Zillow has launched a personalized hub that guides home buyers through every step of their purchase in real time. In addition, three new features have been designed to give buyers and sellers more clarity at every stage of the transaction.
The median home search for a buyer takes from three to four months, involves countless conversations with an agent and lender, and culminates in gathering documents at a few days’ notice, all while tracking a budget on a spreadsheet. The process moves more than half of buyers to tears, according to Zillow research. In addition, today’s buyers, nearly half of whom are first-timers, are navigating a market where the housing recovery is “back on pause,” with mortgage rates climbing past 6.5%, adding more uncertainty to an already complex process.
Now, Zillow is giving buyers a clearer path forward: a single place where everything comes together. The new personalized hub guides buyers 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 a buyer is working with, all in one place. And all of those details update automatically as the journey evolves, so buyers always know where they stand and what to do next.
“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.”
The hub immediately displays BuyAbility, a personalized, real-time affordability tool that helps buyers understand the range of home prices and monthly payments that may fit their financial situation; Local market insights including market conditions, median days to pending, active listings and a one-year price forecast and the shopper’s team.
From there, buyers are guided through four milestones: setting a budget, finding a home, making an offer and closing the deal. The hub shows buyers which areas to focus on and lists the steps to follow below each milestone. Progress is updated automatically — when a buyer gets pre-approved, the hub moves forward; when they go under contract, closing tasks appear.
The hub is available now on iOS and Android will be coming soon to Zillow.com.
