Personal finance tracking website Mint.com today announced they will include automated home valuations (AVMs) in their suite of mobile-ready applications and have chosen to partner with Zillow.com to provide these AVMs (called “Zestimates” when data is provided by Zillow).
This partnership has gone live- as of today, when users log on to their Mint.com account, based on their address on file, they will see their home in their list of investments along with a Zestimate (home valuation).
Although Zillow’s data has recently been called into question and Zestimates have always been a topic of contention in the real estate market as agents often have to correct the misperception of their accuracy, we think this is a pretty cool partnership.
Mint.com users are financially minded and we believe this personality type that invests time in tracking this information does their homework and compares data sources, and it is interesting that someone can be on the train and pull up their investments in a simple app on their Android, iPhone or whatever and see their home featured.
We think that this will add exposure to the Zillow brand but more importantly will put the focus of homeowners back on their primary investment.
We anticipate that with the recent announcement of restructuring at Zillow that we will see more partnerships forming leading up to Zillow’s possible IPO candidacy.
AgentGenius.com is not affiliated with Zillow.com or Mint.com.
Erica Ramus
September 22, 2010 at 7:42 pm
It seems to me that Trulia is being left in the dust here lately, which is a shame. I find Trulia to be much easier to navigate, and in polling my buyers it seems they like it better than Zillow. However, Zillow is the one partnering with mint.com, move.com and seems to be making more/better relationships.
What is Trulia doing to catch up or innovate?
I am rooting for Trulia here… Zillow has never impressed me.
Erica Ramus
September 22, 2010 at 9:29 pm
PS– I do use mint.com to organize my finances and them using Zestimates just brings mint.com DOWN in my eyes. Do they not realize how inaccurate these are? Why do they need this partnership?
Jim Duncan
September 22, 2010 at 10:19 pm
I’m curious what, if any, of my financial data from mint that Zillow gets. Clearly Z got my address … what else? Mint’s privacy policy hasn’t been updated since early this year, so that’s no help.
Ken Montville
September 23, 2010 at 7:37 am
I’m with Jim Duncan on this one. I don’t use Mint or other online financial tracking software/apps because I really don’t want to make it any easier for the entire world to know my finances.
I’m under no illusion that there is very little, if any, online privacy but I try not to make it too easy. That may be an illusion in and of itself.
Re: the partnership. Zillow’s Zestimate has been its marketing hook from Day 1. It’s inaccurate, at best, and doesn’t take into account either the condition of the individual house or the current market conditions of the neighborhood/area. However, consumers love it. Who wouldn’t? Unfortunately, for Mint’s customers, it will throw off its projections and net worth formulas since it will be using bad data.
Garbage in, Garbage out.