<story><title>Google Launches Mortgage Shopping Tool in California</title><url>http://techcrunch.com/2015/11/23/google-launches-mortgage-shopping-tool-in-california-more-states-coming-soon/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>millstone</author><text>Surprising they&amp;#x27;re working with Lending Tree, which is very nearly a scam site. When you sign up with LT, your information is sold immediately, your credit is pulled multiple times (making it harder to get a mortgage), and you get an endless torrent of spammy calls. See CreditKarma reviews of LT: &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.creditkarma.com&amp;#x2F;reviews&amp;#x2F;auto-loan&amp;#x2F;single&amp;#x2F;id&amp;#x2F;Lending-Tree-Auto-Loan&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.creditkarma.com&amp;#x2F;reviews&amp;#x2F;auto-loan&amp;#x2F;single&amp;#x2F;id&amp;#x2F;Lend...&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;Edit: A question about the mathematics of mortgage brokers. From what I&amp;#x27;ve read, mortgage leads are sold for ~$30 and have a conversion rate of ~1-3%. This means that the purchaser of the lead has to recover ~$1500 per closed loan to pay for buying the leads. Doesn&amp;#x27;t this mean that loans from a broker site like this will cost you a lot more than working with lenders directly? My mortgage (from a direct lender) was a much better deal than I ever found on Bankrate.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>asuffield</author><text>&amp;gt; your credit is pulled multiple times (making it harder to get a mortgage)&lt;p&gt;That&amp;#x27;s a myth. All mortgage credit queries within a 14 day window count as a single query. Lenders have &lt;i&gt;not&lt;/i&gt; biased the system to penalise you for shopping for a good deal - they want to make offers to people who show good financial sense by doing that.</text></comment>
<story><title>Google Launches Mortgage Shopping Tool in California</title><url>http://techcrunch.com/2015/11/23/google-launches-mortgage-shopping-tool-in-california-more-states-coming-soon/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>millstone</author><text>Surprising they&amp;#x27;re working with Lending Tree, which is very nearly a scam site. When you sign up with LT, your information is sold immediately, your credit is pulled multiple times (making it harder to get a mortgage), and you get an endless torrent of spammy calls. See CreditKarma reviews of LT: &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.creditkarma.com&amp;#x2F;reviews&amp;#x2F;auto-loan&amp;#x2F;single&amp;#x2F;id&amp;#x2F;Lending-Tree-Auto-Loan&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.creditkarma.com&amp;#x2F;reviews&amp;#x2F;auto-loan&amp;#x2F;single&amp;#x2F;id&amp;#x2F;Lend...&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;Edit: A question about the mathematics of mortgage brokers. From what I&amp;#x27;ve read, mortgage leads are sold for ~$30 and have a conversion rate of ~1-3%. This means that the purchaser of the lead has to recover ~$1500 per closed loan to pay for buying the leads. Doesn&amp;#x27;t this mean that loans from a broker site like this will cost you a lot more than working with lenders directly? My mortgage (from a direct lender) was a much better deal than I ever found on Bankrate.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>nostromo</author><text>In theory you should get a better deal working directly with lenders.&lt;p&gt;In practice?  For me it was the opposite.  I worked with a mortgage broker (a professional, not a website) and I got a much better deal.&lt;p&gt;For startup folks, this is even more common.  My current mortgage holder originally denied me credit completely (they were scared of someone working at a startup).  My broker knew exactly how to work around this issue, asked me to sign a few forms, made a few calls, and then the same bank came back with the best offer.&lt;p&gt;Your best bet is to get a few quotes directly, but then to work with a mortgage broker to see if they can beat your best offer -- quite often they can.</text></comment>