
Show HN: Hack Your Mortgage - jafridi
https://www.mortgagehippo.com
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zippergz
I greatly appreciate that you let me go through the whole interview without
giving any personal information other than property address. It would be even
nicer if I didn't have to give that. Would a zip code be sufficient?

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adailey14
Yeah we only really need your city and state to give accurate results. We will
try to clarify the labeling.

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msrpotus
Does county matter? It didn't seem to work with New York City (which is
composed of 5 different counties). I had to type in New York, NY; it didn't
recognize either my zip code or Brooklyn, NY.

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adailey14
Sorry about that, looks like we need to work on that functionality a bit. It
actually lets you type just brooklyn, but not brooklyn, ny. Don't ask me
why... we'll try to improve that.

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JunkDNA
I ran through this for real. Here are two major issues that made this not
really work for me:

The mobile experience on an iPhone left a bit to be desired. It was
responsive, but not totally and I found myself panning incorrectly because of
the use of modals (I.e. The phone was panning the background and not the
modal). I can't emphasize enough how clunky it was. I was technically able to
do everything but it was not a polished experience.

Also, it fails to ask if I have a home equity line of credit. I happen to have
done an 80/10/10 when I bought my house. That makes it look as though I've got
way more equity than I really do based on the questions. There is also no way
to indicate if I want to consolidate said line of credit into a single
mortgage as part of a refinance.

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jafridi
Thanks very much for your constructive feedback. We are currently working on
significantly improving the mobile experience. We are also improving our
interview for customers looking to refinance (since we've been primarily
focused on purchases) and will take your comment into account. Your
suggestions were right on point. I hope you will give us another chance in the
future. Thanks again.

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JunkDNA
You're quite welcome! Definitely would love to try again in the future. Best
of luck to you guys!

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jafridi
A quick follow up: we just made a push to make the interview fully responsive
and optimized for mobile. Would love to have you check it out and see what you
think. Thanks!

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Jemaclus
I _really_ like the interview process, and I feel like the questions are smart
and relevant, while not repeating the same boring questions every mortgage
calculator has. Very well done.

Why Hippo?

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adailey14
Why not? Well actually it started because hippoteca in spanish / latin means
mortgage and we were building this for the spanish speaking market at first
(and called Hippoteq). We pivoted to the broader market but the hippo remains.

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pjungwir
I just bought a home a few months ago, so I went through your process to see
what results I got. It offered a 30-year loan at 4.0%. Is that really
possible? It also quoted me $2900 in closing costs. I think my actual closing
costs were more like $10k! If so, I wish your app had been around 6 months
ago. But I'm skeptical you could actually deliver on that.

Also, as a self-employed freelancer, the paperwork to qualify for a loan was
immense. If you can reduce that, that'd be awesome too.

~~~
jafridi
Sorry you had to go through the hassle when you went through the process. The
rates that you see on the site are 100% real, and we do our best to quote the
most precise fees – however, fees do vary from area to area. We also don't
charge a percentage of the loan amount, since it doesn't make much sense to
charge more for a $300,000 loan than for a $100,000 loan. Also, as a result of
our technology and automation, we're able to pass the savings on to customers.

~~~
pjungwir
Okay, I was curious enough I got out my paperwork. Looks like my origination
fee was a lot higher. But my closing costs also included lots of escrow for
property taxes and homeowners insurance, and I guess it makes sense to leave
that out. So I don't feel _too_ bad. :-) Congrats on a great tool!

~~~
jafridi
Ok yeah that makes sense. Thanks again for the comment. Let us know when
you're looking to refi :)

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icefox
It would be nice if I could put in my information and my current fixed rate
and when at any point in the future it would be able to get me a cheaper loan
or a loan at X rate it would notify me. In the past I have simply spoken to a
mortgage seller and told him to contact me if he could ever get me a rate X,
it took a while, but when he finally could he gave me a ring and I locked it
in before the rate went up again. Systematizing that would have value.

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jafridi
Very good point and currently in the works!

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icefox
As you complete each "stage" it brings you back to the map and the user then
has to take an undirected action. Honestly what was going through my head each
time was "should I continue or close the window" rather than automatically
going to the next window and continuing. Check your logs to see where users
are abandoning your funnel. If it is between stages that is probably where you
want to make a tweak.

