How it works
What we actually do to your quotes
Six steps, in order. Every one of them is something you can check against your own document.
We read the form, and show you what we read
A Loan Estimate is a standardized three-page federal form. We extract every field on it — the rate, the term, each fee line by name, the lock terms, the mortgage insurance structure — and record how confident we are in each one, along with the page it came from and the text we read.
Anything we are unsure about is flagged for you to check before it drives a single number. You can correct any field, and nothing we extracted is used in a calculation until you have had the chance to confirm it.
We check the document against itself
Before comparing anything, we verify each form's own arithmetic: that the line items in each section add up to the section total, that the closing costs reconcile against the lender credit, and that the monthly payment actually follows from the amount, rate and term.
If any of that fails, we stop and show you which fields to check rather than producing a comparison built on a misread number. Usually the cause is that we read a digit wrong — occasionally it is that the form itself is wrong, which is worth knowing.
We compare only what the lender controls
Roughly half of the closing costs on a Loan Estimate have nothing to do with the lender: property taxes, insurance, recording fees, the escrow reserves collected at closing. Those are the same bills whichever lender you choose — and they are estimates, which means a lender can make its bottom line look smaller simply by guessing lower on your insurance.
So we compare on the origination charges and the services you cannot shop for, minus any lender credit. The rest is shown, greyed out, with an explanation of why it is not counted. Not hidden. Just not counted.
$4,215$4,080A + B — comparedE–H — excludedWe check the quotes are answering the same question
Quotes at different point levels are not comparable as rates. Different lock periods are not the same product. Quotes issued three days apart may differ because the market moved, not because one lender is better. A fixed rate and an adjustable rate cannot be ranked against each other on cost at all.
Where the mismatch makes a ranking meaningless, we refuse to produce one and show the quotes side by side instead. We never silently adjust a number to make quotes look comparable — an adjusted figure you cannot trace back to your own document is exactly the black box we exist to replace.
We compute the cost over your years, not thirty
You tell us how long you expect to keep the loan. We amortize each quote, model when the mortgage insurance actually falls off — which differs sharply between a conventional loan and an FHA loan above 90% loan-to-value — and add up what you will really have paid.
Principal is not counted. That money becomes your equity, not a cost. Where our figure differs from the “In 5 Years” box printed on your form, we show both and explain exactly why.
Then you negotiate, and we tell you what happened
You get a sequenced plan: which lender to push on what, in what order, with the emails drafted, what each lender is likely to say back, and what to do if they say no. You send them from your own account. We never contact a lender.
Upload the revised quotes when they come in and we compute exactly what changed — what you saved up front and what you saved every month.
What we are not
Not a lender or a mortgage broker. Nobody here is paid more when you borrow more, or paid at all by anyone who lends. We never send your documents to a lender and we never contact one.
Not a real estate brokerage, in your county. Mason is a licensed Virginia agent, which is a conflict rather than a credential, so the counties he works in are excluded from the proposals marketplace in code. They are named on this site.
Not a title agent or a settlement company. We explain which title charges are filed rates you verify and which are services you can shop. We do not sell either, and we name no vendors.
Not an attorney. We describe what your documents say and what other agreements in the market do differently. We do not draft language, and we do not tell you what to require of anybody.
Not a financial adviser. Nothing here is a recommendation about whether to buy, how much to borrow, or which loan suits your life. We show arithmetic; the decision is entirely yours.
Not a rating service. We do not score, rank or recommend anyone on the other side of your transaction by name. We compare the documents you bring us and nothing else.
Where we point at a rule — checking a Closing Disclosure against the estimate it came from, for instance — we are showing you the question worth asking, not reaching a conclusion about what anybody did. Verify every number against your own paperwork.
How we are paid
Flat published fees, paid by the person we are helping, charged before the work is delivered and contingent on nothing. We take no referral fees in either direction, no percentage of anybody’s commission or loan, and nothing at closing. There is nowhere in our system to record a payment from a lender, an agent or a title company, and an automated check fails our build if someone adds one.