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Comment by b1ngb0n1 | Hacker News Reader

Aside from the personal details (name, address, etc), they can collect pricing info on houses, run analytics, and swoop the deal with a slightly better offer or better yet, sell it to wholesale buyers, reits, and whoever is interested in stealing the deal.

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>they can collect pricing info on houses, run analytics

AFAIK house sale prices (ie. property transactions) are open in many (most?) jurisdictions.

>and swoop the deal with a slightly better offer

How does that even work? The winning bidder is presumably someone who gave the highest offer. Why would another company pay above and beyond that, considering that there's probably several other serious buyers who aren't willing to pay more?

The terms are not public until the house is sold. In the contract pending state you don’t know how much it is going to sell for. Theoretically if they saw a buyer accepting a crazy low offer they could alert the troops.

But it doesn’t need a lot of the data in that document, so really they need a way to redact all the unnecessary data to require less trust.

Edit: words.

The deal isn’t always about the price. For example, a $1M house bought with $100K down and $900K mortgage is a worse deal for the seller as compared to $500K down and $500K financed. Assumption here is that it is more likely to get a $500K loan irrespective of the appraised value of the house.

A lower all cash offer (say $975K) is likely a better offer for the seller because it reduces the risk for them and closes the transaction much quicker than a mortgage transaction.

I have been a buyer in two transactions where my offer was slightly lower than the highest bidder, but with better terms.

As a home buyer, I've been beaten many times by an all-cash offer that was significantly lower than my financed offer. For example, a $450K all-cash offer where they'd close in 7 days beat my $525K 80/20 offer where it would have taken me 25+ days to close.

This makes sense for the seller depending on how often a financed offer falls through. Our agent mentioned that in Amsterdam for example over 1/3rd of the offers with a financing condition fall through. And they do so weeks after the signing of the agreement so it costs the seller significant time and money.

With such a high chance of not actually getting the sale done, sellers are motivated to take 475 immediate cash instead of 525 with a 1/3rd risk of having to do it all over. Especially if they need the cash to buy their next home.

> I've been beaten many times by an all-cash offer that was significantly lower than my financed offer

Note that all cash commonly means no financing contingency. I put in an all-cash offer and financed it. I just didn’t have an out if I couldn’t find financing I liked. (Legally.)

> a $1M house bought with $100K down and $900K mortgage is a worse deal for the seller as compared to $500K down and $500K financed.

Do sellers in the US know how large your down payment is? AFAIK that's not a thing in Canada. Offers either have a financing condition, or don't. If the offer doesn't have a financing condition, the buyer might be paying cash. But they could just be trying to present an offer with better terms, gambling that they'll definitely find financing somewhere or the other.

Yup, the seller is (at least should be) made aware of the financing structure, as it’s part of the offer.

Every time I’ve sold a house it’s been a factor in deciding which offer(s) to pick or counter.

That's interesting. My last house was $$$ and I had no RE agent. Negotiated with the seller's agent myself. Never once disclosed financing info.

> name, address, etc

In my country all that plus your social security number and tax declarations etc are public information. What's your opinion on that?

That...is not how mortgage servicing companies operate.

People aren't concerned about giving their details to a mortgage servicing company, they're concerned about giving their details to a random website called "closing.wtf", which promises to provide mortgage advice for free with no other obvious revenue source.

Lol no revenue source and a promise to never sell or share their data.

Gotta figure this one out...

At least put a patron link on there or something, so people can have a legitimate way to pay for the cost associated with running the website. Perhaps make a suggested amount of 10% of the savings.

This gives you a obvious profit motive, and makes you seem more sketchy because you now have more skin in the game to keep it operating as a valid and useful business service

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