The Motley Fool is in Seattle, visiting online home and real estate marketplace Zillow. In the following video, the Fool's Austin Smith meets with Zillow Mortgage Marketplace Director Erin Lantz to learn more about how ZMM works and whom it serves.

Lantz reflects on ZMM's strengths and the challenges it faces going forward. She also offers some advice for first-time homebuyers.

To view the full interview, click here.

Austin Smith: Do you have any advice for people looking to take out a mortgage today, looking to buy a home? Common pitfalls that they should avoid?

Erin Lantz: The No. 1 thing is be sure to shop around. I can't tell you how many times we see people who spend all this time and money and energy negotiating the price that they're going to pay for their home, and then they get to the very last point when they need to actually buy it and they've spent no time looking into their mortgage options.

We think it's really important. Even small changes in your interest rate can mean thousands of dollars over the life of your loan, so shopping around, making an informed decision, and working with a lender that will take care of you is absolutely the biggest piece of advice.

Smith: As people look at the Zillow Mortgage Marketplace division, what are some of the real strengths that you guys have in that division?

Lantz: Starting out with our position of leadership in mobile, we were in mobile early and -- really to our surprise -- we're seeing extreme consumer adoption of even complex products like mortgage shopping on mobile. I think that's a place where we're really well positioned.

Secondly, on the purchase side, especially given our organic source of traffic from Zillow and seeing what we've been talking about, we know that refis are not going to be here forever, so we feel like we're in a real position of strength being deep in the real estate vertical and deep in the purchase market.

As rates rise, we're well positioned to introduce lenders to a continued stream of purchase contacts and give lenders the tools to convert those more effectively. I think that's where we feel really strong.

The biggest challenge is letting people know about us. Most people on Zillow still don't know that we exist, that ZMM is part of Zillow, and certainly off of Zillow our awareness is limited. That's a huge opportunity for us, especially given the size of the market.

We estimate lenders spend $11 billion a year to advertise home loans to consumers, and we're just a small fraction of that. Gaining a bigger piece of that and building awareness of ZMM as the place for consumers to find lenders, I think that's the biggest challenge that we're facing right now.

Google recently announced that it has integrated local ads into its Google Maps app for Android and Apple iOS.

Although most investors would likely never bat any eye at this seemingly low-key development, Fool contributor Steve Heller believes this could ultimately lead to driving a higher cost-per-click -- or CPC -- rate for the company in the longer term. Steve bases his thinking on industry expert Larry Kim, founder and chief technology officer of WordStream, an online advertising company, who believes that mobile CPCs are currently undervalued.

What's more, the company has created an opportunity for itself to earn two clicks from a single Google Maps mobile search query. Be sure to check out the following video to get the full story.

Dividend stocks are everywhere, but many just downright stink. In some cases, the business model is in serious jeopardy, or the dividend itself isn't sustainable. In others, the dividend is so low, it's not even worth the paper your dividend check is printed on. A solid dividend strikes the right balance of growth, value, and sustainability.

Today, and one day each week for the rest of the year, we're going to look at one dividend-paying company that you can put in your portfolio for the long term without too much concern. This isn't to say that these stocks don't share the same macro risks that other companies have, but they are a step above your common grade of dividend stock. Check out last week's selection.

This week, we'll turn our attention to the Northeast and take a closer look at retail and commercial bank First Niagara Financial Group , and I'll show you why I think it has all the tools necessary to become an income investors' dream stock.

Sacked by the recession
There's really no beating around the bush: The recession absolutely zonked the retail and commercial banking sector. Many banks have since rebounded from their credit quality woes, but the recovery has proved particularly slow in the Northeast, where the housing market remains weak relative to other parts of the country.

M&T Bank , which is nothing short of a giant in the Northeast banking scene, in 2009 saw its adjusted net income plunge 40% and its average return on assets fall despite a rise in net interest margin. Simply put, if M&T Bank was struggling, there was little chance that smaller banks were going to come out of the recession unscathed.

Source: Myfuture.com, Flickr.

