New update with Zillow support doesn't ask me to connect to Zillow

gojohn

I have Quicken Deluxe Version 7.10.1 (Build 710.55389.100) on the Mac. The release notes talked about the Zillow connection, so I followed the instructions to convert each of my property accounts to Asset - Real Estate. The doc says "Follow the prompts to enter the required property information", but I wasn't given any prompts. Is there something else I need to do to get this to work?

jacobs

The original release of 7.10.0 didn't make clear that this feature was included with Quicken Premier and above. They quickly fixed that, and it's now pretty clear in multiple places that this new feature requires Quicken Premier.

I know this makes some users unhappy, because they don't want to pay more for Premier to get this feature. But because Quicken has this higher subscription level, they have to separate out some features which only work for users of Premier or above. In fact, users of modern Quicken Mac, since it cam out a decade ago, have had access to almost all the features, as the development team worked to build out the core functionality of the product. This year, they have been finally adding some features which require Premier; they haven't taken away any existing features from Deluxe users, but they are assigning so e new features to Premier in order to give some users a reason to pay more for Premier For instance, the investment Watchlist feature and the lender loan feature added this summer have been for Premier and above. And mileage tracking was added earlier this year for only Business & Personal users. (As best I recall, of all the features added in 2024, these are the only ones which required Premier or Home & Business.)

youngtek

[Removed - Rant/Unhelpful]

jacobs

The original release of 7.10.0 didn't make clear that this feature was included with Quicken Premier and above. They quickly fixed that, and it's now pretty clear in multiple places that this new feature requires Quicken Premier.

I know this makes some users unhappy, because they don't want to pay more for Premier to get this feature. But because Quicken has this higher subscription level, they have to separate out some features which only work for users of Premier or above. In fact, users of modern Quicken Mac, since it cam out a decade ago, have had access to almost all the features, as the development team worked to build out the core functionality of the product. This year, they have been finally adding some features which require Premier; they haven't taken away any existing features from Deluxe users, but they are assigning so e new features to Premier in order to give some users a reason to pay more for Premier For instance, the investment Watchlist feature and the lender loan feature added this summer have been for Premier and above. And mileage tracking was added earlier this year for only Business & Personal users. (As best I recall, of all the features added in 2024, these are the only ones which required Premier or Home & Business.)

gojohn

Thanks for the response .I kind of suspected such, but I looked in a number of places and didn't see any clarification. It wasn't originally obvious in the "What's New…" screen either. I see now that it's a little tab in the upper-right corner. I'd pay the extra $$ if there were any other features I really needed in Premier. I don't use bill pay and don't need to pay down debt. I've already got reports for my taxes. I suppose I'd have to see whether it'd save me time. It'd be great if Quicken offered a free trial period for Deluxe users to try Premier. They offer Premier at the Deluxe price for new users for the first year. I've been a subscriber for 5 years, and allowing me to use the new features for a period of time could convince me to upgrade, but I don't know whether they're worth it before I do.

Chris_QPW

I seriously doubt they would ever have a trial period, but in the case of Quicken Mac I think it's pretty easy to see if it would benefit you or not because the features are so few. In particular for the Zillow feature how much time do you think you would save with looking up the value of your house on Zillow once a month and making an entry? I'm on Quicken Windows premier and it's convenient, but it is certainly a minor feature at least to me.

I will tell you though most of the new features in Quicken Windows are going into the premier version for the very reason to separate it from the deluxe version. For the most part I don't think there is one killer feature for premier it's value is more in the fact that you have a collection of nice to have features. Quicken and Mac has a ways to go in my opinion in this regard.

gojohn

Yeah, that's the thing. I enter the Zillow values periodically when they send them to me in email. No lookup involved. So that puts me on the fence. If I could try a couple of other features, it might push me into the higher subscription. Unfortunately the site doesn't really go into much detail on the real differences. Perhaps if that was better, it might convince me, too. Happy to pay more if it's worthwhile.

Chris_QPW

I didn't even realize that you could get an email from Zillow, given that it makes it even less of a feature. I'm sure one of the Quicken Mac super users can give the details on what is different on the premier version, but seems to me it was only the extra free check pay for the billing system. Maybe I'm missing another feature or two.

I also wanted to say I think it's a good idea to have trials, but it's been my observation that quicken Inc frowns on them probably because they're hard to support.

gojohn

I'm guessing Quicken could raise the level of one's subscription, and have it automatically renew at the higher rate in the future. Then you'd have to lower the tier before it renewed if you didn't want to pay that much. That's probably how they do the existing discount for new subscribers. You pay less up front but are on the tier you picked.

I get emails from both Zillow and Redfin. The Redfin ones appear to be higher. What'd I'd really like is a feature that took the average of the two and used that value. I'd pay for that one right off the bat. :)

jacobs

You can visit Zillow.com and get your home price estimate at any time; you don't need to wait for an email. If you want. Considering that Zillow is merely an algorithmic estimate which doesn't know about particulars of your house, I've never understood people's desire to update it it Quicken every month; to me, once a year or every 6 months is all most people need. (If you're getting close to selling your house, then I understand the desire to check more frequently… but this can be done on their website just as easily.)

I agree with Chris that because Quicken doesn't do free trials of any of their software, I think it's unlikely you'l see an opportunity to upgrade for free for a while as an option.

There used to be no functional difference between Deluxe and Premier for Quicken Mac. The only difference was a small number of payments if you use their payment service, and a special Support phone number which put you in the front of any queue. I think the development team and management were trying to add core functionality for all users to bring Quicken Mac closer to the functionality of Quicken Windows. Now, they're slowly starting to add some features which require Premier. Earlier this year, they added the investment Watchlist feature and the lender loan feature for Premier and above. The somewhat obscure Foreign Bank Accounts Report is also only for Premier. I think those are the only Premier-only features I'm aware of, but I expect they will continue to add more going forward in order to create a more compelling reason for some Deluxe users to step up to Premier.