Need Some Cash for Your Home or Business? Try Lendingtree.com
Written: Sep 15 '03 (Updated Sep 15 '03)
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Pros: Site is fairly easy to navigate; Some good user tools
Cons: The offers are nothing special and there are too few of them
The Bottom Line: This web site is average; It will find good deals for some people, but not for others.
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| Bryan_Carey's Full Review: LendingTree |
Lendingtree.com is an on- line financial resource that specializes in making loans. Rather than offering the loans directly itself, Lendingteee.com gathers up financial and personal information from customers and then submits the info to its member banks who then compete for your business.
This web site promises to make the loan process the easiest and most convenient experience you could imagine. But does Lendingtree.com really live up to its lofty claims? Let's take a look:
Basics of This Service:
Lendingtree.com is, above all, a place to attempt getting a loan. Here's a breakdown of what you can get in this site:
Personal Loans- This includes loans for mortgages, home equity, auto, debt consolidation, student loans, and personal loans for no specific reason. They also offer help for obtaining low- interest credit cards.
Commercial Loans- If you're a small business owner who is looking for some extra cash, lendingtree.com can help you by finding an installment loan, line of credit, mortgage, business credit card, or receivables financing that fits your company needs.
User Tools- Lendingtree.com can help you estimate the value of your existing home, estimate how much home you can afford, and find a local realtor to facilitate the home- searching/buying process.
Help Center- If you're uncertain about the meaning of financial terms and want to learn more, you can enter the help center where you will be presented with links to such topics as adjustable rate mortgages, tips for buying a new car, financial aid process for students, how much home equity you can borrow, and other topics.
Costs for Usage:
There are no direct costs to use most of the basic services offered in this site. You can setup a use account free of charge, but it's not necessary to access the majority of the links. The only way that charges come into play is if you use some of the more advanced services or, of course, if you accept an offer for a loan.
If the thought of entering so much personal data on- line worries you, then you can call and speak live with a lendingtree.com representative. They will take your information over the phone and then forward it electronically to the member banks and other lenders for evaluation.
Final Thoughts:
Lendingtree.com has a large network of financial professionals to help you reach your financial goals. In the real estate section, for example, lendingtree.com is affiliated with more than 650 real estate companies and more than 6,500 real estate professionals. Auto loans, personal loans, and others are represented by many of the "big" names in the business, like Bank of America, Bank One, Citibank, MBNA America, and other well- known financial institutions.
When I came to lendingtree.com, I visited the site looking for debt consolidation loans. I clicked on the link, answered a few questions, and was informed that my best choices would be either a home equity loan or a refinanced mortage with possible cash back. The site then offered me a free credit report (which I declined) and even presented an offer that included $250 toward closing costs if I accepted certain deals. I went ahead and filled out the questionnaire and entered personal info (name, address, social security number, date of birth, etc) to start the process. I then waited for a response.
I did manage to get a couple of offers, which was nice, but the offers presented were not all that great. The process was simple, like the site claimed, but with interest rates at very low levels, I was expecting something better than the 7 percent home equity loan that lendingtree.com was able to find. I know that at my local credit union, I can easily get approved for 6 percent with the same type of loan.
I was also puzzled by the number of offers lendingtree.com was able to find (only two) and I wondered why there were so few. My credit rating is high, so it would seem to me that a good number of lenders would come forward to make an offer. I went through the process again and I found that you can get more results if you remember to leave the answers to some of the questions as wide open as possible. For example, if you're looking for a home equity line of credit like I was, don't input a specific term when you select from the drop- down menu. Let it default to "no preference" to keep as many options open as possible. I selected a loan term of ten years when I applied the first time, but when I tried again and left the answer open to include all terms (as well as leaving other answers more open, too), I was presented with 5 choices. Still, the best offer was 6.75 percent which still cannot match the interest rate at my credit union.
Lendingtree.com places limits on many of the loans, so depnding on what you need, you may not be able to use this service at all. With auto loans, the loan has to be at least for $7,500. For home equity loans, it has to be at least $10,000 and for personal loans, at least $1,000. The areas with no limits would include business loans and mortgages. My home equity need is greater than $10,000, so I had no problems. But other consumers might be looking for an amount that is too small for lendingtree.com and if so, they will have to apply elsewhere.
My favorite part of this site is probably some of the user tools, like the finding the right car, determining how much house you can afford, etc. But be forewarned that some of them are more useful than others. The home price estimation tool, for instance, is pretty nice and it responds quickly. You enter your address and it searches a databank of facts and tells you the number of bedrooms and bathrooms for the property; the year it was built; the living area; assessed tax value; and the prices of recent sales for other homes in the same area. The price estimator gives a low/high range than can often be $10,000 or more apart. I tried this for fun, and it told me that my house was worth between $83,000 and $133,000! Not a very useful estimation, if you ask me. I then noticed that there was a link to click if you need a more precise estimation. I went ahead and selected this option, but I stopped when I noticed that this service carries a price tag of $9.99. It's not a lot of money, but it shows that the quickness of the first estimation is intended more as a teaser, to get you to continue and pay for a better estimation.
Lendingtree.com is a fairly decent service, when taken as a whole. They are affiliated with some of the best known names in the world of lending and personal finance and they do offer some useful tools to help make decisions. The loan offers that I was given are not the best, though, so I cannot give this site an enthusiastic recommendation. Still, it's an ok site, and it might work well for some. It's one of those on- line sites where you pretty much have to just logon and hope for the best. Lendingtree.com was unable to find the best deal for me, but that doesn't mean it won't work for everyone. Logon, and give it a try. You could end up saving yourself quite a bit of money in interst charges in the long run.
Recommended:
Yes
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