BankerGirl

Posted by Heidi on March 27th, 2008 in banking, debt, household spending, saving, track expenses

About a month ago I signed up for the beta version of Quizzle, Quicken Loans’ free financial aggregator that provides users a snapshot of their personal financial situation, including home value.  Quicken Loans is providing consumer access to Quizzle free of charge as a way to become the “top-of-mind” mortgage lender and capture additional mortgage market share (both primary and secondary). 

Users of Quizzle get a letter grade (A - F) for each of the five financial areas tracked with the tool (Credit, Budget, Home Value, Mortgage, and Rainy Day Fund). 

My take on Quizzle:

Pros

1. The sign-up process is very easy, and doesn’t require a social security number.  The credit report and home value is accessed by simply entering the user’s name, address, and date of birth.  For anyone concerned about the safety of using online financial products and identity theft, this is a huge benefit
2. The “overview” page that appears every time the user logs onto the Quizzle site is laid out nicely and is easy to read and understand.  For that matter, I found the entire site to be simple to use and easy to navigate.
3. Quicken has made it easy to provide user feedback.  There is a feedback link in the “toolbox” on the right-hand navigation on every page.
4. The biggest benefit of Quizzle is that it provides users free access to their Experian credit score and credit report.  That’s right - FREE!  Once users set up a profile, they can log onto Quizzle at any time and see their Experian* score and “Quizzle score.”  A Quizzle Score is a proprietary score ranging from 1-100 based on your home value, savings, debt, credit score, and household expenses.

Cons

1. I am not loving the home valuation tool, which uses AVM (automated valuation model), but that could be because it shows that my home is worth less than I paid for it in 2006 - which may be true in this market.  All of the comparables the tool pulled were for homes valued at significantly less than my home’s assessed value, which I don’t believe to be fair. Even it that wasn’t the case, Zillow offers more robust comparable features.  One aspect of the Home Value section that I like was the ability to over-ride the AVM calculation and manually enter the value of your home.
2. I have mixed thoughts on the ‘grade’ criteria for the Rainy Day Fund section of the report.  For my $ 7200 savings, I get an “F” from Quizzle.  I am not sure if I deserve an F - at least I have some savings!  The tool recommends users have five months gross income saved - I would prefer if it would grade my savings based on expenses, not income. 
3. The Budget tool may be wonderful, but I’m not taking the time to fill it out in its entirety on Quizzle.  I just input my annual income and expenses (estimates) to get a grade for this section.

Final Thoughts

Overall, Quizzle is innovative, easy-to-use, and the free credit report offers a value proposition I have only seen at WaMu (WaMu - formerly Providian - offers credit card customers free access to their TransUnion credit score, but not online access to the actual report).  I think that this feature alone is enough to drive prospects to the Quizzle site.

If there are any other beta users of Quizzle out there (especially those who have filled in the entire budget tool), I would love to hear what you think in the comments section below.

* Quizzle uses a 900-point scale for credit scores, which means it adds 50 points to the user’s FICO (the FICO scale maxes out at 850). This is a version of credit score inflation which makes the user feel a little better about their score.

Editor’s note: This is NOT a paid review - no one from Quizzle/Quicken Loans contacted me for this write-up.  I thought that the free credit score feature was a unique benefit and should be communicated to BankerGirl readers.

Stumble it!