Designing for home buyers
As the Principal Product Designer for affordability experiences at Zillow, I defined the company-wide design vision for BuyAbility and led its 0→1 design and launch in under 3 months, scaling to 1M users within 8 months and 4M+ users today.
Summary
The mission of BuyAbility is to demystify homeownership and make it more achievable for all. It transforms affordability from a static estimate into a personalized, daily-updated view of buying power, surfacing trade-offs and showing users which homes they can actually afford.
I established the foundational interaction model for affordability across Zillow through the design of BuyAbility. Following the launch, I partnered with half a dozen cross-functional teams to scale the experience to millions of users by embedding it across core surfaces and aligning multiple teams around a shared vision.
Today, I’m expanding my impact as the design lead for buyer personalization for financing, evolving experiences and underlying models to help buyers navigate complex decisions along the buyer journey with greater clarity and fewer points of friction.
To learn more about my work at Zillow, reach out.
Timeline
2021–Present
Designing for home buyers
As the Principal Product Designer for affordability experiences at Zillow, I defined the company-wide design vision for BuyAbility and led its 0→1 design and launch in under 3 months, scaling to 1M users within 8 months and 4M+ users today.
Summary
The mission of BuyAbility is to demystify homeownership and make it more achievable for all. It transforms affordability from a static estimate into a personalized, daily-updated view of buying power, surfacing trade-offs and showing users which homes they can actually afford.
I established the foundational interaction model for affordability across Zillow through the design of BuyAbility. Following the launch, I partnered with half a dozen cross-functional teams to scale the experience to millions of users by embedding it across core surfaces and aligning multiple teams around a shared vision.
Today, I’m expanding my impact as the design lead for buyer personalization for financing, evolving experiences and underlying models to help buyers navigate complex decisions along the buyer journey with greater clarity and fewer points of friction.
To learn more about my work at Zillow, reach out.
Timeline
2021–Present
Designing for home buyers
As the Principal Product Designer for affordability experiences at Zillow, I defined the company-wide design vision for BuyAbility and led its 0→1 design and launch in under 3 months, scaling to 1M users within 8 months and 4M+ users today.
Summary
The mission of BuyAbility is to demystify homeownership and make it more achievable for all. It transforms affordability from a static estimate into a personalized, daily-updated view of buying power, surfacing trade-offs and showing users which homes they can actually afford.
I established the foundational interaction model for affordability across Zillow through the design of BuyAbility. Following the launch, I partnered with half a dozen cross-functional teams to scale the experience to millions of users by embedding it across core surfaces and aligning multiple teams around a shared vision.
Today, I’m expanding my impact as the design lead for buyer personalization for financing, evolving experiences and underlying models to help buyers navigate complex decisions along the buyer journey with greater clarity and fewer points of friction.
To learn more about my work at Zillow, reach out.
Timeline
2021–Present
Redefining home affordability for 4 million home buyers
Problem
Zillow’s affordability experience was fragmented across calculators, payment estimates, and pre-qual flows. Buyers couldn’t clearly understand or trust what they could afford, or apply that understanding across shopping and financing.
Goal
The aim of this work was to create a trusted way for buyers to understand and track affordability over time, and launch the BuyAbility MVP as the first expression of this system connecting shopping and financing across Zillow.
What I did
As design lead, I defined the vision for a unified affordability experience, later branded as BuyAbility, and led the design and delivery of the MVP.
Outcome
This work established BuyAbility as the connection point between financing and home shopping, and provided further evidence that leading with affordability drives both customer and business value:
0 to 1M users in 8 months (4M users as of July 2026)
6.4x higher pre-qualification submission rate vs. baseline
10% weekly re-engagement (among users who saved)
Redefining home affordability for 4 million home buyers
Problem
Zillow’s affordability experience was fragmented across calculators, payment estimates, and pre-qual flows. Buyers couldn’t clearly understand or trust what they could afford, or apply that understanding across shopping and financing.
Goal
The aim of this work was to create a trusted way for buyers to understand and track affordability over time, and launch the BuyAbility MVP as the first expression of this system connecting shopping and financing across Zillow.
