Despite its early misguided efforts to prod the real estate industry into lowering fees, Zillow has done one positive thing -- it's made the real estate market more transparent.

Now the company is doing the same thing for consumers when it comes to loans. And they could really use some help.

According to Zillow's research, adults who have obtained or refinanced a home loan in the past five years spent 39 hours researching homes but only 5 hours on home loans. Considering the amount of money involved, it's surprising that we spend more time researching a car purchase (8 hours).

Eighty-two percent of housing consumers have concerns about getting a home loan, including:

1. Having personal information sold or shared with multiple lenders (58%)

2. Sharing personal information and credit score with multiple lenders (55%)

3. Missing the opportunity to get the best rate (54%)

4. Ending up with a monthly payment that is greater than original budget (48%)

5. Not understanding the terms and financial implications of the loan (41%)

That's a great opportunity for Zillow. Transparency, here we come. Unlike other online mortgage portals like Lending Tree, which operates as a mortgage broker, Zillow says it is operating a transparent lending marketplace. Borrowers give enough information to get real rate quotes, but do not provide any personally identifiable information to the lender -- no name, address, phone number or Social Security number.

Any lender can visit Zillow, but they have to register and pay a fee, but there's no limit on how many banks can submit quotes to borrowers.

"Loan shoppers tell us they want real quotes -- not just teaser rates -- when doing their research online, and they want to control who and when they contact by shopping anonymously until they are ready to talk, explains Rich Barton, CEO of Zillow.

Even better, The Mortgage Marketplace quote form requires lenders to disclose all fees upfront then Zillow estimates taxes and insurance and provides an inclusive estimated monthly payment to the borrower.

This makes it easy to compare loan quotes, and then it becomes the borrower's decision which bank to contact.

This isn't a nightmare just for online brokers, but for all mortgage brokers who will eventually have to match Zillow's transparency in terms of which banks are making which offers and which are most attractive to consumers.

It's all about the numbers.

Published: April 7, 2008

Use of this article without permission is a violation of federal copyright laws.