Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Show HN: Free mortgage analysis tool to avoid getting screwed by closing costs

closingwtf.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

51–60 of 175 posts

Re: Show HN: Free mortgage analysis tool to avoid getting screwed by closing costs

#51

Post by dylan604 »

aaln wrote: post #5
kojeovo wrote: post #2

The privacy and security part is not inspiring confidence. Scrolling to the next section got me thinking "Don't get scammed at closing, get scammed before closing after uploading your mortgage documents to a random website." Cool idea though.

Hey, Aaron the builder here. The scamming that happens to homebuyers is not even comparable to the risk in uploading docs to a website which promises they won't share user data with anyone. This is genuinely a pro buyer tool with no association with any 3rd party. The tool has already helped many people negotiate and get a better deal on their mortgage. Please before judging understand that 70% of buyers overpay in t…

Also, you have no control over decisions that any future owner might have, and you won't care because you've already cashed out.

What happens when you get hacked? Not if. To come back at someone with valid concerns with a "no, you don't understand my point of view" does nothing but a disservice to you.

Expecting people to just accept things is just not a good way to operate. When you receive push back, you need better responses than this. Will the vast majority of your users push back, sadly, probably not. However, you did post this to HN and then reacted poorly to valid criticism. Tsk tsk

Re: Show HN: Free mortgage analysis tool to avoid getting screwed by closing costs

#52

Post by datavirtue »

aaln wrote: post #5
kojeovo wrote: post #2

The privacy and security part is not inspiring confidence. Scrolling to the next section got me thinking "Don't get scammed at closing, get scammed before closing after uploading your mortgage documents to a random website." Cool idea though.

Hey, Aaron the builder here. The scamming that happens to homebuyers is not even comparable to the risk in uploading docs to a website which promises they won't share user data with anyone. This is genuinely a pro buyer tool with no association with any 3rd party. The tool has already helped many people negotiate and get a better deal on their mortgage. Please before judging understand that 70% of buyers overpay in t…

I love this idea (haven't tried it) and it seems like a killer app for AI. I can think of a lot of other things like health insurance, home owners insurance, and many other types of contracts for which an AI advisor can be built for. Imagine being able to rake over a complex document and make decisions that clearly benefit you. That's a rare privilege.

Re: Show HN: Free mortgage analysis tool to avoid getting screwed by closing costs

#53

Post by egorfine »

aaln wrote: post #5
kojeovo wrote: post #2

The privacy and security part is not inspiring confidence. Scrolling to the next section got me thinking "Don't get scammed at closing, get scammed before closing after uploading your mortgage documents to a random website." Cool idea though.

Hey, Aaron the builder here. The scamming that happens to homebuyers is not even comparable to the risk in uploading docs to a website which promises they won't share user data with anyone. This is genuinely a pro buyer tool with no association with any 3rd party. The tool has already helped many people negotiate and get a better deal on their mortgage. Please before judging understand that 70% of buyers overpay in t…

I am genuinely surprised by the comments in this thread.

Privacy concerns are real but the importance of that matter in your project is overestimated here by an absurd level.

What I read is not a constructive criticism and the suggestions laid down are not realistic nor business relevant at all. I feel like this is some sort of mass wishful thinking.

Re: Show HN: Free mortgage analysis tool to avoid getting screwed by closing costs

#54

Post by T4iga »

mmh0000 wrote: post #29
WaitWaitWha wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Allow me to expound on @kojeovo's remark. Please take this as a constructive criticism to improve your success potential. Much of it is from a quick glance, and am sure there are many other facets to improve. A business is not just about the product. Your Privacy Policy. There is no default way to download it (see 9.), and since it is window-ed cannot print entire doc. That means I cannot keep a copy of it for myself…

Would it matter if they had a "perfect" privacy policy? I don't believe there's anything legally that enforces it. So they can promise the moon then turn around and sell your data. Maybe I'm wrong here, but, My mental model of privacy policies and the like has always been: This is a lie, the company will do whatever it wants with my data. And I will have no recourse. As such I've always acted accordingly. And very fe…

I think acting 'as if' is the safe option here but encouraging change for the better in someone willing to engage in dialog is still better than not doing it. Maybe you didn't intend to make a counterpoint, i just wanted to point that out.

Re: Show HN: Free mortgage analysis tool to avoid getting screwed by closing costs

#55

Post by dumbfounder »

gruez wrote: post #45
b1ngb0n1 wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Aside from the personal details (name, address, etc), they can collect pricing info on houses, run analytics, and swoop the deal with a slightly better offer or better yet, sell it to wholesale buyers, reits, and whoever is interested in stealing the deal.

>they can collect pricing info on houses, run analytics AFAIK house sale prices (ie. property transactions) are open in many (most?) jurisdictions. >and swoop the deal with a slightly better offer How does that even work? The winning bidder is presumably someone who gave the highest offer. Why would another company pay above and beyond that, considering that there's probably several other serious buyers who aren't wi…

The terms are not public until the house is sold. In the contract pending state you don’t know how much it is going to sell for. Theoretically if they saw a buyer accepting a crazy low offer they could alert the troops.

But it doesn’t need a lot of the data in that document, so really they need a way to redact all the unnecessary data to require less trust.

Edit: words.

Re: Show HN: Free mortgage analysis tool to avoid getting screwed by closing costs

#57

Post by SamuelAdams »

This seems odd. If you need certain fees and line items explained to you, why not ask your lender? Surely you have a loan officer that can explain every item and why it is there.

If you don’t like some of the costs, go with another lender, or negotiate those with your loan officer.

I’m not sure what this tool is offering that individuals don’t already have.

Re: Show HN: Free mortgage analysis tool to avoid getting screwed by closing costs

#58

Post by aaln »

JimA wrote: post #22

I tried it out with docs from my last refi. Tried both PDF and PNG files, both returned "An error occurred with processing your document. Please confirm you uploaded a valid Loan Estimate or Closing Disclosure PDF." I also at first didn't notice there is action needed to choose between uploading a Loan Estimate vs Closing Disclosure. It doesn't seem insurmountable to have the site automatically figure out the differe…

You're right. I just haven't gotten around to figuring out the document type automatically even though it should be straightforward to implement.

There are many reasons the document will fail processing, it's usually because the wrong document type was selected or the original pdf from the lender has been modified. Sometimes, users upload a document they received which is just random text in a pdf they received as a pre-offer from a mortgage broker or lender.

Re: Show HN: Free mortgage analysis tool to avoid getting screwed by closing costs

#60

Post by [deleted] »

SamuelAdams wrote: post #57

This seems odd. If you need certain fees and line items explained to you, why not ask your lender? Surely you have a loan officer that can explain every item and why it is there. If you don’t like some of the costs, go with another lender, or negotiate those with your loan officer. I’m not sure what this tool is offering that individuals don’t already have.

[deleted]
Post reply on HN