What I did
As design lead, I defined the vision for a unified affordability experience, later branded as BuyAbility, and led the design and delivery of the MVP.
Outcome
This work established BuyAbility as the connection point between financing and home shopping, and provided further evidence that leading with affordability drives both customer and business value:
0 to 1M users in 8 months (4M users as of July 2026)
6.4x higher pre-qualification submission rate vs. baseline
10% weekly re-engagement (among users who saved)
Redefining home affordability for 4 million home buyers
Problem
Zillow’s affordability experience was fragmented across calculators, payment estimates, and pre-qual flows. Buyers couldn’t clearly understand or trust what they could afford, or apply that understanding across shopping and financing.
Goal
The aim of this work was to create a trusted way for buyers to understand and track affordability over time, and launch the BuyAbility MVP as the first expression of this system connecting shopping and financing across Zillow.
What I did
As design lead, I defined the vision for a unified affordability experience, later branded as BuyAbility, and led the design and delivery of the MVP.
Outcome
This work established BuyAbility as the connection point between financing and home shopping, and provided further evidence that leading with affordability drives both customer and business value:
0 to 1M users in 8 months (4M users as of July 2026)
6.4x higher pre-qualification submission rate vs. baseline
10% weekly re-engagement (among users who saved)
Mortgage landing page redesign: Rebuilding the front door to Zillow's financing ecosystem
Problem
The Zillow Home Loans (ZHL) landing page reflected Zillow's product portfolio instead of buyers' financing journey, making it difficult for first-time buyers to understand their options, build confidence, or know where to start.
Goal
Our goal with this redesign was to to improve awareness of ZHL, help buyers confidently navigate their financing options based on their readiness, and support Zillow's gradual transition away from third-party lending.
What I did
As the design lead, I restructured the experience around buyer readiness, replacing product-first navigation with a guided financing journey aligned to Zillow's evolving ZHL-first strategy. I led the UX strategy and information architecture while coaching a junior designer through execution, design critiques, and stakeholder presentations.
Outcome
This redesign validated the core hypothesis that structuring experience around buyer readiness increases downstream conversion outcomes, and later subsequent product strategy across Zillow’s financing journey (including BuyAbility).
20% increase in leads to ZHL
Mortgage landing page redesign: Rebuilding the front door to Zillow's financing ecosystem
Problem
The Zillow Home Loans (ZHL) landing page reflected Zillow's product portfolio instead of buyers' financing journey, making it difficult for first-time buyers to understand their options, build confidence, or know where to start.
Goal
Our goal with this redesign was to to improve awareness of ZHL, help buyers confidently navigate their financing options based on their readiness, and support Zillow's gradual transition away from third-party lending.
What I did
As the design lead, I restructured the experience around buyer readiness, replacing product-first navigation with a guided financing journey aligned to Zillow's evolving ZHL-first strategy. I led the UX strategy and information architecture while coaching a junior designer through execution, design critiques, and stakeholder presentations.
Outcome
This redesign validated the core hypothesis that structuring experience around buyer readiness increases downstream conversion outcomes, and later subsequent product strategy across Zillow’s financing journey (including BuyAbility).
20% increase in leads to ZHL
Mortgage landing page redesign: Rebuilding the front door to Zillow's financing ecosystem
Problem
The Zillow Home Loans (ZHL) landing page reflected Zillow's product portfolio instead of buyers' financing journey, making it difficult for first-time buyers to understand their options, build confidence, or know where to start.
Goal
Our goal with this redesign was to to improve awareness of ZHL, help buyers confidently navigate their financing options based on their readiness, and support Zillow's gradual transition away from third-party lending.
What I did
As the design lead, I restructured the experience around buyer readiness, replacing product-first navigation with a guided financing journey aligned to Zillow's evolving ZHL-first strategy. I led the UX strategy and information architecture while coaching a junior designer through execution, design critiques, and stakeholder presentations.
Outcome
This redesign validated the core hypothesis that structuring experience around buyer readiness increases downstream conversion outcomes, and later subsequent product strategy across Zillow’s financing journey (including BuyAbility).
20% increase in leads to ZHL