Dr. Stan Humphries, VP Data & Analytics, and the man behind our housing data, will be giving a speech to the Real Estate Roundtable at the Rainier Club in downtown Seattle on Monday May 19. He will be discussing Seattle home prices and US housing data in great detail over lunch.

I am a member of the Rainier Club and am on the organizing committee of the Real Estate Roundtable. The lunch is only open for members and their guests, but I’m happy to host the first 10 people who email me at spencer AT zillow dot com.

Last summer I posted on an unsanitary (and sometimes dangerous) side effect of foreclosed homes in warm climates — abandoned swimming pools. These pools, when not drained of water, become infested with mosquitoes, which in turn

create the perfect breeding ground for the West Nile virus. Some of the highest rates of negative equity — and resulting foreclosures — are also in some of the states with the warmest climates, creating a major problem in the summer months.

In a recent Wall Street Journal article, one method officials in certain areas of Arizona, California and Florida are tackling the West Nile problem with is a fish. The aptly-titled “mosquito fish” has the ability to survive in an oxygen-depleted swimming pool, eat up to 500 larvae a day, and spawn rapidly. These fish were also used for stagnant swimming pools in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina; they’re also presumably less expensive and more environmentally friendly than pesticides.

So what happens to the fish once a foreclosed home is sold? According to the WSJ article, new owners can collect the fish and return them to their local mosquito control agency. But more often, the fish just die after the mosquito larvae is depleted, or the new home owners discard the fish before draining the pool to get it ready for their own use.

“That’s part of the program,” says Chris Miller, a biologist at the Contra Costa mosquito and vector control district. “They are sacrificial.”

As you may have noticed, we recently made some additions to Zillow Mortgage Marketplace that help borrowers learn about their individual mortgage needs and the state of the current market.

Mortgage Calculators

We added 10 mortgage calculators to help borrowers answer important questions they may have before they begin shopping for a loan. They help calculate:

• How Much Can I Afford?
• Should I Refinance My Home Mortgage?
• Mortgage Payment Calculator
• Comparing Mortgage Terms
• Should I Pay Discount Points For A Lower Interest Rate?
• Should I Convert To A Bi-Weekly Payment Schedule?
• Fixed Or Adjustable-Rate Mortgage?
• Adjustable Rate Mortgage Calculator
• How Do Closing Costs Impact the Interest Rate?
• What Are The Tax Savings For My Mortgage?

Vibrancy Metrics

In addition to displaying the number of loan requests and quotes in Zillow Mortgage Marketplace, we’ve added the number of confirmed, participating

lenders, which was almost 2,000 at the time of this post. What’s significant about this number is that when a borrower submits a loan request, it could potentially be seen by thousands of lenders, not just three or four.

Rate Table

We’ve also created a real rate table to show current average rates for 30-year fixed and 15-year

fixed rate mortgages. The table shows the average rate on Zillow for each of these loan types today, compared to last week. Live quotes from the marketplace scroll beneath the rate table, showing recently submitted individual quotes. To browse loan request and quotes across the U.S. or in any state, just select an area in the drop-down box at the bottom of the module and click GO.

We’ve had lots of feedback since launching Zillow Mortgage Marketplace last month. Thank you for all of your input, and please keep it coming. We will continue to work on additional improvements and new features that will help optimize the marketplace for both consumers and lenders. Stay tuned!

We’re seeing stars in the Carnival of Real Estate today since host Larry Cragun, who runs the Real Estate Undressed blog, judged and styled the 90th edition of CoRE using a star rating system. Posts he regarded as excellent received 5 stars and others received 4 and 3 stars. This CoRE is not on RE Undressed, but is instead posted on the Seattle Real Estate Professionals section of the Seattle P-I’s Web site where Cragun is a guest blogger. Our own Amy Bohutinsky, Director of Communications, was given a 5-star rating for “Not My House.” Nice work, Larry!

