RateSpeed, The Mortgage Rate Search Engine
June 13th, 2008 Categories: General
As a company RateSpeed probably looks like another mortgage interest rate quote internet site, proposing some grand solution thats ultimately a new skin on an old cat.
I imagine most brokers and bankers also smell another company looking to carve out a pound of flesh for itself, cut out the individual professional, or sell ‘leads’. For anyone that isn’t in the know, LendingTree charges used to charge $10,000-$25,000 just to sign up for the privilege to then pay for their leads plus additional fees if the loan closes. When broker/bankers ‘compete’ on Lending Tree, they must pass on these costs to the consumer. Similar things can be said about most all other Lead-Gen companies. It’s a fledgling (at best) and increasingly cost prohibitive business for mortgage professionals to use and subsequently consumers to pay for. As the saying goes, Shi* runs downhill 
Quite simply RateSpeed is a rate.bot that can crawl and extract best case interest rate pricing results from a mortgage professionals existing broker/banker relationships.
More specifically, the software can crawl multiple disparate feeds provided by any number of wholesale mortgage providers, essentially allowing a broker/banker to submit a borrowers qualifying and anonymous risk-based criteria to a single point of entry, yielding best case results. Broker/bankers are often ‘approved’ with dozens of lenders, actually ’shopping’ an individual borrower to this many resources is time and cost prohibitive. RateSpeed prices every lender in seconds, insuring all resources are considered and transparently displayed.
Consumers shall have access to the exact same RateSpeed interface and information that our affiliated broker/banker does. No more bait and switch, smoke and mirrors, or wondering if one really got the best deal they could. Par rates and yield spread premiums will be there for all to see. As is often said in the mortgage world, ‘we all have access to the exact same rates and programs’, its how well one can sell themselves or their company. Mortgage professionals that utilize our RateSpeed enabled sites will be looked at as transparent service providers, instead of Salesman.
RateSpeed will not be cost prohibitive. We shall not charge a per deal or referral fee. Any ethical, transparent broker/banker should be able to afford our products.
With great power comes great responsibility (Thx uncle Ben). By providing the mortgage professional community with a powerful and time saving tool we are mandating they share it with their potential clients. Consumers will see exactly what the professional sees, total unabated transparency. Our subscribing broker/bankers will have no ability to manipulate the information before a consumer sees it and they adhere to a flat fee cost for services policy, disclosed up front, and verified via the funding lender.
We hope to raise the baseline of what constitutes a good mortgage away from interest rates and cost (since ‘we’ all have access to the same candy bag) and more towards qualified, efficient service. Alas, the technology won’t be for everyone, i.e. many broker/bankers will condemn it as some sort of heresy, while others will tell their clients that they already practice such ethical standards. At the end of the day, there’s really only one way to know.
Who will the increasingly discerning and educated consumer trust? The broker/banker who must say ‘Trust Me’, or the one who doesn’t need to blow such smoke?
