Zillow Group announced today that it is making Zillow Mortgages available on Trulia as part of its ongoing effort to consolidate operations with the former rival it acquired last year.
After competing with each other for most of the last decade, Zillow announced it would purchase Trulia in July 2014 for about $3.5 billion in stock, creating a giant online repository of real estate listings and home values. Since then, the companies have combined many of their offerings, including rental listings, mortgage purchase and refinance products and advertising materials.
However, the integration hasn’t gone as smoothly as investors might like. In a call to investors on April 14, Zillow Group CEO Spencer Rascoff pointed out that the acquisition itself was delayed by a lengthy Federal Trade Commission review, and said with 2015 being a major transition year for the companies, “we’re trending a couple quarters behind where we’d like to be.”
After the FTC finally approved the acquisition in February, “we’ve moved incredibly quickly and made enormous progress in the integration of Trulia into Zillow Group,” Rascoff said. “Just last month, we welcomed Trulia into the Zillow Rental Network, bringing new opportunities to our multifamily partners and landlords, and today we are giving our lender partners a new way grow their business.”
With the addition of Zillow Mortgage to Trulia, lenders that advertise on Zillow are able to reach an even broader audience, the company said in a statement. Launched in 2008, the online marketplace allows participating lenders to automate custom quotes to borrowers who submit loan requests.
Zillow said borrowers on Trulia now have the ability to anonymously shop for custom loan quotes, access more than 130,000 reviews of mortgage lenders, and easily connect with reputable local lenders at both national and regional banks. The Trulia functionality is available on desktop and mobile devices.
“Over the past seven years, we’ve worked hard to build a great mortgage shopping experience for borrowers, where they can shop for competitive rates and fees and quickly connect with highly rated and reviewed lenders,” said Erin Lantz, vice president of mortgages at Zillow. “We’re thrilled to extend this experience to borrowers on Trulia.”
Rascoff also told investors this week to expect prices for agent ad products on both websites to merge soon. Zillow is also working to unify other elements of the two portals, including agent advertiser databases, agent profiles and reviews, lead management software and listing databases. “This is my No. 1 priority,” Rascoff said.
