Knowledge@Wharton
asks readers to figure out which plan won. Among the plans:
iBroker
If you have bought a home, a mortgage broker may have ripped you off. At least that’s what the team behind iBroker believes. That’s why it wants to create “the Expedia of the mortgage industry,” says team leader James Thottam, a Wharton MBA student. Expedia is a popular online broker of airline tickets and other travel services.
Numerous websites link borrowers and lenders. But despite what their ads may imply, they don’t necessarily give consumers the best deal, Thottam says. Some sell only their own loans. Others act as referral networks and simply pass customers’ names to brokers or lenders for a fee. And the typical broker “has complete discretionary power to choose what rate to quote the consumer, earning a higher ‘commission’ for a higher rate,” iBroker points out in its plan summary.
iBroker would submit its customers’ credit information to the same loan clearinghouses that most brokers use to generate mortgage quotes. But instead of selectively disclosing fees and terms, it would lay out all loan quotes and their costs, rates and points. “We are talking about bypassing the broker and linking the lenders directly to the consumer,” Thottam adds. “You would be able to do your own loan online.”
