Helping borrowers compare mortgages online
Flongle describes itself as a borrower's agent - an online place where you can anonymously post what you're looking for in a mortgage and then have lenders "bid" against each other to win your business. The site prides itself on not accepting commissions, which it says then makes it totally unbiased. An interesting point to note, though, is that brokers are part of its model as they, along with banks and non-banks, are able to bid for your business. Given no commissions are paid, the service comes at a significant price - $399 to post your application.
Michael Lee, the brainchild behind the website, says that in the future he is hoping that lenders will rebate the fee back to the customers if they do accept their bid. At the moment, though, aspiring home owners are expected to pay to compare. Each Flongle bidding war runs for up to seven days. The site then matches, ranks and filters all incoming bids according to cost and how well they match the applicant's requirements. Flongle is new, so at this stage there are only 17 lenders advertised on its website. What will be interesting to see is whether or not some of the more competitive lenders that don't sell their loans through brokers will agree to be part of this crowdsourcing website.
Consumers already have a number of options to compare home loans. The key to making sure you do settle on the best deal is to have done some of the research yourself. According to Flongle, the whole process usually takes less than two hours.
MONEY VERDICT
A great way for brokers to source high-quality lead customers. After all, if you're paying just under $400 to get a deal you must be serious about getting a loan. As for consumers, it is another way to compare loans, albeit you are paying for it. On the plus side, borrowers get a refund if their application does not receive acceptable responses.
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