SmartAsset, the Financial Calculator Killer

This is certainly an area that needs clarity badly. Banks are clearly not disinterested parties when it comes to Financial Calculators (just like your Financial Advisor's Retirement Calculator is biased toward products they can sell you)

Once you nail this one, you should do the same for owning 'working' assets. Which is to say what sort of rate of return could one get on their money if they created an LLC, bought a property, and rented it out. All the same things go into the equation but the variables are subtly different (what mortgages can an LLC get that an individual can't? How about the other way round? Etc.)

This interests me greatly cause I am trying to sell and then buy a house. The problem I see is that I can't tell your app that I don't want a down payment. I qualify for the VA loan which requires no down payment.

@varikin -- right now we don't source VA loans, however that is certainly on our near-term roadmap.

Also, the current product is limited to "first time home-buyers". Re-financing, buying a second home, and more are all coming very shortly.

Cool. I understand there is a lot of account for. Other than that gripe, this looks very cool.

A feature I'd love to see is should I refinance or not.

I've currently got a convoluted system of spreadsheets which I have to update every time I want to recheck against current rates. I'd basically like it to tell me in which scenarios it would make sense to refinance. I input things like amount of principle still outstanding, my current rate and term, how far I am into that loan, when I plan on selling, what the refi rate/term options are. The outputs I get are total cost (in fees and interest) by the prospective sale date, and total equity by the prospective sale date.

It is not necessarily in a lenders interest to give borrowers this information, since borrowers are trying to optimize based on paying the least amount possible.