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

closingwtf.com

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

#141

Post by Arainach »

telgareith wrote: post #138
trollbridge wrote: post #128

A side business I have is people who contact me because they just got scammed or need help knowing if something is a scam. One of the things I tell them is to never upload financial documents containing personal information unless: - The company they’re uploading it to is well known like a major bank and the domain in the address bar matches. - They know the company they’re dealing with - which means a business addre…

A DBA (doing business as) is $35. And not worth the paper its printed on if not filed by an actual entity... which cost $300+. AND you have to give some new nebulous federal entity because "money laundering," or sometimes "OFAC enforcement."

No one should be handing out their address, mortgage information, and other sensitive details to someone who can't spend at least $300 on the bare minimum appearance of legitimacy.

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

#142

Post by aorloff »

What actions can you take by the time you are at closing ?

I'm a licensed real estate agent, I actually got my license not just to learn about the business but to be able to save myself on agent commissions if I want to make an offer (if you can pass a CS data structures class you should be able to get a real estate license online in a matter of months), and I still would not try to optimize on closing costs.

Do I shop loans ? Absolutely. Are closing costs a scam ? Absolutely.

Would I try to optimize closing costs in the context of making a purchase ?

No.

In the time you have to decide the one really important question (whether to proceed or not) you need to spent it understanding the worst possible parts of the transaction you are about to make, NOT focusing on the closing costs.

Some class action lawyers should be worrying about optimizing these fees. Shop your loan, but spend your time investigating the property.

Pretending to be a site helping mortgage borrowers not get scammed while actually being a mortgage lead gen portal though : chef's kiss.

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

#143

Post by vel0city »

lolinder wrote: post #130
stouset wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

With all due respect, that is the fundamental problem here. Your tool may provide value to your users but uploading mortgage documents to random third parties is de facto dangerous and encouraging users to act irresponsibly. A great analogy would be a website that asks users to provide their usernames and passwords for sites to see if it’s a strong password or if it’s been compromised. “Sorry, the credentials stouset…

> A great analogy would be a website that asks users to provide their usernames and passwords for sites to see if it’s a strong password or if it’s been compromised. “Sorry, the credentials stouset / hunter2 were found in our database for Hacker News.” This is actually a really good analogy because it does illustrate that it's not a completely crazy ask—people do trust Troy Hunt to run such a site. But OP should be m…

Troy's site isn't actually handling the user's real password to check, its doing a lookup of hashes to see if a similar hash is there. The password and final hash checks never leave the client side. Still a lot of trust involved in a site like that, and yeah he encourages you use the API to do the comparisons yourself.

This is actually uploading all the information to the backend and storing it in a database. Like a page that is asking for a service URL, a username, a password, a TOTP secret, sending it all to the server, and having the server check if the credentials have been pwned and saving it all.

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

#144

Post by karaterobot »

If I'm interested in paying an expert to look at the settlement cost estimates and find areas where I might be getting screwed, or could negotiate to save on closing costs, is that a thing? What's the title for a professional human who does what this AI tool says it does? It sounds useful, I'd just rather pay a person for this service.

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

#145

Post by monktastic1 »

swatcoder wrote: post #24
aaln wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

FYI, this reads as a very aggressive response to someone raising legitimate privacy concerns and doesn't engender the trust you very likely deserve. Rather than talking up the value of the tool as superceding the concerns, a more constructive approach might acknowledge the concerns and emphasize how you already do minimize risk or commitments you're willing to make towards doing so. Being dismissive doesn't help worr…

Interesting. I didn't read it as aggressive, and certainly not "very" aggressive. I read it as polite and perhaps mildly defensive. What about the response suggests aggression to you?

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

#146

Post by giarc »

deathanatos wrote: post #28
giarc wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>the text color in the footer has awful contrast, so it's hard to read. Dark grey on white is awful contrast these days?

… I'm not them, but in dark mode, it's <50% grey on black, and for the headers, <32% grey on black. (#374151 on black, I think.)

Dark mode. There's your problem. The site has been up for a week and people are already complaining they haven't properly adjusted for dark mode users.

https://memelogy-images.s3.amazonaws.com/b004cc18-b980-4e4e-...

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

#149

Post by apinstein »

aorloff wrote: post #142

What actions can you take by the time you are at closing ? I'm a licensed real estate agent, I actually got my license not just to learn about the business but to be able to save myself on agent commissions if I want to make an offer (if you can pass a CS data structures class you should be able to get a real estate license online in a matter of months), and I still would not try to optimize on closing costs. Do I sh…

hmm. I don't see why not optimize closing costs. I have done so on 4-5 mortgages myself. When sourcing your lending options, if you are a good borrower at least, you will have multiple options. I always asked for a full closing cost estimate and compared. Usually saved $2000-5000 through a combination of:

- effectively shopping around items like title insurance, appraisals, etc by pointing out differences b/c competing vendors - identifying BS items that are not even on all offers, and simply having them removed. people like to add bogus fee lines.

For sure doing this as lead-gen is great. Agree that there is a huge risk of uploading personal info -- in the future local AI's will be able to do this. In the short term, they should partner with a known brand to give credibility.

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

#150

Post by aoppaol »

aaln wrote: post #108
aoppaol wrote: post #92

Good job on the product and launching @aaln! I can see it being useful for many home buyers. I’m curious if AI tools like this are just wrappers around ChatGPT? Do they use their own LLM? If you upload mortgage documents directly to ChatGPT can you get similar results?

Thank you @aoppaol! AI tools like this don't generally need their own models or fine tuned LLMs. Uploading mortgage documents to ChatGPT may get some useful results but it really won't be comprehensive, it most probably won't take into account jurisdictional laws and mortgages rate data, and would be hard(er) to trust because of hallucinations without guardrails. Technically this is an LLM wrapper but it utilizes aro…

Thank you for the explanation.

As a LLM wrapper (is it wrapped around ChatGPT?) would you say what makes your product unique is the specific prompts you have designed?

Again, great job! Planning, building and launching should always be commended!

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