Computerized process to, for example, automate the home sale, mortgage loan financing and settlement process, and the home mortgage loan refinancing and settlement processes

Abstract

In some embodiments, a comprehensive computer system and method (See FIGS. 1, 1a, 2) for automating and facilitating the performing and processing of tasks, information transfer, and information storage associated with the home sale (See FIG. 3a), mortgage origination (See FIG. 3b), and settlement process (See FIG. 3c), and the home mortgage refinancing origination and settlement process (See FIGS. 1b, 1c, 2a) (or performing other business processes), over a distributed computing network are disclosed. One aspect of the invention is a greatly simplified process for a home buyer to search for a home and simultaneously receive accurate and competitive bids for mortgages and services from multiple lenders and service providers. The process includes an automated under-writing process which generates complete, accurate information on the costs of buying and owning a home at very beginning of the home buying process. Another aspect of the invention is greatly automating the entire sale, loan and settlement process.

Description

CROSS-REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS[0001]This application is a continuation-in-part of and claims priority toan improvement over U.S. application Ser. No. 11 / 881,360 entitled “A Computerized Process To, For Example, Automate the Home Sale, Mortgage Loan Financing and Settlement Process, And The Home Mortgage Loan Refinancing And Settlement Processes,” filed Jul. 26, 2007 by Neil Thomas, now abandoned, which is a continuation-in-part of and claims priority to U.S. application Ser. No. 10 / 979,822 entitled “A Computerized Process To, For Example, Automate the Home Sale, Mortgage Loan Financing and Settlement Process, And The Home Mortgage Loan Refinancing And Settlement Processes,” filed Nov. 3, 2004 now U.S. Pat. No. 7,548,884 by Neil Thomas, which is a continuation of and claims priority to U.S. application Ser. No. 10 / 969,242, entitled “A Computerized Process To, For Example, Automate the Home Sale, Mortgage Loan Financing and Settlement Process, And The Home Mortgage Loan Refin...

AI Technical Summary

Benefits of technology

[0052]The preferred embodiments of the invention allow, among other things, the buyer and seller to be prompted, at the very beginning of the process, or later throughout the process if desired, to generate accurate pricing, quotes and information and order a mortgage loan and services, and use that information to simplify and automate the entire sale, mortgage and settlement process. The bidding and / or ordering process can, among other things, be done automatically without prompting buyer or seller, and can be done with or without automating the remaining sale, mortgage and settlement process, i.e. as a way to provide accurate and competitive pricing and capture mortgage, settlement and other service business at the beginning of the home sale process.

[0053]In some preferred embodiments, objectives and advantages that can potentially be achieved can include one or more of the following: 1. it provides a smoother, simpler, continuous process from the beginning to the end of the entire home sale, mortgage origination and settlement process; 2. it reduces work by all parties allowing the process to be highly automated, eliminating and reducing work currently being performed manually; 3. it reduces redundant and repetitive tasks of manually entering the same information numerous times in different computer programs; so information can be entered once for the entire transaction, not just portions of the transaction; 4. it reduces work, time, cost and chances of error associated with having to manually rehandle information numerous times, first having the real estate agent reenter information to perform tasks or transfer to more than one program, having the mortgage company reenter information to perform tasks or transfer to other programs, and then having the settlement personnel have to once again reenter or transfer information to other programs; 5. it allows transaction information to be instantly available to immediately perform additional tasks anywhere in the process, thus reducing confusion, delays and uncertainty and chances of errors in the process; 6. it reduces the cost of completing a transaction; 7. it reduces the number of personnel necessary to complete a transaction; 8. it reduces or even eliminates waiting time and reduces the overall time required to complete a transaction; 9. it provides for greater reliability to be built into the process; 10. it assures that important sale and mortgage disclosure information and documents required by law be given to the seller or the buyer, or the refinancing home owner, on a timely basis; 11. it greatly reduces the cost, complexity, unreliability, and design limitations of trying to ‘patch together,’ or ‘integrate’ different computer systems, one for the real estate agent, another for the mortgage company, and another for the settlement company, etc, in an effort to perform this process; 12. it results in a system with greater and more functional features for users; 13. it provides a more highly automated system without any gaps in the process; 14. it provides a simpler system which is less costly to build and maintain; 15. it is easier and cheaper to change or modify, add features, or upgrade the system from time to time; this is important with ever-changing technology and constantly changing market conditions; 16. it is more reliable and less likely to malfunction or ‘crash’; and / or, 17. the process can be simplified, streamlined and made more user friendly by combining, eliminating one or more functions or steps, or presenting information or allowing functions to be performed in a more understandable and efficient way.

Problems solved by technology

These multitudes of programs have limited value and slow the process because users have to rehandle, reenter, and wait for information from other parties; they have limited functionality in common and require use of more than one tool for users to perform their jobs thereby causing needless, repetitive work, delay and expense.

To date, no one has operationally developed the real estate agent, mortgage lender and settlement technologies together in one comprehensive solution.

There were, however, numerous fundamental and fatal problems with that approach; they were incomplete, leaving gaps in the process, pointing to the old adage, ‘a job half done takes twice the time,’ they were more costly to build and operate, they were complex requiring significant and difficult programming to integrate numerous, diverse technologies, they provided little ‘automation’ of the process, and resulted in a lack functionality giving users little value.

Further, these ‘transaction management’ systems dealt with only portions of the over-all home sale, mortgage and settlement process, requiring many of the users to reenter information in different programs, or requiring ‘integration’ with other real estate, mortgage and settlement programs to communicate.

None of these ‘transaction management’ programs allowed, among other things, the lender or the settlement provider to perform most of their transaction tasks and processes within these programs.