~~~
adailey14
This is a good comment. When we put this together we thought that answering
too many questions in a row can start to feel boring, so we can add some
variety by letting you find your way to the next question. But a fair point
that this is a good time to think about leaving. We'll have to ponder that one
and maybe run an A/B test to see the impact. Thanks!

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whiddershins
"Brooklyn, ny" and variants thereof not found, including "New York, NY" and
"New York, New York", and plain zip code

Also my payment doesn't include escrow for taxes and insurance, so asking for
that monthly number requires back of the envelope math to continue, as well as
seeming like a distraction to me, since taxes and insurance likely won't be
affected by a refinance.

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Glide
This is great. The only immediate UX thing I can think of right now is to make
the popup for the loans a little easier to dismiss (like clicking anywhere
outside of the lightbox should dismiss it).

The only other thing I can think of is being able to tweak numbers after
seeing the proposed loans. But then again it's great for not even creating an
account.

~~~
jafridi
Thanks!

Great feedback on making it easier to dismiss the popups.

You can actually change some of the main numbers when you hit the loan results
page. Did you not see the expandable section near the top? If not, that's
great feedback and we'll make it clearer.

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jsonau
The interview UX is well done. Definitely didn't feel intimidated or bored
answering those questions.

~~~
jafridi
Awesome! That's exactly what we're going for.

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__xtrimsky
This does not take into account real estate taxes.

For the house I'm about to buy, it says the mortgage would be 1730$. That
would be extremely nice, except that I have 830$ of monthly taxes.

So it's actually no where near that.

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MortgageHippo
Thanks for your comment. We do provide an estimate of real estate taxes once
you go into the loan details page for a loan. Real estate taxes vary widely by
area, so what you see is an estimate. Please let us know if you have
additional comments. This is all great feedback and we highly appreciate it.

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PizzeriaGuy
It seems this is highly misleading, or even illegal. Your NMLS license only
shows you can originate in Illinois, yet you are showing me information for
another state (California).

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jafridi
Thanks for your comment. We're currently waiting on our CA license.
Nonetheless, we're not taking mortgage applications or getting paid in any way
in states where we're not licensed. There's nothing wrong with simply showing
rates.

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dclowd9901
I went through with 20% downpayment, a 740+ score and a loan amount of about
$500k, and it didn't return any results. I find this level of scrutiny a bit
hard to swallow.

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jafridi
Care to share what you entered for debts or if you had any derogatory events
in the past two years?

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hyperpape
In the input fields that start with $0, hitting backspace makes the $0
disappear then reappear. I quickly realized you could just type, but it was a
bit jarring.

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bane
The overall experience was pretty nice, but yeah, this kind of kept throwing
me. I also didn't like how the pop-up window I was typing in kept resizing all
over the place.

But still, pretty cool.

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dredwerker
Is this is a US only offering? I don't want to register if it is.

Also it failed at the first hurdle for me. I don't rent or own. (I am deposit
saving with in-laws)

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jafridi
Thanks for your feedback. This is passed on to our dev team to take into
account other living arrangements like yours. And yes, t is a US-only offering
at the moment. Thanks again.

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spaulo12
Your system doesn't seem to take into account the different "high cost area"
definition of "jumbo loan"...

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jafridi
Thanks for your comment. We're in the process of adjusting jumbo loan limits
for different regions.

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kghose
Interesting. One suggestion - the page should scroll as you progress along to
keep the current waypoint in view

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jafridi
Great suggestion that we'll definitely take into consideration. Thanks for the
comment!

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onedognight
> When are you looking to buy a home?

I said, "refinance", so maybe "When are you looking to refinance?".

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jafridi
Thank you for catching this!

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pseudometa
The server is currently painfully slow at this time.

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jafridi
Juicing up the server as we speak. Thanks!

