UK online mortgage broker and lender Habito has unveiled a new tool to empower both its partners and homeowners looking to upgrade their property-financing game.
Starting with Habito’s strategic partners, they are able to use the new API to tap into Habito’s proprietary whole-of-market mortgage search algorithm and its mortgage calculation tools from inside their app.
For homeowners, the API enables them to work out exactly how much they could save by remortgaging and switching their deal.
The API solution also gives first time buyers the ability to see how much they can afford to borrow and what their monthly payments could look like.
Landlord Studio and Emma are the first two Habito partners to use the new tools. They will use the API for buy-to-let remortgaging and residential remortgaging respectively.
“There are lots of reasons why someone might put off remortgaging – including because they believe the process is too time-consuming or anxiety-ridden,” said Daniel Hegarty, founder and CEO at Habito. “But it really is worth it – our research found that customers are happy to invest 20 minutes of their time to make as little as £60 worth of savings, but, with mortgages, the potential savings are much, much higher.
“Habito is here to make switching your mortgage as easy as switching your energy or broadband provider, so that you can avoid slipping onto your lender’s costly standard variable rate (SVR) and avoid unnecessary stress. It’s great that we can now bring our innovative tools and solutions to our partners, in-app, and together, can help consumers avoid mortgage hell.”
Habito has been front and centre of the British PropTech revolution since it was founded in 2015. Since then, it has raked in millions in investment.
Interestingly, while it was happy to discuss its $18.5m Series B deal in 2017, Habito kept silent about a $5m round it raised earlier in 2019.
It only acknowledged that it had raised the money from Augmentum Fintech, the FinTech-focused venture capital firm, but refused to give away any more details at the time of the raise.
