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Start Here - online mortgages - Brief Article

Kiplinger's Personal Finance Magazine, June, 2000 by Elizabeth Razzi

HOME | New alliances on the Web bring you one step closer to ONE-STOP SHOPPING.

YOU'LL GET the lowest interest rate on your mortgage--or $250 in cash. That's the guarantee that Microsoft is offering at its beefed-up real estate Web site, Homeadvisor.com, which was scheduled to launch in early May.

This is not the only "guaranteed" best-rate deal you'll find on the Web--and, of course, there are plenty of hoops to jump through before you can collect any cash--but the combination of forces that is lining up at Homeadvisor puts a healthy dose of believability behind the promise.

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As it did with its travel site, Expedia.com, and its car-buying site, Carpoint.com, Microsoft is spinning off Homeadvisor as a separate company. Among the investors are some of the nation's largest mortgage lenders: Bank of America, Chase Home Finance, GMAC-RFC and Norwest Mortgage. Combined, the partners account for more than half of the mortgages made in the U.S.

Besides its impressive marketing clout, the new site offers the most advanced mortgage operation on the Internet. That's partly because it's using an automated underwriting system developed by Freddie Mac, a company that buys loans from banks and other lenders and repackages them as bonds for sale on Wall Street.

While some online mortgage sites offer rates without regard to the borrower's credit rating--a rate that might not really be available to you--Homeadvisor lenders check an applicant's credit rating and lock in the rate immediately.

Most loans won't be held up for the property appraisal, either. For 65% of all deals, lenders can get automated appraisals based on Freddie Mac's massive database of previous sale prices, eliminating one of the expenses--and delays--involved in taking out a new mortgage. You should be able to close a loan online within ten days of applying, officials promise, compared with the three- to four-week wait that's common off the Web.

Until Microsoft's launch of these improvements, its Web site had been an also-ran to the leading realty site, Realtor.com, which is partly owned by the National Association of Realtors, the brokers' trade association. Realtor. com still boasts the most listings--between 1.2 million and 1.3 million--but you can't use the site to apply for a mortgage.

Homeadvisor also includes for-sale listings--at last count, 750,000. The combination of listings and a high-powered mortgage operation means this site is the closest thing yet to one-stop shopping for a home. If you're in the market, it should be your first, and maybe your last, stop.

FREE FIX | Clean up with a class-action settlement

MORE HOT WATER IN THE SHOWER

Can't get a good, hot shower? You're not the only one. Some 21 million water heaters sold between 1993 and 1997 contain a defect that causes low hot-water pressure. The problem is a plastic part called a dip tube that deteriorates, clogging sink and shower faucets with white or gray plastic particles.

Under the terms of a class-action settlement, six major U.S. water-heater manufacturers (representing about 100 brands) have agreed to pay for repairs to water heaters with the defective tubes, as well as for related property damage. To see if your water heater is covered and to download claim forms, visit www.diptubesettlement.com, or call 800-329-0561. If you have already paid for repairs, you can be reimbursed if you file a claim by June 30. The deadline is December 31 to get your water heater fixed and plumbing lines flushed at no cost.--KRISTIN DAVIS

Financial Services Industry

Start Here - online mortgages - Brief Article

Kiplinger's Personal Finance Magazine, June, 2000 by Elizabeth Razzi

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