And this industry has an inferiority complex that feeds this. We can talk on here all we want about consultation and educating clients and all the rest. But we don't really believe it. If we did then some portion of this lead generation industry we support would be based on promoting something – anything – other than the pure, raw, lowest commodity pricing possible.

The one message that the millions of dollars of advertising that generate the leads sends is that mortgages are a complete commodity. That the reliability, service, support, honesty, etc. of the lender are irrelevant. Now, on top of that, a good lender who provides great service is supposed to quote a loan for a borrower whose name he doesn't even know, to whom he has not spoken, with whom he has had no chance to discuss options.

What if I want to propose putting 10% down instead of 15% as stated in the lead form and use the rest to pay off debt nd get him into a better program with good ratios? What if I want to discuss some credit items I think can be quickly addressed? Will the Zillow lead form tell me a first time buyer can provide 12 month's rent checks or a professional VOR? Or do I just assume they can and then have to change the program for the borrower later when I find out they cannot?

I could give 50 examples. This is just another situation where we are saying consultation in meaningless, all borrowers are totally defined by a few numbers, and lenders add nothing to the mix with their experience and expertise.

Can you imagine a web site forwarding a lawyer legal questions for answers with no name of the client? Or a doctor getting medical records for a diagnosis with no name or direct consultation?

You want an industry that provides service, education, and support to clients? Then stop treating it like a commodity and stop accepting and paying for advertising schemes that treat you like the only thing of value you have to offer is rock bottom pricing.

You want clients to stop being barraged by dozens of calls? Then enforce the industry's stated number of lead recipients. The phone rings 20 times because a lead that was supposed to be sold 3 or 4 times got sold 20 times.

And remember that if you want a client to be treated like a client and receive any kind of service at all then the phone HAS to ring at least once.

This kind of thing will only encourage participants to offer very low rates that are dubious at best. They can have whatever rules they want – the truth is that lenders will have a million legitimate reasons why the rate changes later – didn't have all the info because there was no consult, market changed, etc. But we all know that if you throw a truly honest price into a pure price competition where you didn't even have the chance to talk to a client you will lose to someone who lies. We all see it every day. And honest lenders fight it through honest consultations with clients.

Mortgage shoppers often look at mortgages as commodities. I spent countless hours fielding calls and explaining my track record, education, references, etc. Guess What? Nobody cared. It was whomever could do it cheapest. Or it went to the guy who lied. Nothing that Zillow can do to make people SMARTER or more business savvy. They will continue to take the lowest cost, lowest rate. Sad but true.

The best part about this is that the phone will stop ringing. The worst part? NOw they are choosing between LOTS of quotes.

I don't expect I'll have time to be a Zoriginator as Brian calls it. I don't think I want to be an order taker either.