launched - you've actually been trusting us to do this for the last 18 months so nothing really changes with the introduction of the archival of phone contacts. 

Chip - 1) If you are not joking, please clarify this question.2) Zillow has one Privacy policy that governs all private information communicated via the site. You will find it here. 3) For call recording, Zillow has sourced a 3rd party solution commonly used for this application. Archival of email communications happens within Zillow's databases (as it has been since ZMM launched 18 months ago.)4) Zillow's terms of use (for all users) are here.5) Zillow has sold products to agents and brokers for a while now. Please tell the agents you work with about it!6) Yes. Please note however that the content of your profile video should obviously comply with the new policy for contact details on profiles. 7) If you read the new policy that was sent to lenders it's clear on this; "Contact information includes phone number, e-mail address, or any Web site addresses or links."8) No, confirmed lender status on Zillow applies to ZMM participants only.9) I empathize with this request but there are two good reasons we couldn't make it happen. First, setting all contacts to $0 was the only feasible technical solution to give lenders this preview. Secondly, any pricing we could show you now could be more confusing than useful; pricing will change once we launch based on lender demand for contacts. The good news is you will be in complete control of the maximum amount you could be charged for a given contact; you will never pay more than you want to for a contact from a Zillow borrower.