Zillow announced that it is launching a personalized hub to help guide homebuyers through their home purchase in real time. Three new features also were included to give buyers and sellers more information throughout the transaction, according to the announcement.
According to Zillow, the average home search for a buyer can take up to three to four months, with countless conversations with an agent and lender, culminating in gathering documents in a short time and tracking budgets. Buyers, half of whom are first-time buyers, are navigating a market with mortgage rates climbing past 6.5%, adding even more uncertainty to a complex process, Zillow writes.
Its new personalized hub is designed to give buyers a clearer path forward, guiding them through four milestones: setting a budget, finding a home, making an offer and closing the deal. It brings together goals, finances, tasks, documents and the agent and lender the buyer is working with, all in one place, Zillow says.
“Zillow has spent 20 years turning on the lights in real estate, giving buyers and sellers access to information they’d never had before,” said Jeremy Wacksman, Zillow’s chief executive officer. “The next frontier is the journey itself: the financing, the coordination, the offer, the closing. For the first time, every home shopper on Zillow has a single place that brings it all together, so instead of wondering what comes next, they always know exactly where they are and what to do.”
According to the release, the personalized hub displays:
- BuyAbility℠: A personalized, real-time affordability rool to help buyers understand the range of home prices and monthly payments to fit their financial situation. Used to guide the home shopping journey, updated with live mortgage rates.
- Local market insights: Including market conditions, median days to pending, active listings and a one-year price forecast.
- The shopper’s team: If a buyer is already working with an agent and loan officer, those contacts are available here. If a buyer doesn’t yet have a team, the hub uses Agent Finder to connect them with an agent.
The hub is available on iOS and Android, and will come soon to Zillow.com, the release notes.
Zillow notes its launch also includes three new features designed to help buyers and sellers move forward during the process.
“Every feature in our Summer Launch was designed around a specific moment when buyers lose clarity or momentum,” said Christopher Roberts, chief product officer at Zillow. “The hub gives buyers confidence by making a complex process easier. The shared collection feature helps partners collaborate on their home search, and the ability to shop with Verified Pre-approval shows buyers what they can actually afford on every listing, not just the list price. Zillow Preview opens the pre-market to every buyer, not just those in a certain network. Together, these features remove the friction that makes the home-buying process so hard.”
Zillow Preview gives soon-to-be sellers the opportunity to hire an agent to show their listing online before it goes on the market. During this window, the home will appear in every buyer’s regular Zillow search, with a Preview label, Zillow says.
Buyers are able to filter specifically for Preview listings. When they find a home they are interested in, they are able to save it, pre-book a tour or use the time to get pre-approved. Sellers get real-time engagement data on views, saves and tour requests to refine their list price and strategy before the listing is fully active. Preview is available to 1,200 participating brokers nationwide, the release notes.
Zillow also notes its Home Loans Verified Pre-Approval allows buyers to see whether a listing is a match with their financial situation, or is out of their price range as they shop. Taxes, insurance, HOA feed and closing costs are factored in, so buyers can understand why a higher-priced home may still fit within their means, or a lower-priced one may not. Zillow Home Loans is the only lender to integrate financing directly into the home search in this way, with the loan officer accessible throughout the process, the release concludes.
For more information, visit www.zillow.com.
