You tell buyers that requesting a tour on a portal means an agent will call them, and you leave the explanation there. On every listing where it currently appears, the financing checkbox comes pre-checked, so a buyer asking to see a house is also opting into a mortgage pitch unless they notice and untick it.
The same research note tracks how Zillow's lead form has been rewritten over the past year. It is worth reading closely because two of the changes are at issue in Taylor v. Zillow, a class action brought by homebuyers.
The agent language moved first. Contact agent became Contact a buyer's agent, and the tour flow now tells buyers the agent advertises on Zillow. The mortgage checkbox moved from wanting pre-approval information from Zillow Home Loans to a generic line about wanting financing information, and it now appears only on some listings in some markets.
Where it stands today is the finding. Zillow's February court filing shows the checkbox unchecked, but on every listing where it appears today “that I found, it is checked by default so the buyer has to opt out of the mortgage pitch”.
The case itself did not survive in that form. A federal judge dismissed the class action on July 27 with leave to amend, finding claims of inadequate notice “implausible given Zillow's express, repeated disclosures.”
So the buyer clicking to see a house is, by default, also asking for financing information, and the only signal that this happened is a box that was already ticked when the form loaded.
“that I found, it is checked by default so the buyer has to opt out of the mortgage pitch”
The consequence lands on you rather than on the portal. Your buyer gets a call from a loan officer they do not remember asking for, and if you never mentioned it could happen, you look like someone who either did not know or did not say.
So say it first. One sentence to any buyer who has been touring through a portal — check the form before you submit it, the financing box comes ticked — costs you nothing and puts you in the position of the person who explains how this actually works.