Get rid of your uncertainty about whether you can save money by refinancing, and stop worrying that you’ll be taken advantage of by a bank.

What if you could know you own options better than any loan officer, know exactly what to do, without having to give your financial information to anyone?

The clarity into your mortgage, the simplicity of a step-by-step approach. And the peace of mind knowing that you can control your own outcome.

Introducing Refinance Yourself. The only program that gives homeowners total clarity into their refinancing options without having to rely on biased loan officers to make their decisions.

Tools that give homeowners clarity and independence around refinancing were developed and tested first by over 35 banks and are now only available to homeowners.

 Tested in 35 banks

Including the proven tools that take you from confusion about your mortgage options to certainty that you are making the best possible decision available to you.

Finally, have clarity around your biggest household cost – your mortgage, and your biggest asset – your home:

Even if… you feel you don’t have time to deal with home financing

Even if… you don’t know much about mortgages

Even if… you aren’t even exactly sure what your mortgage is right now

And yes, especially if you want to save serious money so that you can spend money on things that you really care about, like home improvements, your children, vacations, retirement, savings and more.

“I had a mortgage where I was paying $500 more a month than I should have. Through Refinance Yourself, I figured out the exact loan I could get and made sure that it made sense for me to do, including fees.”

– Cynthia P., Akron, OH

“My adjustable rate mortgage was set to go up but I didn’t know when and by how much. Refinance Yourself let me avoid unnecessary higher fees and even lower my payments.”

– Maxwell H., San Francisco, CA

“I thought a cash-out refinance was the answer, but I didn’t want to get swindled into something worse by a dishonest loan officer. Refinance Yourself gave me the piece of mind that my decision was sound.”

– Fiona M. Cambridge, MA

Years ago, did you dream of becoming a homeowner? Did you dream of having anxiety over your largest expense, your mortgage? And, when you went to figure out what your options were, that you’d have to sift through pages and pages of internet information that you couldn’t tell was accurate or not?

And then, everywhere you that you’d click, there would be someone asking for you personal information? Before they even give you any useful result!

Confused, irritated and strapped for time, but stuck…because there is nothing for you to independently figure out how to refinance, what to refinance into, and if it even makes sense when you consider the fees, that is truly unbiased.

What if life were different?

Imagine sitting at home in your fuzzy slippers with your feet up. You bring up your mortgage information, plug in a few numbers, and can see all of your options, not just the ones a loan officer bothers to show you, with nothing buried or hidden or deceptive.

You have peace of mind because you can see all the trade offs of refinancing clearly, without giving your private financial information over to some person that you don’t know.

You feel confident that if you see an option that works, that you’ll be able to get it with a helping hand the whole way through to make sure you don’t get taken advantage of, and get the best deal possible.

You feel satisfied that none of your personal information will be used by a company to sell you other things.

You think right away how lucky you are to be able to see with your own eyes how you can save money. You think about how much the money you might save every month will add up to – maybe you can even take a yearly vacation to somewhere really special, buy something that seemed out of reach, or put in way more money to your retirement fund than you ever thought possible?

This isn’t a fantasy. This peace of mind isn’t something that “other” people have. You can get in the best home financing situation possible even if you don’t know a thing about home financing (and don’t even want to learn).

I was a homeowner who had to refinance during the Great Recession and realized that I was not on a level playing field as my loan officer. He had all the information and I only had what he decided to give me.

He offered only a few options.

He withheld fee information until it was too late to shop around.

He did not explain that I could get various terms or what those terms were.

I was very frustrated. At the time, I was managing a data analytics software company. We dealt with complicated information. I knew math. I knew data. But somehow, I didn’t understand much of what he was telling me.

Often, we as homeowners don’t get to really make our own decisions. There’s a gatekeeper. That gatekeeper is the loan officer at a bank. Their job is to close your loan. It’s not to educate you. It’s not to tell you all of your options. It’s to give you what they need to under the law and close your loan as soon as possible so that you can’t shop around.