The First Niagara advantage
Shareholders have been subjected to a bit of a double-edged sword in First Niagara's rebound from its lows. Banks that had the capital to take advantage of weaker banks looking to raise cash or simply shed non-core assets set themselves up in a big way following the recession.

Capital One Financial took this to heart by announcing the purchase of ING Group's ING Direct U.S. operations for $9 billion in 2011. The deal gave ING some much needed capital while ridding it of what appeared to be a non-core U.S. asset while giving Capital One exposure to ING Direct's vast network of ATMs located primarily on the East Coast.

First Niagara's approach was similar, but unfortunately for shareholders it did come with a bit of short-term pain for what should be a lot of long-term gains. First Niagara orchestrated a deal in 2011, as well, to purchase 195 branches located in the Northeast from HSBC . Under the terms of the deal, U.S. regulators required First Niagara to sell about 20% of the branches so it didn't maintain too much of a monopoly in certain parts of the state of New York, selling most of these branches to KeyCorp for $110 million and helping reduce some of its purchase price. Without the cash for the deal, First Niagara was forced to halve its dividend and turn to a dilutive share offering to raise cash.

I know that might sound like the antithesis of what would make a great dividend stock, but hear me out before you close the book on First Niagara.

In its latest quarter, First Niagara delivered EPS of $0.18, reversing a year-ago loss of $0.05 per share as nearly all facets of its business improved. The bank saw its fee income operations jump 7% and its average commercial loans increase by 10% quarter over quarter for the 14th straight quarter. Most importantly, net charge-offs fell by two basis points to 0.33% from the previous year, pointing to a credit portfolio that's ripe with high quality retail and commercial loans.

Another factor that should be considered here is that U.S. Treasury rates are beginning to rise. Historically low lending rates have crushed banks' ability to charge high yields on the money they lend out. However, as rates rise, the average yield on loans is expected to rise, which will result in bigger net profits for banks like First Niagara.

Show me the money, First Niagara
The really compelling aspect of First Niagara, other than impressive credit quality relative to many of its peers, is that it consistently pays out a premium dividend.

Source: Nasdaq.com.
*Assumes quarterly payout of $0.08 for remainder of 2013.

Even with the 50% cut to its payout in 2012 to conserve cash for the HSBC branch deal, First Niagara Financial will have paid out $4.65 per share in cumulative dividends between 2004 and 2013. Based on its closing price on Friday, this translates to a dividend payback of 44% over the trailing decade! That's phenomenal and speaks to a company devoted to rewarding shareholders.

Furthermore, based on this year's projected EPS, First Niagara is paying out just 43% of its earnings in the form of a dividend. Being historically low for First Niagara, it only seems logical to expect that a dividend increase of perhaps a penny or two per share could be on the way for fiscal 2014.

Foolish roundup
Sometimes you have to dig beneath the surface in the financial sector to find the diamonds in the rough. First Niagara certainly didn't please shareholders with its financing efforts to make the HSBC deal happen, but now they're beginning to reap the rewards of having additional branches throughout New England. Now that it's trading at just 81% of book value and 13 times forward earnings with a slew of improving balance sheet metrics, I can't help feeling incredibly optimistic about First Niagara's future. Tack on a 3% yield that's returned hefty amounts of dividend income to investors over the past decade, and you have all the reasons you need to count First Niagara as an income investor's dream stock.

Microsoft hasn't had a lot of success in moving its Surface tablets powered by Windows RT. It's hard to imagine that Nokia will fare any better. Yet sources tell tech blog The Verge that the Finnish handset maker will roll out a Windows RT tablet next month. 

Making a bigger splash in tablets makes sense for Nokia. The market is growing faster than Nokia's smartphone stronghold, and it's not as if the once dominant handset company has made the most of the opportunities in its flagship niche. However, Nokia's decision to accept billions from Microsoft in exchange for supporting Windows as its mobile operating system of choice has proved to be more costly than lucrative. Analysts see Nokia's revenue sliding 19% this year.

