LoanMarket.net announced on Monday that it has launched its online marketplace for buying and selling mortgages.
According to the company, its service allows both buyers and sellers to come together in a "neutral, open marketplace" to trade mortgages and other real-estate secured note investments.
The site has a variety of sellers, including mortgage originators, banks, and lending institutions, mortgage pool investors, small private investors, and seller carry-back note holders. All the notes listed on the site include current market value information, as well as a photo of the property taken within 14 days of the post. All vital loan documentation, such as the note, deed, and title will also be included in the listing. The site is live now.
Vertical ad network Glam Media raised $10 million in a round of funding that was led by Mizuho Bank, the company announced Monday. According to the company, it will use the funding to continue its expansion in the United States, and grow its operation in Japan and Germany.
Glam Media also announced on Monday that it has formed a joint venture with agencies and media companies in Japan. Dubbed Glam Media Japan, the venture combines the country's third-largest advertising agency, Asatsu-DK, and a variety of other Japanese firms with Glam.
Revolution Money, a company that helps users reduce the cost of credit cards online, announced on Monday that it has raised $42 million in a Series C round of funding led by Goldman Sachs. Citigroup and Morgan Stanley also participated in the round. The company plans to use the funding to grow its cost reduction operation.
Online real-estate search site Zillow announced on Monday that it has inked deals with Leads360 and LoanSifter, firms that specialize in real-estate leads and loan information, respectively, to improve the site's Mortgage Marketplace.
Users can now follow leads and use LoanSifter's loan-pricing engine to get accurate information about how much a mortgaged property will really cost. The new features are available now on Zillow.
With banks scrutinizing loan applicants with renewed fervor, students who need money to cover college tuition could start looking to friends, family, and social networking for cash.
Two start-ups are banking on the premise, with Web sites that help college students secure small loans for school from relatives, close friends, and their extended social networks. Their timing couldn't be better, given that banks and other private lenders are pulling up stakes on risky loans (e.g., those granted without a proven credit history) and students need to bridge the gap between a $40,000 tuition bill and a $20,000 government loan.
One such start-up, Redwood City, Calif.-based GreenNote, will officially launch its service Tuesday to help students solicit as little as $100 from friends and family at an interest rate that's on par with subsidized government loans. For a percentage fee, the site legally formalizes what would otherwise be a transaction sealed with a handshake or nod. Its rival, Fynanz, launched in March.
"They're essentially playing the role that banks had in the past," said Forrester Principal Analyst Brad Strothkamp. "Banks have tightened up lending standards, so if you're looking for a small loan, and you don't have a credit history, this may be the only option."
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Don't expect to get an online version of Microsoft Excel when you join Buxfer, a site to track shared bills and expenses. In fact, don't expect much beyond basic features when managing a shared bill, a personal expense, or an incoming or outgoing money transfer. Competing with other finance-sharing sites such as BillMonk and iOweyou, Buxfer is best suited for roommates and groups of friends who share expenses and want to sort out the bills later.
Buxfer's math genius automatically splits the cost of your rent and groceries among participants into either equal or weighted shares. A quick glance at your contact list summarizes who owes whom and how much, which is nice if you're in the green and a wake-up call if you're in the red. I liked being able to input a tag, descriptions, and notes into a transaction, edit and e-mail transaction details, and print entries.
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The online app has a few issues. It's obnoxious that logging an expense to your mom requires you to provide her e-mail address, which also spawns an invite for her to join Buxfer. That seems like a cheap tactic for snaring users.
Even more frustrating is the fact that there are no itemization features. Imagine that a group goes on a road trip that incurs a variety of expenses. Each "payer" can be tapped for one reimbursable total and one description per transaction. You can lump your descriptions and sums together in one transaction and total them yourself, or you can create individual transactions for every single trip expense, a process that clutters rather than simplifies. However, the tool is still a work in progress, as IE 7 errors attest. So far Buxfer is useful to a point, but it needs a deeper feature set.
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