Zillow Home Loans Review 2024

Zillow Home Loans overview

Zillow Home Loans is a direct online mortgage lender affiliated with Zillow Group. It provides conventional, FHA and VA loans to borrowers across the U.S. (except New York). As the financing arm of a company famed for its online listings and valuations, it boasts an easy-to-navigate, information- and tool-packed website.

Pros and cons of Zillow Home Loans

How Bankrate scored Zillow Home Loans

• Affordability: You’ll need to complete an online prequalification request online in order to learn current mortgage rates for Zillow Home Loans. If you’re just beginning to explore options, this might make it more difficult to compare Zillow with other lenders.
• Availability: Zillow Home Loans offers conventional, jumbo and some government-backed loans. It doesn’t work with borrowers in New York at this time.
• Borrower experience: Zillow Home Loans has a user-friendly website and an A+ rating from the Better Business Bureau.

Affordability: 5/10

If you’re not ready for a conversation with a loan officer just yet, you might have a hard time comparing offers from Zillow Home Loans with others — the lender doesn’t display current rates on its website. According to our research, the lender has above-average mortgage rates, docking its score for affordability. Zillow also doesn’t publish specific fees, but you may be expected to pay title insurance fees, credit report costs and other additional closing costs.

Availability: 10/10

Zillow Home Loans is available to borrowers in most states (not New York). It offers conventional (including jumbo) loans, FHA loans and VA loans, but not USDA loans. You’ll need a minimum credit score of 620 for most loan types.

Borrower experience: 3.8/10

Zillow Home Loans has an A+ rating from the Better Business Bureau. Often, you can get approved in two business days and close in just over 40, which is in line with the average application-to-closing timeline. Its website is designed to be easy to navigate, with homebuying educational resources and calculators to learn more about the mortgage process and estimate costs. Its customer service hours span Monday through Saturday. However, it ranks low on borrower experience due to its lack of transparency around rates, fees, rate lock period and average time to closing.

Learn more: How to choose a mortgage lender

How to apply for a mortgage with Zillow Home Loans

You can apply for a mortgage with Zillow Home Loans online or by phone at 888-852-2212. Here are some tips to prepare for the process:

1. Check your credit report. It’s important to take this step before applying with Zillow, in case there are errors that could impact whether you get preapproved and your ability to get the best mortgage rate. 
2. Gather personal and financial documents. Zillow will require you to provide documentation about your income, assets and debts. This includes pay stubs, W-2s, and account and loan statements.
3. Provide details about the property. Zillow may want details that include the address of the home, and you might need an appraisal. (If you’re refinancing, you might or might not need an appraisal.)

Learn more: How to get a mortgage

Refinancing with Zillow Home Loans

Zillow Home Loans offers both rate-and-term and cash-out refinancing options. The lender doesn’t display its refinance rates or fees online, however, so you’ll need to connect with a loan officer to determine whether a refi is worth doing.

Learn more: When should you refinance your mortgage?

Special programs offered by Zillow

Zillow’s 1% Down Payment

Zillow Home Loans announced in 2023 its 1% Down Payment program. Initially offered on properties located in Arizona, the program lets borrowers who qualify put just 1 percent toward their down payment. Zillow Home Loans contributes an additional 2 percent at closing.

The program is for first-time homebuyers who make 80 percent of the median income in the area where they’re buying. So as a borrower, you have to thread the needle of making a low enough income to qualify for the program, but a high enough income to afford the monthly mortgage payments.

• Methodology

  To determine a mortgage lender's Bankrate Score, Bankrate rates lenders on a scale of one (1) to five (5) stars — with five (5) the highest rating — based on a variety of factors relating to the lender's products and services. To assign our ratings, we assessed each mortgage lender across three core areas:

  • Affordability. Annual percentage rate (APR) - 80%; assistance for first-time homebuyers - 10%; down payment - 10%

  • Availability. Loan products - 50%; licensing - 40%; credit score - 10%

  • Borrower experience. Rate transparency - 45%; customer service - 25%; convenience - 10%; days to close - 10%; rate locks - 10%; reputation (bonus)

  Learn more about our methodology.

  How we suggest lenders to compare

  To help you make the most informed decisions, our editorial team suggests two (2) alternative mortgage lenders for each lender reviewed in our comparison table. In most cases, these alternatives 1.) share the same strength (affordability, availability or borrower experience) as the lender reviewed; and 2.) rate highly for Bankrate Score. In the event more than two lenders meet these standards, we suggest the ones with the lowest APRs.