The carnival will make its next appearance on Monday, May 19 at Minneapolis Real Estate Blog. Please submit your best post by Sunday, May 18, to be considered. Are you a real estate blogger and would you like to host a future edition or take a more active role in carnival administration? If so, get instructions on how to do so here. Please check the complete FAQ list if you have other questions as to how to participate.

As of 9AM this morning, 45,192 people have signed the online petition at AngryRenter.com calling for Congress to not pass any bailout programs that reward risky borrowing and lending. According to the AngryRenter.com website, the preferred solution to the foreclosure crisis is to; “Let the free market sort it out!”

The $300 million mortgage bailout bill has made its way out of Barney Frank’s (D.-Mass.) Financial Services Committee with a vote of 46-21 in favor. President Bush on Wednesday threatened to veto the bill, saying that that “it would “reward speculators and lenders” (h/t Townhall.com.)

AngryRenter.com is just a month old but it seems to have struck a chord. Freedomworks, the non-profit, non-partisan group behind AngryRenter, clearly understands the dynamics of grass roots initiatives on the web. If you don’t know who Bob and Sally are, watch the short video clip I pasted below this. The cause, which posted this clever video to YouTube on April 10th has since been featured on CNN and FOX news and now … Zillowblog!

So, what do you think; should Sally have to bail out Bob?

HP shows his dexterity and flexibility doing the limbo

Ask a Zillowite why they love working here, and I think you’d find a consistent theme: The people, the product, and the potential. All of these energize us to do better, be better, take risks and have fun along the way. As the old saying goes, “home is where the heart is.” Let’s face it: we put so much of our energy, time and heart into our jobs, why not strive to work at a place where you love what you do and truly enjoy the people you work with?

Here’s a little glimpse at how we like to take breaks together. This past Monday, we decorated the main hangout space in the Seattle office, turned up the tunes, brought out some yummy food and beverages and had a little Cinco de Mayo fun together. Our newest team member, April (who started just 6 hours before the party), along with our intern, Eli, muscled up and took a swat at the piñata. H.P. then showed us up with his extreme flexibility in the limbo contest. OK, every day is not a party here at Zillow, but while working hard we do enjoy ping-pong breaks, Guitar Hero, a rousing game of darts and, of course, air hockey.

If this looks and sounds like fun to you, while doing a job that you love, please check out our current jobs. We are growing and have some pretty cool opportunities available right now. We think we’re onto something big. Come join us!

Eli draws a crowd for his pinata encounter

The New York Times today has an article on the city of Vallejo, CA declaring bankruptcy. In what the Times calls “a potentially ominous harbinger” for other California cities, the City Council of this northeast suburb of San Francisco voted unanimously, citing no other choice due to dwindling tax revenues and a depressed housing market.

Our Q1 08 Quarterly Home Value Report for Vallejo shows a pretty bleak picture for homeowners. Home values are down 24% year-over-year, and 91% of Vallejo homeowners who bought in 2006 are now in a negative equity situation - owing more than their home is worth. It doesn’t help that the median down-payment in 2006 in Vallejo was 0% — a classic situation where recent homebuyers overextended themselves when they bought during the boom (in contrast, the median down-payment nationwide was 10% in 2006). The graph below shows the exact correlation between a dropping median home value (Zindex), zero down-payments and now widespread negative equity situations for homeowners.

It’s not clear to me what exactly happens when a city declares bankruptcy and how this affects its citizens. The Vallejo Times Herald quotes a city official as saying that they will continue providing city services and the move will allow them to restructure their finances. Meanwhile, it’s a fair bet that other cities facing housing woes and rising rates of foreclosure will be watching what happens closely.