Backing Windows RT is a peculiar choice for Nokia. It's been a colossal flop since rolling out late last year as a scaled-back operating system that doesn't run older Windows programs, as the beefed-up Windows 8 Pro does. Tech tracker IDC reported earlier this year that just 200,000 of the 50 million tablets shipped worldwide during this year's first quarter were Windows RT devices. That's 0.4%.

One thing to note is that there will reportedly be a big difference between Nokia's tablet and Microsoft's Surface, and that's wireless carrier connectivity. According to The Verge, Nokia's portable device will be sold through AT&T in this country with LTE support. Getting wireless carriers on board is a big step, but will it make an already overpriced tablet even more expensive?

Who will even buy this thing?

A big selling point for Windows RT is that it does run a modified version of Microsoft's iconic Office productivity suite. That doesn't happen on iOS and Android devices, though there's naturally no shortage of third-party apps that offer Office compatibility.

The biggest shortcoming for Windows RT is that it lacks developer support, making it ultimately less functional than cheaper Android devices and trendier iPads.

Microsoft's dramatic $150 price cut last month -- shaving the Surface RT to as little as $350 -- may also get in the way of just how much Nokia will be able to charge for these things. There's no point in holding out for carrier subsidies until a market develops for Windows RT, since even AT&T has to know it'll be pushing a product with little chance of gaining traction later this year.

Nokia followed Microsoft's money last year, and look where that got it. Why is it falling into the same trap this time?

In the following video, Fool contributor Matt Thalman discuss how the robotic surgery industry is changing in front of investors' eyes. MAKO Surgical and Intuitive Surgical are the two big players in this market and have seen their share prices fall in the past few months as sales have slowed down. At least for Intuitive Surgical, this comes at a time when the company is attempting to transition from relying on selling razors to selling more blades, with demand from hospitals slowing down as many can't justify spending the money on the da Vinci machine today.

As we've seen with other industries, selling the razor is great, but over the course of years and years, the real money comes from selling the blades.

Check out the video for more information.

In the following video, Fool contributor Matt Thalman discuss whether he believes shares of Hewlett-Packard are worth buying at today's price. The stock has had an amazing 2013, as Meg Whitman's turnaround plan looks as if it's moving right along. But what does the valuation look like? What can investors expect in the future based on other technology- and PC-related stocks?

Find out whether you should consider HP today!

Even though the Qwikster incident is still fresh in the minds of investors and consumers, talk about whether Netflix will need to raise prices in the future to cover the rising cost of content has been buzzing around Wall Street. In the following video, Fool contributor Matt Thalman looks at how the company's revenue has increased as a result of subscriber growth over the past year. After examining the numbers, Matt offers two reasons he thinks Netflix neither needs to nor should increase its monthly subscription rate anytime soon.

This episode of The Motley Fool's Market Checkup is dedicated to the massive increase in biotech IPOs, what's driving the recent spate of major mergers and acquisitions, whether the outperformance of the biotech sector is sustainable, and why potential biotech investors need to think big.

The amount of M&A activity has jumped in the health-care space. Last year, pharma saw a 9% increase in merger and acquisition spending to $27 billion as the two biggest drivers of health-care upheaval, the patent cliff, and the Affordable Care Act make their weight felt.

In this video, health-care analyst David Williamson discusses in detail the impact the patent cliff has on pharma buyouts and Obamacare has on hospital mergers, along with how increased investor interest in health-care stocks could force this M&A trend to come to an end.

As we move into what's by far the most important time of year for Apple , investors are holding their breath to see what the tech giant has in store for the latest updates to its iPhone and iPad line of products. Over the past several weeks, much has been made about rumors over the changes coming to the increasingly important iPad Mini. However over the past few days, the focus has shifted toward its bigger brother -- the 9.7-inch iPad. According to a flurry of reports, the iPad's gone on a serious diet since its most recent update last October, which should hopefully keep the tablet ahead of the growing pack of imitators. In this video, tech and telecom analyst Andrew Tonner discusses the news in greater detail and explains why it should matter to investors.

