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Zillow to offer Social Networking Capabilities

Zillow.com announced that it is offering some new features to its website that draws in the professional real estate agent and lender to interface more directly with the consumer.

READ:  Zillow.com New Features: "Ask Questions, Share Answers"

Zillow started out as a consumer portal for real estate information centered on its highly controversial Zestimate.  The Zestimate is an automated valuation model which attempts to give a consumer property value information based on historical data from county tax records.  This tool was highly criticized by the real estate community as irresponsible and inaccurate.  There was a growing fear that Zillow was trying to disintermediate by eliminating or reducing the role of the licensed real estate agent.  Zillow's founders had effectively done that to the travel agencies through Expedia.com.  Consumers were given an opportunity to "list" their home for sale on the Zillow site without the aid of a real estate agent.

In the fall of 2006, Zillow solicited listings from the real estate brokerage community with the promise of free advertising to them.  Zillow allowed agents to upload the listing information to the site.  While it started off slowly, Zillow has some 100,000 national property listings in a short six months.  I criticized this strategy heavily with a warning to Realtors that Zillow was trying to "steal" their content with the ultimate intention of re-selling that data back to the Realtor as a lead aggregator.  My article Smoking Is Cool attracted the comments from David Gibbons, Zillow's Director of Customer Service.  Mr. Gibbons proclaimed that real estate brokerage and lead aggregation was not the intent but an advertising platform was.  I followed up this thought with a post called Here Come the Zmokers, Again where I further criticized this strategy and asked Realtors to adopt a cautious approach.

READ:  A Realtor's Guide to "Farming" Zillow.com

Zillow announced three new features today:

CLICK AND SEE: Actual screen shots of the new features

1-     Any user will be able to post a listing for sale of any property through the comments section of each property.  That feature will not be limited to real estate agents or homeowners.  Registered users at Zillow.com will effectively be able to "put a property in play" through this feature.  Initial criticism would be that they open the practice of real estate brokerage to anybody, regardless of licensing.   A closer inspection of the feature shows that Zillow will institute a "ratings system" of users, similar to Amazon.com that will reflect the credibility of the user.  Contracted real estate agents will "trump" the stray commenter through bolded type and order of comments and the homeowner can subsequently "trump" the real estate agent in the "credibility" ratings of registered users.

2-     Any user will further be given an opportunity to ask or answer specific questions about a property.  That commentary will be stored for historical data about the subject property.

3-     A revenue offering is announced through the use of "EZ Ads".   The EZ Ads will be a hybrid of a sponsored link and an avatar button and will be sold for $10 per 1000 impressions.  The EZ Ads impressions can be spread over a specific time period, in a specific zip code, ranging from 3 days to 3 months.  The shorter the time period, the more frequent the ad impressions.

READ: How Mortgage Originators Might Use Zillow.com

Zillow answers questions as to their motive and goals with this recent announcement.  The company has always claimed that it is a media company and had no designs on becoming a national real estate brokerage.  It has continually stated that the Zestimate is "starting point" and never affirmed its accuracy.  This announcement shows that the company intends to act in accordance with its earlier stated objectives and not as the "boogeyman under the bed" that I, and many others, believed it might be.

More comprehensive reporting and analysis can be found here:

BloodhoundBlog will have extensive coverage of tonight's announcement from Zillow.com:

A broad overview of the new functionality and its implications, by Greg Swann

Zillow.com's press release announcing the new software release:

A podcast with Director of Community Relations David Gibbons

New Kid on the Block in RE.net

I ask that you check back at 9PM (Pacific Daylight Time) for an announcement that affects the RE.net social networking community.

America's Most Opinionated Mortgage Broker will release an interview with a real estate technology company.  They will provide a massive social networking site to interface with consumers directly.  This technology might benefit consumers, lenders, and Realtors.

Look for more information 9PM Pacific Daylight Time, Tuesday, April 3, 2007.

MULTI FAMILY LOANS: 2nd Mortgages

One arena where hard money can be helpful is to get a quick loan, in second lien position,  against a multi-family property.  There is a tremendous need in California for that right now because so many multi-family property owners have low-rate first mortgages at 50-60% loan-to-value (LTV) that were made some years ago.

READ: I'm in love with a Dingbat

There are two major reasons why the multi-family property owner is reluctant to refinance the first lien to a larger amount:

1- They have a great rate on the first mortgage.  Rates for buildings purchased in 2003 or 2004 were term loans with a note rate below 5.5%; today those rates are 6.5% or higher.

2- They have a very restrictive prepayment penalty on the first mortgage.  The more common prepayment penalty is offered as a declining penalty over 3-5 years.  Commercial Mortgage Backed Securities (CMBS) have a much more restrictive prepayment penalty referred to as yield maintenance or defeasance.  Simply put, the borrower must guarantee the lender (who in turn guarantees the investor) a yield for a specific term; this can be much more costly than the declining penalty.  Why would someone borrow money with yield maintenance as a prepayment penalty?  They received a much lower rate. 

We recognize two things in the multi-family market in Southern California:

1- Multi-family properties are undervalued when analyzed on a per-unit basis.   High land costs and rising construction costs make existing properties that have utility as a potential conversion to condominiums valuable.  Condominiums can fetch as and average of $300,000 in San Diego County.  Many times we'll try to loan up to 60% of the future value of a conversion.

READ: Will the government pay me when the zoning changes?

2- Multi-family properties have rising yield potential.  There still is a housing shortage in the lower end of the market in Southern California.  Vacancy rates are falling and average rents are rising.  We'll try to extrapolate how an existing owner might "reset" the rents to reflect the market if the property is improved and deferred maintenance is performed.  We'll analyze the debt-service coverage ratio (DSCR) and lend on a 1.0 coverage using "market" rents or future value of rents.

READ: Multi-Family Lenders Are Liars ( or are they?)

Why would a borrower with good credit and equity borrow money at 13-14% ?

The answer is that nobody else funds second mortgages on multi-family properties; we will.  Many of our private lenders owned multi-family properties in their more aggressive investing years so they understand the property type. 

Sometimes, a multi-family property owner is looking for some quick money for 1-2 years.  The amount they need is not much in relation to the first lien and value.  Borrowers with a CMBS mortgage often find that the high costs and rates associated with our loans are actually quite a bargain when compared to a full refinance of the first lien.

READ:  "Hard Money" makes sense for good credit borrowers

Please contact me if you have any questions.