Not only have people asked why we created RateWindow they have asked what does it do for real estate agents. In an attempt to answer those questions– 1st of all Why?

We created RateWindow because as an owner of a financial planning firm, in a former life, we were always dealing with our clients and their mortgages on purchases and refinances. As we dealt with those clients we came to the realization that the biggest purchase most people make in their lives is their home. We also realized that the three most important things about real estate ARE NOT location, location, location. The three most important items are financing, financing & financing. As we dealt with this more and more we decided to dig deeper into how mortgages were priced and how they could be structured to serve the best interests of our clients. We didn’t have to dig too deep to realize that our clients best interests were not being served by the lending community at all, but were serving the pockets of the lending institutions and their mortgage originators.

From this investigation came the idea for RateWindow, a tool for consumers to be able to see all the interest rates available from a mortgage originator and make the choice that was best for them not the originator. RateWindow reveals the rate sheet to the borrower in a simple, concise, and understandable way so they can choose what is best for them. As an example if a borrower needed some additional funds to cover closing costs then they can choose a higher interest rate and use the attached YSP (yield spread premium) to offset those costs. They can also see what the higher interest rate would do to their payment and they can see it in 30 or 15 year fixed rates or for 5/1 arms. The borrower could also choose the par rate or what it would take to buy the interest rate down. Borrowers armed with that information created a great deal of trust with a mortgage professional who worked off the platform of trust and full disclosure, including a fixed fee for the service the mortgage professional performed.

This included that all third party fees such as processing, appraisal, and other fees were passed through at cost and did NOT include any junk fees that further padded the pocket of the originator. Clients of both the real estate agents and mortgage professionals loved the transparency of the transaction so we decided it time had come to bring it to as many borrowers as we could and thus came the creation of RateWindow.

Secondly, what does it do for the Realtor? We have designed RateWindow as a small application (widget) that will run on anyone’s website including real estate agents sites. Real estate professionals work really hard to get people to their sites so RateWindow provides their sites with additional adhesives so they will stay there. A real estate agent could say to a prospect, “Go to my site and not only can you see all the real estate for sale, you can also check out all the mortgage rates available and if needed get cash for closing costs.”

Not only can you wear the White Hat for your prospects and buyers to expose them to total transparency in the mortgage world, RateWindow also will send a “soft touch reminder” newsletter with your branding and most recent blog post to those who opt in for updates on the rates available. All of this comes from your website and doesn’t take your hard earned traffic somewhere else!