To try to integrate these technologies is very complex, ineffective and costly with the resulting information shared and functionality being limited, with little automation of the process, and therefore the value to the users was limited.

Because they do little to actually simplify and automate the transaction, a number of these ‘transaction management’ programs added additional people to the transaction in the form of a ‘transaction coordinator’ or a ‘move consultant’ which simply added to the overall cost of doing the process and did little to simplify the process.

All of these existing technologies were incomplete, leaving gaps in the process, and as a result they were not well received in the market.

Not surprisingly, there have been dozens of failures by the companies which have produced them.

Despite huge investments of time, money and ‘expertise,’ including by some of the largest companies, none of these efforts have been successful with such notable failures as HomeStore.com's ‘RealtyLink’, Microsoft's ‘Home Advisor.com,’ First American Real Estate Solutions' (FARES) ‘Transaction Management’, and Fidelity Real Estate Solutions' ‘Transaction Point.’

Despite these numerous attempts, there has been no complete program that performs, for example, the entire home sale, mortgage origination and settlement process in one single technology platform including, for example, all the sale activities of the real estate agent or builder sales office, all the loan origination activities of the mortgage loan office, and all the activities of the settlement company.

Similarly, there is no complete program that performs, for example, the entire home mortgage refinancing origination and settlement process in one highly automated technology platform.

Further, buyers are not typically offered other services such as settlement, homeowners insurance, home warranties, moving services, etc. until later in the process, after they have started to look for or found a house or submitted a contract.

These delays in ordering and pricing services in the traditional home sale market also appear in the processes employed on the Internet.

Yet, none of the Internet sites offer buyers and sellers an easy, efficient, competitive process to receive quotes and arrange for a mortgage or services at the beginning of and as an integrated part of the home selling and buying process.

Internet sites including those of the major real estate companies such as RE / MAX, Long & Foster Real Estate, Prudential Fox and Roach, ColdwellBanker.com, CBMove.com and Weichert Real Estate as well as Internet portal home search sites such as AOL.com, MSN.com, Realtor.com, Yahoo.com, HomeGain.com and Goggle.com offer only a time-consuming, overly complicated and inefficient process for finding and securing a mortgage, settlement, and other services, if they offer any process at all.

It does not allow any information to be saved and used for anything else later in the sale, mortgage or settlement processes.

None of the ‘calculators’ on other Websites allow any information to be saved for any other purpose.

However, none of these ‘calculators’ account for accurate information about the buyer's credit, income or debt information or perform any actual loan underwriting process to provide accurate quotes or generate other accurate service or closing cost information to be used in the transaction.

5. does not generate accurate closing cost or escrow information and 6. does not save and use the information in the remaining sale, mortgage or settlement process.

None of these Websites and technologies provide a way of generating accurate quotes and information for settlement and other services such as home inspections or other costs at the beginning of the buying process.

None of these home search Websites provide a simple process whereby a buyer can receive accurate loan quote, ‘preapproval’ or approval information or other cost information based on home search results, borrower information and actual loan ‘underwriting’.

In addition, none of these Internet portals or real estate Websites provide any process for saving and incorporating the home search, loan, or other service information into the subsequent sale, mortgage and settlement process as the subject teachings do.

This traditionally complicated process has encouraged long-standing abuses by industry participants which have cost home sellers and buyers perhaps 100s of millions of dollars of unnecessary expense for decades.

They have attempted to restrict use and access to their MLS data by ‘discount brokers,’ thus preventing them from offering a lower commission structure to the public.

Some of the many disadvantages of the various background references including the ‘transaction management’ technology discussed above include one or more of the following disadvantages: 1. they are incomplete solutions, 2, leaving crucial gaps in process, 3 requiring multiple entry of information.

4. they are complex ‘patchwork’ solutions 5. they are more costly to build, maintain and upgrade, 5. they have much less functionally and value for users, 6. they have little true automation of the process, 7. there is little simplification of the process, in fact most add work and steps on the process, 8. there are delays which result in an inefficient and time-consuming process, 9. they are less likely to provide accurate information to users on a timely basis, and / or 10. they are more prone to errors, mistakes and confusion.

The Internet home search processes being utilized currently are wasteful and inefficient for both the buyer and seller.

However, the information is not saved and has to be reentered again later in separate mortgage, settlement and other services processes.

Some of the many other disadvantages of the various Internet home search portals and real estate Websites background references discussed above include one or more of the following disadvantages: 1. they do not provide accurate or competitive pricing for mortgage loans, settlement and other services, but rather provide incomplete, rough estimates of only some costs for users adding to uncertainty and an uninformed buyer seller, 2. they are confusing, awkward and difficult for users to use, 3. they require more work and time, 4. a home buyer cannot compare the costs of different homes, loans and services at one time early in the buying process, 5. the homebuyer and seller do not receive competitive quotes or bids from multiple sources, 6. the information is not saved automatically for use in the subsequent comprehensive home sale, loan, and settlement process, 7. there are delays in the process, and 8. information has to be reentered later in the process in multiple technologies.

The current Internet home search portals and real estate Websites processes also lose potential revenue opportunities for Internet portals, real estate companies, mortgage lenders, settlement and other service providers because ‘the sale’ is not make at the earliest possible time in the sale process, the processes are awkward, difficult and time-consuming to perform, users are likely to become impatient, frustrated and distracted, and are given an opportunity to go elsewhere such as other Websites for loans and services.

If the Internet home search process used is not effective in capturing mortgage, settlement and other service business at the earliest opportunity, then Internet portals potentially lose valuable revenues.

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