On September 12th of last year, Apple (Nasdaq: AAPL) unveiled the iPhone 5. So, it shouldn't come as a surprise that its now being widely reported that the next iPhone is set to be unveiled at a September 10th event, almost exactly a year after the last iPhone. 

As with all Apple product announcements, the rumor mill will be in full swing across the next few weeks ahead of the product's announcement. In the following slideshow, we're looking at five more prominent rumors about the next iPhone and handicapping whether or not they're likely to pan out. 

To see a full run-down of what investors should expect on September 10th, just click on the slideshow below. Also, if you're looking for more information on investing in Apple after its recent share price spike, check out our newest report named "Apple Will Destroy its Greatest Product." Can Apple really disrupt its own iPhones and iPads? Find out by clicking here, its free!

After more than a year since the news first surfaced, Canadian smartphone laggard BlackBerry came into the spotlight once again last week as the company announced it was forming a special committee to review the always-ominous "strategic alternatives." And while it's abundantly clear that BlackBerry desperately needs a tech sugar daddy, what's less obvious is who would want to snap up shares of the struggling smartphone maker. While the company does have some valuable assets, there's also that whole declining smartphone business, which makes the overall value much less attractive. In this video, tech and telecom analyst Andrew Tonner discusses potential suitors for BlackBerry and what he believes would be the best option for the company.

Baidu stock has officially recovered from its slump. At $135, the stock is up about 40% from just a few months ago. What's all the hype about? And is the stock still a buy?

In the following video, tech analysts Eric Bleeker and Daniel Sparks take a closer look at the catalysts behind Baidu stock. As they point out, Baidu's recent success in mobile is a solid sign that the company's surging increase in expenses and future investments is beginning to pay off -- and investors have responded bullishly.

To hear whether Eric and Daniel still think Baidu is a buy, check out the video.

Dividend investors would be wise to focus not just on a stock's current yield, but also on the long-term growth potential of its dividends. That's because strong businesses that consistently raise their dividend payouts reward shareholders with a steadily rising income stream that essentially equates to a raise every year. And well, who doesn't like a raise?

But there are other reasons to value dividend growth so highly, and they're well supported by research. For instance, a study by C. Thomas Howard published in Advisor Perspectives found that for every percentage point a stock's yield rises, its annual return increases by 0.22 percentage points if it's a large cap, 0.25 if it's a mid cap, and 0.46 if it's a small cap. Even better, Howard found that dividend-growing stocks outperformed dividend cutters by 10 percentage points per year from 1973 to 2010 and beat both flat- and no-dividend stocks. And the icing on the cake is that Howard showed that this outperformance came with a third less volatility. Higher returns, less volatility-induced stress, and a steadily growing income stream -- what's not to love?

With that in mind, here are five stocks that have grown their dividends by more than 30% over the past year.

Source: S&P Capital IQ.

National Oilwell Varco is a global titan in the oil and gas services industry. It provides many types of equipment and components used in oil and gas drilling and production operations, from complex deepwater drilling rigs to small spare parts. Workers in its industry say there's "No Other Vendor," and CAPS participants have awarded National Oilwell Varco with the highest five-star rating. Its stock is currently yielding a growing 1.4%.

Texas Instruments designs and manufactures semiconductors. Its diversified product lineup includes data converters, digital signal processors, microcontrollers, applications processors, and calculators, among many other items. Texas Instruments currently has a four-star ranking on CAPS and offers investors a 2.9% yield.

CVS Caremark operates more than 7,000 drugstores across the United States. It also offers pharmacy benefit management services to employers, unions, government groups, and other sponsors of health benefit plans. Fools have given CVS Caremark a four-star rating in CAPS, and its stock is yielding 1.5%.

Western Union offers money movement and payment services, providing people and businesses with fast, reliable, and convenient ways to send money around the world. Western Union currently sports a four-star rating in CAPS and is yielding 2.7%.

Health-insurance giant UnitedHealth Group provides consumer-oriented health-benefit plans and services through a network of 780,000 physicians and 5,900 hospitals. UnitedHealth Group has a four-star CAPS rating and offers investors a fast-growing 1.6% dividend.

