Because most mortgage shoppers get information online nowadays, traditional mortgage lenders need to improve the online customer experience. Therefore I set out to compare the websites of six large traditional lenders: Bank of America, Chase, Citibank, Countrywide, Washington Mutual and Wells Fargo. To give it some focus, I decided to focus on payment calculators, as Forrester thinks those are the most important. For an international comparison, we’ll be looking at the Moneyou calculator, a subsidiary of ABN AMRO.

The Test Scenario

A couple in California is looking to buy their first home in the next year, so they want to find out how much they can afford. They each make about $7000 a month and they have approximately $60k available for a down payment. They estimate they can pay approximately $4000 a month for their home.

The Criteria

First of all, I looked at whether the calculator was easy to find, and whether it was quick to get the first results. Then I looked at the help system: mortgage-specific terms can be confusing, especially for new home owners. So I was looking for context-sensitive help, online chat and a toll-free phone number.

Of course, it also helps if the questions are logical: for example, asking for ‘points’ without explaining what it accomplishes does not make a lot of sense. Once you have the results, it is useful to get a fairly complete picture of the monthly costs, for example including real estate tax payments.

If you’re new to home buying, you might want to tweak your numbers a little: for example, you might get a much better deal if you save up for a bigger down payment: so it’s great if you can change your inputs, ideally with instant updates.

And finally, once you have the right numbers, how easy is it to take next steps, such as saving your scenario, or getting pre-qualified?  Also, does the calculator show real examples of mortgages?

So let’s take a look at the different lenders, in alphabetical order:

Bank of America – grade: D

In the Bank of America calculator you enter how much you’re willing to pay each month, which is less intuitive than entering your income and letting the calculator give a monthly payment suggestion. Unfortunately, the calculator doesn’t include any context-sensitive help, nor an option for online chat: if you need help you need to call their toll-free phone number. Although they give an example of closing costs, it’s generic and it’s not related to the numbers you’ve entered. It’s not easy to change your inputs, either.  Every time it takes up to 20 seconds to see the results. Eventually I found an ‘update my search’ button, but that didn’t work for me, because I couldn’t change the numbers in there. Because I’m an existing Bank of America customer, I started pre-qualification and logged in to have my details pre-filled: unfortunately they were only able to pre-fill my phone number. All in all a disappointing user experience.

Chase – grade: D

The Chase calculators are a little difficult to find, and the user experience is somewhat unsatisfactory. Chase is the only company that uses Flash for their calculators. The first thing you notice is that it takes a little longer to load. The browser’s back-button doesn’t work. Also, there are problems printing: you have to first click a ‘print’ button; otherwise you get a blank page. And you cannot easily select the text to copy to a Word document. Not related to Flash, the content-sensitive help is hidden: I would expect a help button, but you have to hover over the field label to see the help text. On the positive side: the values you enter are remembered across different forms.

Unfortunately, Chase also asks you to enter your desired monthly payment rather than asking for your income. On the results page you get a summary of what you entered, plus the option to change it. They provide no details on the available mortgage types. Also, it’s not immediately clear what the next step is. Once I found the tiny ‘apply online’ link, the application form appeared: after a few seconds a chat window popped up, which was useful, although it took a little while before an agent was available.

Citibank – grade: C

For this test I focused on citimortgage.com, and not on any of the other Citi mortgage websites. First of all, praise for the calculator that is right on the home page: it won’t get any easier to find the calculator. The ‘how much can I afford’ calculator is also easy to find, and requires only the key information: income, other payments and down payment. However, it is really strange that the toll-free phone number on the results page is almost invisible, and there is no chat option. Also, there is no help system for the results page, which makes it difficult to interpret the results for new home buyers. Once you apply, it offers options to apply online, over the phone or in a branch office, which is nice.

Countrywide – grade: B

It was a little hard to find the calculator on the Countrywide web site, but it worked very well. They ask for relatively little information, there is a good help system, you can easily update the information and recalculate, and you get a detailed breakdown of all costs. In the form they ask the maximum points you are willing to pay, which – I feel – is a little too detailed for this calculator, but that’s a relatively minor point. They show their toll-free phone number prominently with every step, and also encourage you to get prequalified. A cool feature is that they show what the limiting factor is for the amount you can loan: for example, it could be your income, or the size of the down payment. Their results screen has one of the most detailed overviews of the total cost of the mortgage, including tax and closing costs. I also took a quick look at the monthly payments calculator, but that one is disappointing: it assumes you already know exactly what you want, and only gives details on monthly principal and interest payments, not on any other costs.

WaMu – grade: C

The Wamu calculators aren’t overly easy to find either, because they’re hidden behind a tab. Only little information is required, although I would rather skip specifying the loan term in this type of calculator. Very interesting to see that they only suggest adjustable rate mortgages: luckily, a chat window popped up, so I asked if I could get information on fixed rate mortgages too. Even more interesting: the chat rep sent me to a calculator on http://www.dinkytown.net, a totally unrelated website. However, he also offered to do the math for me, but it’s still a little strange. The information on the WaMu results screen is comprehensive, but it could use some more contextual help, plus an option to interactively change the data you entered. Your data is remembered across forms, which is a useful feature. The availability of live chat is definitely the best feature of the WaMu site.

Wells Fargo – grade: F

Well Fargo also provides a calculator right on their home page, which is a big plus. The ‘how much can I afford’ calculator was buried a little deeper in the site, and was called ‘Loan Calculator’, which is not totally intuitive. If you click on it, you get a message that you are leaving the Wells Fargo site: that is a little weird! The calculator asks for a lot of information, which makes the process more time-consuming than necessary. However, in the result screen they have both a conservative and an aggressive estimate, which is nice. However, these results are generic, and not specific to Well Fargo mortgage products or lending practices. You have to contact them by phone or in a branch office to get specific information on Wells Fargo mortgages. Very disappointing: it seems like their website is only a lead generation tool, and does not provide any specific information about Wells Fargo mortgage products, other than some generic interest rates.

Moneyou

Disclosure: some of my coworkers have helped develop this calculator.
Moneyou is an online mortgage provider in the Netherlands, owned by ABN AMRO. Their ‘Maximum Mortgage’ calculator can be found on the front page, and it requires only income information. Even better, the results are updated immediately on the right-hand side, using graphs. A large button brings you to the next stage: calculation of monthly costs, which requires slightly more information. As you change the information about your situation, for example the size of the down payment, the mortgage details are updated automatically on the right-hand side. This facilitates going through several ‘what-if’ scenarios. The only negative is that the site is hiding the interest rate behind an optional panel, so it’s more difficult to compare with other lenders. Extensive context-sensitive help is available, and if you still have questions you can use live chat or call a toll-free phone number. From this screen you can step right into the prequalification form. Overall, this calculator is easy to find and easy to use. I haven’t rated it, because the Dutch mortgage market is not entirely comparable with the US market, but it’s clear that the major US providers can pick up a lot of good ideas from this example.

Conclusion

The traditional mortgage lenders have a lot they can improve to their online calculators. It’s not rocket science: promote the calculators on the front page, provide good support via content-sensitive help and live chat, and display the phone number prominently. Also, facilitate what-if scenarios by including the input form on the results page. Moneyou has taken it one step further, by using real-time updates and graphs. This type of calculator is often classified as a Rich Internet Application and in my opinion this is where the mortgage industry should be heading to provide a superior online customer experience.

What is your take? Do you agree with the test results? Do you know of other websites that are providing great mortgage calculators? Or maybe you just have a question? Let me know by leaving a comment below…