What's the risk of a 46 million-visitor overlap in monthly website traffic between the top 50 U.S. lenders and Zillow-like platforms? What Would Happen If Zillow Converted 5% of Your Bank's Website Traffic? In recent years, mortgage lenders have lost more and more of their audiences to Zillow, Trulia, Redfin, Realtor.com, & others, resulting in significant harm to their businesses. Read on to learn how this trend could affect the lending space, and what lenders must do to reverse it. The lending landscape in the United States is rapidly changing. Companies like Zillow are announcing their entry into mortgage lending, creating a significant business-loss scenario for banks and credit unions across the U.S. In this report, we investigate how top-50 lenders are losing their website audiences — potential homebuyers — to platforms like Zillow, Trulia, Redfin, and Realtor.com. The traffic overlap between lender websites and real estate platforms is 46 million visitors. If just 5% of these visitors in common converted with platforms like Zillow, U.S. banks would face hundreds of billions of dollars in lost business. But not all is lost: banks that have adopted digital home discovery and mortgage experience technologies have seen their overlap with Zillow- like platforms decrease, reducing business losses. INTRODUCTION OVERVIEW NestReady examined the top 50 US-based mortgage lenders to measure the impact of increasing competition from real estate marketplace platforms like Trulia, Zillow, Redfin, and Realtor.com. The goal of this study was to determine the extent to which lenders' online audiences overlap with top real estate portals. In other words: how many consumers visit both a top-50 lender's website and a Zillow-like real estate portal during their mortgage search? Finally, using the traffic overlap and potential website visitor loss to the above platforms, we've estimated the potential business losses the above platforms are causing for leading mortgage lending institutions in the United States. SUMMARY The combined audience overlap traffic between top lenders and real estate platforms is close to 550 million yearly visitors. (These are online consumers that left their bank's website, then visited Zillow, Trulia, Redfin, or Realtor.com). If we assume that 5 percent of this traffic comes from serious homebuyers seeking a loan in the next 12 months, this overlap amounts to 2.76 million mortgages — roughly the same number of mortgages that the top 40 US mortgage lenders process in 1 year. If even a fraction of these 2.76 million consumers secured their mortgages through a major real estate portal instead of a traditional lender, the effect on banks across the U.S. would be crippling. On Zillow alone, 21 million visitors per month (over 250 million per year) overlap with the top 50 lenders. If 5 percent of this traffic came from motivated homebuyers, they'd account for 1.26 million potential mortgages per year. If just 5 percent of those borrowers chose Zillow for their mortgage needs, the platform would rank among the top 10 mortgage lenders in the US. If half of those borrowers converted, Zillow would outperform the top 8 lenders put together. TOP HIGHLIGHTS The total overlap between Zillow and the top 50 The average monthly visitor overlap with lenders in the US is over 21 million website Trulia across the top 50 lenders increased from visitors per month. 13% in 2018 to 19% in 2019. If Zillow converted just 5% of their audience The average monthly visitor overlap with overlap traffic (i.e., those who have buyer intent) Zillow across the top 50 lenders increased from with top lenders in the US, they would 35% in 2018 to 43% in 2019. become one of the largest mortgage lenders in the country. The average monthly visitor overlap with Redfin across the top 50 lenders increased from 14.7% If Trulia, Redfin, Realtor.com were to join Zillow in 2018 to 20% in 2019. in giving mortgages to overlapping audiences, they could generate as much as $40 billion per In 2018, 38% of the top 50 US lenders had an month. audience overlap with Realtor.com of 20% or higher. In 2019, this overlap increased to 48%. Even if they convert a small fraction of their traffic, Zillow, Redfin, Realtor.com, and Trulia have the potential to generate 172K mortgages per month. NestReady.ai - Own the End-to-end Homebuying Journey & Generate Leads What's The Website Audience Overlap Between Top 50 Banks & Zillow? OVERVIEW Even by the most conservative estimates, Zillow has the potential to