I, too, took what I was given.

But, in 2012 I quit my job and started a company that put the power of home financing decision making in the hands of homeowners, not banks.

 Me in 2012, biking the Brooklyn waterfront

Ron Raymond (user experience extraordinaire) and me in 2012, when we first started working on making mortgages clear to consumers.

Since then, over 14,500 home buyers and homeowners have used our software to see with their own eyes what the best options were for them. We sold our software through banks with the goal of serving more people than we could reach by ourselves.

But then we realized something: banks were only using our tools with their customers when it showed that their loan was good for the customer.

In other words, if our tools showed that the loan was NOT in the interest of the customer, guess what? The loan officer did not show it to them.

Did you know that one third of refinances are NOT in the customer’s best interest? That’s either because the fees that you pay make it not worthwhile or the money you save during a refinance does not offset the losses from changes to amortization and the way that you build equity.

 1/3 of refis are not in a homeowners’ best interest

But mortgage companies want you to think that refinances are in your best interest, and will use fuzzy math to convince you.

Why? Because when you refinance, of course, they get their fee.

And on the other side, there are literally millions of homeowners who would benefit from a refinance, but don’t even try because they don’t want to deal with the hassle of deceptive bank processes, fine print, and a confusing process.

As a homeowner, you deserve to save as much money as possible.

I knew that it was possible, precisely through the power of technology, to put into the hands of homeowners tools that would eliminate a bank’s ability to get homeowners into bad situations. And at the same time, empower homeowners to get into the best situation possible and giving homeowners better tools than the loan officers who serve them!

We won industry awards. We got industry press.

We made it possible for any homeowner to determine their own financial outcome around their home without the help of a loan officer – independent and unbiased.

(L) Winning a Real Estate Innovation award from Realogy (R) Presenting to over 10,000 banking industry executives at Finovate Financial Innovation conference

And, for the first time, these tools are available to homeowners directly.

“Tools that depict and predict how mortgage loan, insurance, amortization, fees and other loan-associated details will impact their finances and home equity over time, even decades into the future.”

– Inman Real Estate News, December 2016

Which of these invisible scripts is holding you back from getting the best deal possible with your mortgage?

“My partner deals with the mortgage. I don’t know the first thing about it and I’m afraid I’ll make a mistake.”

“I freelance and don’t think I’ll qualify for anything anyway.”

“I’m embarrassed to give loan officers my financial statements.”

“I know I can save money, I just don’t have the time to think about my mortgage.”

At the time I refinanced my mortgage, I was in a deep financial mess. It was during the end of the recession and I was still digging out from losing a major part of my income. It was embarrassing to talk to a loan officer about my situation, but ultimately, it was the largest expense I had, and I needed to save money.

But now, with the tools we’ve developed, I offer to you the tools I wish I had to stay in control and make absolutely certain that I could get the best deal. And, give you a clear path so that you don’t waste time or effort.

“Helps borrowers compare the costs and equity considerations of various loan types.”

– New York Times

“Designed so that consumers can understand the details of the mortgage they are being offered.”

– National Mortgage News

With Refinance Yourself, I am not just giving you the only tools to see independently how to save money with a refinance, I’m also giving you a 360 degree view of your home as an asset.

The details.

What you get

If refinancing makes sense, terrific. Keep the tools to use as you find the perfect loan for you and get your refinance. You can compare offers, and verify that what you are hearing from the bank is actually in your best interest or not. You’ll see your total costs, including fees, before committing to any one offer.

If refinancing doesn’t make sense, you still benefit, significantly. Keep the tools to track your equity, your mortgage payments, and what you’d get back in a sale, now and into the future. See a 360 degree view of your home as an asset for every month and year, now and into the future.

How is this different from other refinancing?

Today, if you want to explore refinancing, here’s what your experience is probably like:

1. Do a search for “refinance calculator”

2. Click on a link to a refinance calculator, plug your numbers in and something like this appears:

You stare at it for a while, trying to figure out if this means you should refinance. You see that you save money, but what does it mean, really?

