Editor’s note: This story has been updated to correct that the Zillow Mortgage Marketplace generates nearly 1 million consumer loan requests a month.
After getting off to a false start, Realtor.com operator Move Inc. says its mortgage lead generation platform, PreQualPlus, is taking off, receiving more than $4 billion in mortgage requests during the summer buying season.
Citing the increase in mortgage prequalification applications, Move Inc. says it’s expanded the PreQualPlus platform to accommodate multiple loan originators.
Move launched a lending site that included prequalification tools, MortgageMatch.com, in December 2010, with Houston-based Cornerstone Mortgage Co.
The companies said they planned to integrate MortgageMatch.com’s prequalification tools into Realtor.com to help homebuyers focus on homes they were most likely qualified to buy.
But Move and Cornerstone parted ways, and Move stopped offering loans through the site within a few months of launching it.
Last year, Move launched PreQualPlus with MetLife Home Loans, the residential mortgage division of MetLife Bank N.A. But in January, parent company MetLife Inc. announced that MetLife Home Loans was getting out of the forward mortgage business.
To keep PreQualPlus alive, Move then partnered with Discover Home Loans Inc., an Illinois-based lender licensed in 49 states (all but New York). This week, Move announced that it had brought a second lender to the platform: Irvine, Calif.-based Intercap Lending.
"PreQualPlus has expanded to support multiple mortgage originators and will continue to add loan originators to meet rising demand, particularly in the states of California, Florida and Texas," Move said in announcing the addition of Intercap.
PreQualPlus employs an automated underwriting process to evaluate consumers’ credit scores and their capacity to afford monthly mortgage payments using decision-making technology based on pricing, eligibility, underwriting, a full credit history review, credit risk analytics, and loan scenario modeling.
Consumers can access PreQualPlus at PreQualPlus.com or on Realtor.com by clicking on "Estimate My Payment" or "Get Prequalified Today" links on Realtor.com listing detail pages.
Rival real estate search portal Trulia got into the business of generating leads for mortgage lenders last month with the launch of a consumer mortgage rate and fee comparison tool. Participating lenders include First Financial Services Inc., BNC National Bank, West Star Mortgage Inc., Box Home Loans, CapWest Mortgage, North American Savings Bank, RoundPoint Mortgage Co., RMC Vanguard Mortgage and First Choice Bank.
Zillow has been offering mortgage loan quotes from multiple lenders on its "Mortgage Marketplace" since April 2008 — a service the company says now generates nearly 1 million consumer loan requests a month.
Google launched a consumer mortgage comparison service in 2009, which became part of Google Advisor before being discontinued without explanation, Search Engine Watch reported in February.
