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Zillow Mortgage Marketplace: 3 Day Rule?

by Justin McHood

in Justin McHood, Mortgage Related Topics

Are you still asking yourself “what exactly is so special about the Zillow Mortgage Marketplace anyway?”

Previously, we learned that the first rule of negotiation is the first one to talk loses and that the second rule of negotiation is that when you are explaining, you are losing.

Ready for the third rule of negotiation?

Wait.

Before we get to that, let’s forget about mortgage-related stuff and think about something sunnier — love.

Let’s think about love for a moment.

Think back to the best first-date that you have ever been on. You know, that once-in-a-lifetime kind of date that happens only once or maybe twice in a lifetime. You met that special someone for the first time in a date-setting. You really liked the other person, had a fabulous time and fell asleep that night wishing the feeling would last forever.

And then you woke up the next morning and wanted to call your date just to tell them how much of a great time you had… but you just couldn’t allow yourself to.

Why?

Because of the three day rule.

You know, that unspoken rule that everyone seems to know about but yet never speaks about with other people. The one rule of dating that you wouldn’t dare breaking for fear of messing something up. The one that you are absolutely positive would jinx the entire relationship and could possibly lead to sudden cardiac arrest.

The three day rule is a very real rule because it follows the third rule of negotiation. The third rule of negotiation is:

The person with the least interest controls the relationship.

How Zillow Mortgage Marketplace Puts You In Control

Everyone has been chased by a rabid, commissioned sales person before.

When shopping for a mortgage on Zillow’s Mortgage Marketplace, you fill out your information and immediately you get phone calls and emails from up to 150 rabid, commissioned loan officers who have too much time and not enough to do, right?

Wrong.

You won’t get a single phone call or email once you submit your information on Zillow’s Mortgage Marketplace because the lenders never see any of your personal information so they have no way to contact you or even know who you are.

To the lenders on Zillow’s Mortgage Marketplace, you are just a set of numbers. Important numbers, yes — but just numbers that are only related to your mortgage.

However — once a lender submits a quote to you, you are able to not only see their “numbers” (notice how I didn’t use the word measurements) but you will also be able to see their lender profile, see what other clients have said about them and probably even a picture or two of them along with a profile and short bio.

Put quite simply: there are two ways to shop for a mortgage online.

One way is to submit your information to a company and that company sells your information (yes, even your phone number) to up to 8 rabid, commissioned loan officers with too much time and not enough to do…

Or

You use Zillow’s Mortgage Marketplace and collect all of the information about “what the lenders can do for you” without them ever even knowing who you are.

Back to the Third Rule of Negotiation — The one with the least interest controls the relationship.

Say that you don’t feel like calling (or emailing) your favorite loan officer for three days after you get their quote because you don’t want to get the relationship started off on the wrong foot?

It is your choice — assuming you used Zillow’s Mortgage Marketplace and not some other way to shop for a mortgage online.

And I am sure the loan officer will understand — after all, you have to wait at least three days according to legend or the relationship may be cursed!

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Zillow Mortgage Marketplace: When You Are Explaining You Are Losing

If you have shopped for a mortgage in the last 20 years, chances are that you know what it feels like to walk into a gunfight with a knife. In negotiations, knowledge is power and until the recent launch of the Zillow mortgage marketplace , it was all too hard to get enough information to find yourself with enough leverage to get the best deal on a mortgage. But that has now changed – and as I recently promised when talking about the First Rule of Negotiation , here is how Zillow’s mortgage marketplace puts you on the right side of the Second Rule of Negotiation. The Second Rule of Negotiation is: When you are explaining, you are losing. In any negotiation, there is a time to talk and a time to listen. The best negotiators spend more time listening than talking. The rookie, all-to-eager-salesman spends far more time talking than he does listening. When the best negotiators do talk, it is usually concise and addresses the concerns of the other party. Generally speaking, great negotiators will follow a simple rule introduced by Stephen Covey: “Seek first to understand, then to be understood” If you shop for a mortgage and choose NOT to use Zillow’s mortgage marketplace, chances are that you will call a loan officer, and immediately start “explaining” your situation. What you don’t realize is that while you are “explaining” your current situation, any loan officer who is worth his salt is sizing you up and figuring out if you are really something that he can deal with and make money on — and even sizing up the amount of effort your situation will require and how much money he stands to make. Within the first 5 minutes on the first call with you, good loan officers can tell if you are going to be a great deal for them (low effort, high dollars) or a bad deal for them (high effort, low dollars) and it all comes from things that you are explaining when speaking about your situation that have nothing to do with numbers . When you are explaining, you are losing. Now, if you shop for a mortgage using the Zillow mortgage marketplace, the tables are completely turned . You simply fill out the vital numbers of your situation and then the loan officers get to “explain” why you should choose them as well as submit their best offer. Then – when you are not feeling pressure or rushed or have that “somehow I just got sold something” feeling, you decide which loan officer you want to contact about your mortgage. Remember, when you submit your information to Zillow’s Mortgage Marketplace, the lenders don’t get to see all of the “other” things about you – just your vital numbers that they really need to know. We don’t get to see your personal information and we have no way of knowing who you are or how to contact you. Which leads into the Third Rule of Negotiation . And lucky for you, using Zillow’s Mortgage Marketplace puts you on the right side of that one too. Up next, find out how the Third Rule of Negotiation applies to dating AND shopping for mortgages. Zillow has your covered when shopping for mortgages, but you are on your own when it comes to dating.

