Comment by aorloff
5 days ago
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.
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.
This business is a thinly veiled mortgage lead gen scam
Its going on nearly 20 years I have been watching this train wreck