Here are some of the problems with internet calculators:

• The “break even” is just plain wrong
• You can’t look at the effects of different terms or products
• They usually only let you look at 30 year fixed mortgages, with “savings” based on extending your term out further than you have now
• They don’t take into consideration the loss of equity from refinancing or increasing interest from starting over, at the beginning of your amortization

It’s intentionally confusing and misleading, because the goal is to get you to click on the big button that says:

3. Then, if you do click the big button, you see what look like competitive rates:

But, read the fine print, and you’ll see that these are “non-binding quotes.”

“The data displayed in the rate table do not take into consideration your personal financial situation, verified credit score, income, existing debt, or other factors. Your final quote, rates, fees, and monthly mortgage payment may vary.”

In other words, they are ads. Worthless ads.

Why are they worthless? Maybe you think that is a little extreme, but consider this: a mortgage company can’t possibly qualify you using the scant information they collect.

So what is the information you enter for, anyway? They sell it to the company that you clicked on for a pretty penny, sometimes as high as $80. Then your phone starts to ring and ring. You’ve been had.

What do they get? The get PAID. By the companies that post these useless rates on their site.

And what did you get in return? Nothing, except a bank that won’t stop calling you.

A vastly better way

Your home is one of your largest assets if not your largest asset. The way that you finance it has huge effects on the way that you build wealth in your home as well as your household expenses.

My approach is to put you in a more informed position than the loan officers who serve you!

 Presenting to 5,000 mortgage bankers on preventing risk to consumers

The reason I can make this bold statement is because we sold this same technology for years to banks and mortgage brokers. We actually had to train loan officers on how equity, interest and time play factors in a refinance, making what seems like a good deal actually a really bad deal.

The problem was, they did not want to show their customers our tools when a deal did not make sense for their customers. Why? Because it’s a lot easier to sell people on deals if they are not informed.

More money in their pockets, and less money in yours.

With Refinance Yourself, you are more informed than the loan officer.

You may be thinking – this sounds so hard! How can I be more informed than the loan officer?

I’ve designed Refinance Yourself so that people with zero mortgage experience can get all the benefits.

Independently look at and understand as many options as you want with all trade offs considered.

“It gives the customer a lot more insight into what they’re committing to.” 

– Mortgage Technology Magazine

Don’t trust a bank to do what is right for you – see with your own eyes.

Be fully in control of your home refinancing, and, your home as an asset.

How much more money can you have for other things?

Refinancing successfully out of an adjustable rate mortgage or higher interest rate can often save you $5,000 over just a five year period.

Getting a truly competitive rate can save you $10,000+ over five years, depending on the loan amount.

Not getting taken advantage of? Invaluable.

Is this right for you?

It is NOT right for you if you:

Want to blindly trust mortgage loan officer recommendations

Feel comfortable making mathematical models to tell if you are losing equity, paying more interest, or if the fees make it worth it for any time frame into the future.

Don’t even want to know if you can save money on your mortgage

It IS right for you if you:

Want to make sure you protect your home as an asset

Want or need to save money on your mortgage payments and avoid costly mistakes

Don’t want to waste your time trying to decipher loan officer “double speak”

Don’t want to give away your personal financial information

Don’t want to have to blindly trust a loan officer

Want to make totally informed, independent decisions

“It’s designed so that consumers can understand the details of the mortgage they are being offered… and reduces customer confusion created by the quotes they receive from banks.”

– Mortgage Technology Magazine

Yes! You have other options

You can use online calculators

But, these are designed to only look at monthly payment savings and don’t give you you accurate insight into trade offs

You can use loan officers

But, you can’t count on them to give you unbiased information

Refinance Yourself is a step-by-step tool that gets you the outcome you deserve, without having to blindly trust a loan officer or learn absolutely everything yourself about mortgages to avoid getting taken advantage of.

The details