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This One Is Dedicated To All You Loan Officers Out There

I always knew it was a fact, but I chose to leave it somewhere deep in the dark recesses of my mind in places I don’t like to shine the light on very often. My adventure of torturing my boss using the Zillow mortgage marketplace started shining a strobe light on the problem, but I could still remain “enough in the dark” that I was still comfortably numb. And then my friend Brian Brady did it. He brought up the words fiduciary relationship . And now the light is bright in what used to be a deep, dark corner of my mind. “Me Inc.” If you are a loan officer, you are essentially a one man entity. You are in the customer service business and the relationship is between you and your customer – no one else. If you actually have a boss, chances are that he doesn’t really care about anything except for you producing loans. If you think he does, go ahead and try not producing for a while. Most likely, you are a 100% commission employee who doesn’t get paid unless you actually fund a loan. If you do get a base salary, it is likely just enough for your employer to cover their minimum wage liability because your company has figured out that this is the best way to reduce their exposure to the minimum wage laws — and I wouldn’t count on a raise anytime soon. Which means that you absolutely, positively have no responsibility for company loyalty, teamwork, company stability or company goals. You are responsible for getting your customer the best deal possible on their mortgage and charging them enough to make a living at it. That’s it. I have went over the different types of loan officers and some of the ways that loan officers are paid before. Both of these are important, but in today’s competitive, transparent market that Zillow’s mortgage marketplace is helping to create, they probably take a backseat to one other topic: Do you as a loan officer have access to direct investor pricing? If you do, congratulations. You are probably in the best situation that you can be in. Whatever the big investors are paying on any given day, you are aware of any “holdbacks” that your company is taking and you can be competitive with the other loan officers in a transparent marketplace. If you don’t have access to direct investor pricing, you are at a disadvantage to those loan officers who do – possibly a severe disadvantage . Consider these two rate sheets. Guess which one is the one where loan officers have access to direct investor pricing? Now consider these top Zillow Mortgage Marketplace lenders: The only way that John, Greg, Robert, John or Kat is able to have this much success on Zillow’s mortgage marketplace is to have the best service at the best price for any given mortgage product. Secondary marketing managers also call this best ex (short for best execution). I have never talked with any of these loan officers, but I wouldn’t be surprised if many of the top lenders on Zillow don’t have direct access to investor pricing… and if they don’t, they are at a minimum leaving tens or even hundreds of thousands of dollars on the table that they could either keep for themselves or pass on to their clients in savings. In simple terms, secondary marketing departments across the US are “making” money from loan officers and customers and can easily be cut out if the loan officer knows where to look. People are used to shopping around for the best deal. People on Zillows mortgage marketplace shop for mortgage deals . People on Nextag shop for the best deal on a bigscreen TV . People shop for car insurance rates. Shouldn’t you shop around for somewhere that you can get direct access to investor pricing? Michael Dell did it with computers and he was called a revolutionary and built a company out of it. You as a loan officer have the chance to find a place to work that provides direct access to investor pricing and become locally known as the loan officer with the best rates because you “go direct”. Give great service and have direct investor pricing and you can make a living on Zillow’s mortgage marketplace because in their transparent marketplace, you will shine like a bright star if you have those two things. Or you could choose to leave the light off in that deep, dark corner of your mind and choose not to think about it. Heck, I did this for years. But if you ever need to borrow a flashlight to look around a little when it seems to you that all of the lights are turned off, call me. You can borrow mine.

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