Inside Hypofriend's Optimizer
Mortgages are complex, and we try to 'hide' that for our customers. But now that you’re here, you are probably curious about the details of how our recommendation engine works and what makes it so special. The difference between us and basically every other broker is that we recommend the best fitting mortgage to you, based on our mathematical models and proprietary methodology.
We look at a number of factors, for example
Your age
Your net household income
Your available savings
Your expected stay
How likely you stay shorter or longer
Whether you’ll live in the property or rent it out in the future
How quickly your income will grow over time
Whether you consider alternative investment opportunities for your money
We then analyze how your situation would change for:
Mortgage products with different fixed interest periods
Mortgage products with different repayment curves
Mortgage products with different down payments
Since mortgages with lower fixed interest periods are technically cheaper since they have lower interest rates initially, we compare them against mortgage products with longer fixed interest periods that are more expensive. We make a trade-off calculation between risk and cost. The risk is that interest rates increase when you refinance. We factor in that you may stay longer or shorter in your home than expected.
We use bank-type stress tests for our recommendation, which is a way to understand whether, even in the worst case, our customers can still afford the mortgage payments down the road. Our recommendation is then based on which product offers the lowest overall expected cost given the customer’s situation and outlook.
Ultimately, our customers decide what is best for them, but we want to offer them the information and logic to understand the decisions for themselves. Our experts are equipped with advanced consultation software to walk you through this information in an intuitive and understandable way.
