Super Loan Calculators

A company called Webdigs (webdigs.com) reports through PR Newswire that they’ve recently been licensed to write loans in all 50 states, including Guam and Puerto Rico.  They also became the “first full-service, web-based real estate brokerage in the Minneapolis/St. Paul area.”

It’s the usual self-congratulatory type of press release, but the part that caught my eye was this:

“Webdigs recently launched a sophisticated mortgage calculator, which includes a Cost and Benefits analysis of every home listed on http://www.webdigs.com. The calculator can be accessed from the details page on each of more than 60,000 home listings.”

I visited the Webdigs website and, as the press release says, you must first search their listings and find a property you are interested in. No registration is required, which is nice. No special software or plugins required, also nice.

I found a nice downtown Minneapolis apartment selling for $534,900.00. On the listing page next to the photo I found a link to the mortgage calculator.

It is indeed a very sophisticated mortgage calculator which allows you to alter up to 20 different variables. Also, each variable is filled in by default, and you can change it if you wish. So for example the annual rate of appreciation is filled in at 6.65%, the downpayment is given as $106,980.00, the loan term as 30 years, the interest rate as 6.50%, etc. I like this because when all these fields are blank by default (as in many other calculators) some people don’t know what they mean and don’t know what to put down.

Mouse over each variable and a small floating window appears to explain the meaning of that variable.

This calculator even tells you, among other things, your tax savings on the interest you will pay,  the total real estate tax that you will pay over the life of the loan (assuming an annual tax increase rate of 1% – and you can change this variable as well), the annual cost of home owner’s insurance, the total rent you’ll save over the life of the loan, and more.

Last but not least, the calculator is easy on the eye, with alternating white and green fields and good spacing.

Based on my own rating system for loan calculators that I introduced in “Rating System for Online Loan Calculators”, I score this calculator as follows:

1. Good variety of loan calculators: 3.5 points (there’s actually no variety, just the one calculator, but it makes up for that in quality).
2. No registration required to use the calculator: 2 points.
3. No special software or plugins required: 2 points.
4. Explanation of what to use the loan calculator for: 0 points.
5. Explanation of how to use the calculator: 1 point.

Total: 8.5 points out of a possible 10
Rating: Excellent