Zillow.com announced today their new features which turns them into a social networking site on the neighborhood level.  The full text of the press release is here.  My initial reporting was here with rudimentary analysis.

There are three ways I might see a mortgage originator benefit from the social networking feature Zillow.com added to their site:

1- Leaving tracks on the desired zip code with the intent to market directly to the consumer.  As a participant in the Q&A section of properities, an originator can post all listings in a particular zip code,  She can further provide financing information to correspond with the listed price.  Consumers, interested in that listing, will click through to the originator's profile and potentially contact her for property information.  Regardless of their willingness to preview that property, the mortgage originator gaets an opportunity to "have a conversation" with the consumer at a critical juncture of the home purchase; BEFORE they have contracted with a buyer's agent.  Mortgage originators must learn how to initiate contact with the consumer to control the relationship.

2- Mortgage originators are sometimes privy to certain information about valuations or lien information about a home.  Consumers who recently refinanced a home may wish to have their appraised value posted on the Zillow site to reaffirm their opinion of the home's value.  Armed with that permission, an originator can establish herself as the financing and valuation expert for that zip code.  Variances from the Zestimate can be explained in professional commentary reaffirming her expertise.

3- EZ Ads provides an inexpensive way for an originator to plant the seed in the consumer's mind that she is the expert authority on financing for that zip code.  At a penny per impression, America's Most Opinionated Mortgage Broker can and will dominate Del Mar and Solana Beach in California.  This is extraordinarily useful as a refinance solicitation tool.  Consumers use the Zestimate BEFORE they contact lenders to get a starting point for their refinance options.

Contracted Realtors and homeowers will always "trump" a particular user's commentary as they are deferred to by Zillow as of greater interest to a property.  Still, the proactive mortgage originator will fill the void the less technologically savvy Realtor leaves and reap the resulting benefits from that void.