The Foolish bottom line
Had you invested in these companies a year ago, you would have enjoyed total dividend increases ranging from 31% to 36%. That level of growth would provide a substantial boost to just about any investor's dividend income. But more important to investors today is to identify the companies that will grow their dividends substantially in the years ahead. If you're interested in hearing about some excellent companies that are likely to boost their dividends from this point forward, I'd like to offer you a brand-new free report from The Motley Fool's expert analysts called "Secure Your Future With 9 Rock-Solid Dividend Stocks." Today I invite you to download it at no cost to you. To discover the identities of these companies before the rest of the market catches on, you can access this valuable free report by simply clicking here now.

Motley Fool analyst Jason Moser chats with Rick Engdahl in a side-of-desk interview about developing a personal investment philosophy and shares his own four-point system for deciding whether a particular stock is right for his portfolio.

You've found an industry you like, and a promising company. The next step is to look at who's at the helm. Is the CEO passionate about the business? In this video segment, Jason discusses share buybacks and dividends as an indication of management's attitude toward its shareholders.

A full transcript follows the video.

Rick Engdahl: When it comes to trusting management, I think you wrote in your article, "Do you trust the management to do the right thing?"

What is the right thing? What do you mean by that? Is it how they serve shareholders, specifically, or is it how they lead the company into the future, or what they're doing to affect the world around them? What is "do the right thing," to you?

Jason Moser: I think it's a little bit of a lot of those things. I think that one of the things you'll learn about management as you go on is you see how they treat shareholders, for example. I think that management teams that look out for shareholders are really important, because we, as shareholders, are putting our capital on the line to try to be a part of this story, be a part of this company's future.

You can see companies where maybe they have this really exciting runway ahead, and it's a growth company, and they need to reinvest all of their money to really help fund that growth, but all of a sudden you see management get out there, and maybe they borrow some money to buy back some shares, because share repurchases make a great headline, and they just think that's more confidence that they have in the stock and investors will really appreciate that.

I think that, for the most part, management tends to get share buybacks wrong. They tend to bungle them. But I think that's a good example of something that you could look at over time and say, if there's a management team that has done a great job over time of opportunistically buying back shares when they represent a fair value or a great value, that's something to really keep an eye on.

If you have management teams that are just consistently buying back shares just to offset dilution for their compensation, well, that's another, because essentially shareholders are footing that bill. You can see, just through time ... you can look at things where you can see through time how they do that.

Is that something that they have a habit of doing over and over again? If you see that, then maybe they don't necessarily think about shareholders first.

Dividends, I think, are another great idea. What if we have a company that's pretty well established, that generates a lot of money, and they don't have to really fund so much for the growth of the company anymore because it's relatively big? We like to see those companies try to spit off some of that cash in the form of dividends for shareholders, right?

What if they're not really doing that, or what if they're not really raising the dividend over time? What are they doing with that money? Is it going into other ventures, or are they looking at other ways to try to grow the business? You can get an idea there.

Does management have a stake in the game? Does management own shares of the company? I think of something like LinkedIn , for example, and the co-founder Reid Hoffman and CEO Jeff Weiner, who have a tremendous stake in the company.

I think that you can see, time and time again -- every quarter they report their results, every presentation they give -- there's an enthusiasm and a passion that comes across when these guys talk, that you can't put a quantity on it. You can't really quantify it, but you can see it and you can feel it.

To me, when I see a passionate management team like that, I think that's something that people ought to take note of. Jeff Bezos with [Amazon.com ] is another great example -- Howard Schultz with Starbucks -- those are guys that, to me, just show a passion and a love for what they're doing.

It's not necessarily one behavior they're committing, but it's just this history that they're building over time of how they see the world and why they're growing their business. Those are things that I think, over time, you can find more out about them.

