Your mortgage complaint — delivered … on a platter, with ribbons

November 1, 2006

Somebody hasn’t been listening!

In the “company loves misery” department, Jim Duncan of Realcentralva.com notes that Ditech, the online mortgage giant, is now offering an instant online property value estimator. Um, wait a minute, wasn’t a large part of the NCRC complaint that mortgage brokers were using Zestimates to sell inflated mortgages to homebuyers?

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The tool, which appears to be a First American product, offered a rather wide range of values for a sample home:

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Surely Ditech has an NCRC-proof disclaimer?

Judge for yourself:

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Looks like an early Christmas gift for the NCRC lawyers. Pull out the Zillow complaint, make some photocopies, and drop if off at the FTC.

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Written by Kevin · Filed Under Ditech, First American Title, NCRC, Real estate, Zestimate, Zillow | 1 Comment 

A modest proposal becomes more ambitious…

October 26, 2006

Time for us all to pitch in and help out Zillow.

Now that you’ve refined your virtual-pumpkin-carving skills, spend a few minutes putting together an entry for my “Re-design Zillow’s homepage to make it NCRC-proof” contest. I’ve already submitted my entry. I don’t have t-shirts, so the lucky winner will get, oh, a $10 Starbucks card and the right to rename my blog for a day. Howzat sound?

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Written by Kevin · Filed Under Frivolous lawsuits, NCRC, Real estate, Zillow | 9 Comments 

A modest proposal

October 26, 2006

It’s all over the web:

The National Community Reinvestment Coalition, a Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit that promotes equal access to credit and capital for underserved communities, has filed a 12-page complaint (PDF) against Zillow with the Federal Trade Commission.

Having obviously been educated at the David Barry school of frivolous real estate complaints, the NCRC alleges that some shady people have conned [or "could con", I'm not sure which] gullible people into doing real estate transactions on the basis of a Zestimate.

It’s not immediately clear whether the NCRC is a) trying to help said gullible people, or b) upset that said shady people are cutting in on NCRC’s turf and making money off Zillow.

A part of the complaint appears to be that some people take the Zestimate as gospel truth and are harmed if the Zestimate is too high or too low.

So, here’s my modest proposal for Zillow. Change your home page so it says:

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Written by Kevin · Filed Under Frivolous lawsuits, NCRC, Real estate, Zestimate, Zillow | 4 Comments