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Mortgages

For Mortgage Shoppers, Less Can Be More

Credit...The New York Times

THE Internet can help simplify many financial transactions, though not always when it comes to home mortgages. Those who sign up for information at mortgage Web sites have found themselves receiving a flood of calls and e-mail messages from brokers and lenders soliciting business.

But that trend seems to be changing. Refinance.com, which made its debut early this year, promises to simplify the process for those refinancing their mortgages, by connecting each borrower with just one lender, and says it plans eventually to extend the service to all mortgage borrowers.

Now Google is offering a similar service. The company’s new mortgage search feature, which has been in limited testing since 2009, expanded last month to serve New York and New Jersey borrowers (though people may have trouble accessing the site during the testing period). It now serves Web users in 38 states, though not yet Connecticut.

For now, by bookmarking https://www.google.com/comparisonads/mortgages, borrowers will see a list of various lenders and mortgage products with current rates and costs. The page lists loan offers — including closing costs — from several lenders, along with their fees and the monthly payment that would be required. Borrowers can quickly tailor that page to their own qualifications — like down payment, credit rating and loan type — and the loan offers change almost instantly.

The chief difference between Google’s mortgage search service and many others is that, at this point, borrowers can choose to receive an offer from a single lender, which does not have the borrower’s direct contact information.

The loan offer is semibinding for the lender. As long as the borrower’s information does not change all that much from that shown on the original screen, Google will hold the lender accountable for the terms shown, said Paul Todd, a director of product management for Google.

In some cases, the final loan terms will differ from those initially shown. For instance, on a refinance, if a home’s value was officially appraised for less than what the borrower initially estimated, lenders would be free to change the loan terms.

To minimize the chances of that, Mr. Todd said, Google uses estimates from Intellireal, a company that provides informal property appraisals to lenders.

Brad Strothkamp, an analyst with Forrester Research, a technology consultant in Cambridge, Mass., called the service consumer-friendly.

“The simplicity of finding mortgage rates and fees with this is great,” he said, “and there’s real power in being able to compare all key rates and fees in a very simple format.”

Mr. Strothkamp said that Google’s service had one flaw: Well-known lenders are not yet listed. “But my assumption is that will come,” he said.

Mr. Todd said Google was in discussions with major lenders and was hopeful they would join. For now, though, he said dozens of lenders sell loans through the service, and the range of mortgage products includes the most frequently requested products, like conventional loans and mortgages from the Federal Housing Administration and the Veterans’ Administration.

Phillip Baltazar, the chief executive of America Funding, a mortgage bank in San Diego, which has participated in the Google mortgage search service since last year, says the lenders with the lowest interest rates do not necessarily top the search results, because lenders pay Google for the right to present their offers.

Still, he said, borrowers can be confident that they are seeing highly competitive rates.

“The market is so competitive,” Mr. Baltazar said, “that even if the top search result isn’t the lowest rate, chances are great that the other rates will reflect the best of what’s out there.”

A version of this article appears in print on  , Section RE, Page 11 of the New York edition with the headline: Simplicity for Shoppers. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe

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