become one of the largest lenders in the US. The total overlap of Zillow with the top 50 lenders in the US (i.e., people that visit a lender's website, then visit Zillow) is over 21 million website visitors per month. Even if just 5% of those visitors intend to purchase a home in the next 12 months, this amounts to 1.05 million potential buyers. If 10% of those 1.05M buyers were to get a mortgage through Zillow, banks would be losing out on 105,000 mortgages. With the average US home selling for around $226,000, that adds up to $23.7 billion worth of home sales/mortgages. If Zillow were to issue 105,000 mortgages a month, they would become one of the largest lenders in the country. How Audience Overlap with Zillow Has Changed for Top 50 Mortgage Lenders Since 2018 2018 - % Audience Overlap With 2019 - % Audience Overlap With Zillow Zillow 20 25 17 21 15 20 17 15 10 8 8 8 10 4 5 0 0 Overlap % Overlap % 1% - 20% 20 % - 30% 30% - 50% 50% - 100% 1% - 20% 20 % - 30% 30% - 50% 50% - 100% (2 lenders with less than 1% audience overlap) The number of mortgage lenders that share a 50%+ overlap with Zillow increased 2.5X in the past 12 months. In 2018, only 8 of the top 50 US mortgage The share of lenders with an audience overlap of lenders had an overlap of 50% or higher with less than 50% with Zillow has shrunk over past 12 Zillow. By the end of 2019, 21 of the top 50 months due to overlap increases. mortgage lenders can say the same. NestReady.ai - Own the End-to-end Homebuying Journey & Generate Leads What's The Website Audience Overlap Between Top 50 Banks & Trulia? OVERVIEW The total overlap of Trulia with the top 50 If 5% of those potential homebuyers convert with lenders in the US is over 9 million website visitors Trulia and not their bank, that's 22,500 per month. mortgages per month. With the average US home selling for around $226,000, that adds up to $5 If Trulia were a lender: If just 5% of those billion of home sales per month. visitors intend to purchase a home in the next 12 months, this amounts to 450K potential homebuyers. How Audience Overlap with Trulia Has Changed for Top 50 Mortgage Lenders Since 2018 2018 - % Audience Overlap With 2019 - % Audience Overlap With Trulia Trulia 33 35 35 31 30 30 25 25 20 20 15 15 9 9 10 10 3 4 5 5 2 0 0 Overlap % Overlap % 1% - 20% 20 % - 30% 30% - 50% 50% - 100% 1% - 20% 20 % - 30% 30% - 50% 50% - 100% (5 lenders with less than 1% audience overlap) (4 lenders with less than 1% audience overlap) The number of mortgage lenders that share a 30%+ overlap with Trulia increased nearly 4X in the past 12 months. Average monthly overlap across all top 50 lenders went up from 13% in 2018 to 19% in 2019. In 2018, most top-50 US lenders had an The share of lenders with an overlap of 20-30% audience overlap with Trulia of 20% or less. In with Trulia has shrunk over past 12 months due to 2019, 11 top lenders have a significant overlap overlap increases. with Trulia. NestReady.ai - Own the End-to-end Homebuying Journey & Generate Leads DISCOVER YOUR COMPANY WEBSITE AUDIENCE OVERLAP SEE HOW MUCH TRAFFIC YOU ARE LOSING TO ZILLOW & OTHERS WANT TO FIND OUT YOUR OWN WEBSITE AUDIENCE OVERLAP WITH ZILLOW? CLICK THE BUTTON BELOW TO RECEIVE YOUR CUSTOM REPORT. Click Here To Generate Your Report NestReady.ai - Own the End-to-end Homebuying Journey & Generate Leads What's The Website Audience Overlap Between Top 50 Banks & Redfin? OVERVIEW The total audience overlap of Redfin with the top If 5% of those potential homebuyers convert with 50 lenders in the US is over 7 million website Redfin and not their bank, that's 17,500 visitors per month. mortgages per month. With the average US home selling for around $226,000, that adds up to If Redfin were a lender: If just 5% of those $3.95 billion of home sales per month. that's visitors intend to purchase a home in the next 12 17500 mortgages per month). months, this amounts to 350K potential homebuyers. How Audience Overlap with Redfin Has Changed for Top 50 Mortgage Lenders Since 2018 2018 - % Audience Overlap With 2019 - % Audience Overlap With Redfin Redfin 30 29 30 30 20 20 9 10 10 6 6 4 5 2 0 0 Overlap % Overlap % 1% - 20% 20 % - 30% 30% - 50% 50% - 100% 1% - 20% 20 % - 30% 30% - 50% 50% - 100% (4 lenders with less than 1% audience overlap) (4 lenders with less than 1% audience overlap) The number of mortgage lenders that share a 30%+ overlap with Redfin increased nearly 2X in the past 12 months. Average monthly overlap across all top 50 lenders went up from 14.7% in 2018 to 20% in 2019.