That’s just one of the many things they say in Texas and I’m really happy to announce that Zillow just “went big” with Keller Williams, headquartered in Austin, Texas.  See the release here.  We are proud to announce that Keller Williams has joined the Zillow Listings Feed program and that listings from KW’s 73,000+ associates are now prominently displayed on Zillow, bringing Zillow’s total listings count to 2.1 million.  As you know, Keller Williams is one of the largest residential real estate companies in the U.S. and you will now be able to see their familiar red logo throughout our site.  You’ll also see tons and tons of KW agent profile pages on our site.  In fact, there are more Keller Williams agents with profile pages than any other brokerage in the United States.   Of course, profiles are free (and great ways to market yourself), it’s just that the folks from KW seem to have jumped on this opportunity more aggressively than most.  Check out a couple of the great profile pages I discovered while perusing the site:

http://www.zillow.com/profile/Krismer

http://www.zillow.com/profile/Central%20Texas%20Agent

On a personal note, this deal is particularly fun for me because I now have a built in excuse to get back to Austin, where I once lived. 

Welcome, Keller Williams and Hook ‘em Horns!

A few interesting recent posts by real estate bloggers …

Free Flushes? (Gordon Stephenson)

Flushing constitutes nearly 40% of domestic water usage, so in theory, this will reduce your water (and sewer) bills considerably. And it’s just “light grey” shower water, which if you avoid shaving, toothbrushing, and any other debris-generating activities (not to get too graphic), should be 98% pure domestic water and a little bit of ivory soap and shampoo.

Where is the Breaking Point in the Market? (Ryan Ward)

“The fact of the matter is that housing is not perceived to be affordable and perception is reality. Justified or unjustified buyers feel housing is overpriced and when you couple that with underwriting guidelines that are more strict than in the past few years, affordability looks to be even farther away.”

9 Advantages of Working with A Real Estate Professional Who Blogs (Jeff Dowler)

“You gain insight into what the writer actually knows about their particular role in the real estate business. No one knows everything about their particular field, but what they DO know becomes patently obvious. Not just WHAT they write about … but HOW they write about such matters.”

Long Distance Relationships (Teresa Boardman)

“It is becoming more common in my job to work for sellers that I never meet. We have long distance business relationships. It is more common with condos and lofts than with any other type of real estate. Owners move away and rent out the condo and then decide at a later that they want to sell it.”

If You Can Beat’em, Play Dirty (Ben Kakimoto)

“Well, it appears an agent with a competing condo blog got a little envious and started to play dirty. The agent bought Google Adwords with my name as the keyword search term as well as the title of the ads themselves.”

Turning Away “Business”… (Jay Thompson)

“… what is the point in taking a listing that can not be sold? All three of these homeowners called knowing exactly what price they wanted to list their home for. They were off the mark (on the high side) by $60 – $135K. I tried to help them understand the current Phoenix real estate market conditions. I supplied data, I waxed eloquently about why their homes would never sell at those prices.”

HR 5830- Short Refinances: Saving the US Mortgage Industry? (Brian Brady)

“Wanna try and guess the bottom? Watch the lenders. When short refis are offered, en masse, they think a turnaround is near. ”

What are you reading?

While poking around the cool Quarterly Home Value Report heat map and drilling in closer to the trends in Grand Rapids, Michigan, an interesting-looking home popped up in the little snapshot for Ada, MI (screenshot, above). It is the most popular home in Ada and come to find out, it’s for sale for $1.5 million. Yes, the Zindex for Ada is $249,000, but this house is somewhat special since the architect is Dirk Lohan, who is the grandson of the late Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, considered a pioneer of modern architecture.

According to the listing by the Keller Williams Novosad Team, “This home is probably the best example of international design in West Michigan and is priced hundreds of thousands less than the cost of duplication. The exterior is a simple 42 foot geometric solid while the interior offers a contiguous flow of space over four floors. The magnificent home is settled on 30 acres of beautifully wooded land with 5 of those acres being manicured lawn. Multiple decks. Floor to ceiling glass walls in every room offer a stunning view of the property as does the rooftop deck on the fourth floor.”

It is a gorgeous piece of property and quite a nice acquisition for anyone who wants a home designed by a person from renowned architectural lineage. Plus, home values in Ada have dropped “only” O.3%. Sounds like Ada will have lots of upside once this market stabilizes.

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