In case you've been hiding under a rock for the past few days, Apple is planning on launching the next generation of its iconic iPhone at an event in San Francisco on Sept. 10. And as any tech investor worth his or her salt knows all too well, this is one of the most important dates of the year. Thankfully, judging by what's going on in the rumor mill, investors and consumers alike shouldn't be disappointed. According to the most recent reports, Apple has plenty of tricks up its sleeve. In this video, tech and telecom analyst Andrew Tonner breaks down a few of the items we're most likely to see in at Apple's next big-ticket event.

Recently my colleague Morgan Housel wrote about how 2013 has been a very light year in terms of volatility. Morgan noted that the Dow Jones Industrial Average is on track to be the least volatile year since 1995, based on the number of days in which the index has moved higher or lower by 1% or more. If things remain the same for the rest of the year, it will be the 13th least volatile year since 1928.

On Aug. 13, Morgan wrote:

Since 1928, the Dow has closed up or down more than 1% an average of 57 days per year. So far this year, there have been 15 closes up or down more than 1%. If that trend holds, we'll finish the year with about 21 1% days. Compare that with 148 1% days in 2009, 79 in 2010, and 54 in 2011.

Since the time Morgan's article was published, the Dow closed down 1.47% on Aug. 15, bringing the total 1% moves for the Dow to 16 in 2013. Morgan's estimate of 21 total days in 2013 of 1% moves may likely hold up, but I think we'll see more than what Morgan is predicting, based on the reasons for which we've experienced volatility thus far in 2013.

A one-way ticket to volatility, please!
At the Dow's current level, it needs to gain or lose slightly more than 150 points to change by 1%. In the past I've talked about the high number of triple-digit moves the Dow experienced during the month of June and a number of other 100-point Dow moves clustered together during the year -- and I concluded that the clusters of moves all correlated to Federal Reserve meeting dates. Nineteen of the 24 days in June that saw triple-digit moves were probably caused by the rapid increase in interest rates as investors began growing concerned about how the Fed's policies may change in the future.

Of the 16 days in 2013 on which the Dow has moved more than 1%, seven of them came within days after a Fed meeting. Six of the 16 came in June, when interest rates were rising, and the most recent was Aug. 15, after rates again jumped higher as investors received positive economic data -- which may mean the economy is strong enough for the Fed to pull the plug on its stimulus program and begin tapering.

The renewed fears of tapering really started on Aug. 6, when we had not one, but two Federal Reserve officials telling the world that they believed the Fed will probably begin tapering its $85 billion bond-buying program sometime this year. Since then, the Dow has fallen seven out of the past nine trading days. Two weeks ago, the Dow dropped 232 points, or 1.48%, and this past week it fell 344 points or 2.23%. The Fed has three more meetings scheduled for the year, with the next coming Sept/ 17-18, meaning that would be the earliest we could see the tapering actually begin and when serious volatility would begin as a result.

But investors should also note that even if the Fed doesn't start tapering at that meeting, the markets will probably move more than 1% at least once in the days following the meeting, as it has all this past year. And what if the central bank does start tapering? Well, it's going to be June all over again, with the overwhelming majority of the trading days experiencing triple-digit moves and a high-single-digit number of days in which the Dow moves more than 1%.

In the following video, Fool contributor Matt Thalman discusses Apple , Microsoft , and Intel , which are all trading at or below 12 times past earnings, with even lower future expected earnings per share. Looking beyond the current P/Es of these three companies and how they compare with the market as a whole, both today and in historical terms, it's hard to say they aren't undervalued when taking into account their dividend yields, their positions within the industry, and the possibilities each company has in front of it.

Check out the video for more.

Shares of Apple recently broke $500 a share for the first time since January, but it looks as if the rollercoaster ride is far from over for the company and its shareholders. In fact, compared with the first half of the year, in which the company's share price lagged significantly but little happened, we're heading into the half of the year that matters most for the tech giant. As we now know, we're less than a month away from Apple's first big product launch of the year. This has clearly helped boost its share price somewhat. However, the tech power still remains patently undervalued in the eyes of tech and telecom analyst Andrew Tonner, as he explains in the following video.