Skip to main content

Give Quicken Loans’ new website 8 minutes, and it will approve you for a mortgage

Thanks to various apps, you can catch a ride, hire someone to clean your apartment, and order a pizza, all without picking up the phone. It’s glorious. Thanks to Quicken Loans, you can get a similar human-interaction-free experience while refinancing or getting a home loan with its new website Rocket Mortgage. You should get approved in about eight minutes, the company says, which is different from a preapproval, because of the data the system imports and verifies thanks to its direct link to government underwriting engines.

While there are lots of mortgage calculators out there, they use generalized information to give you a general idea of what you’ll get. With Rocket Mortgage, you answer some questions, then let the system fill out other information for you. If you want to refinance, for example, you input your home’s address, and it will populate fields for whether it’s a single-family home, its original purchase price, and when it was built. It uses public records and Quicken’s data to get the information.

“We’ve been lending in all 50 states and 3,000 counties for a while, so we have a lot of internal data, so we said let’s start putting that to use for people and make this easier,” Regis Hadiaris, Rocket Mortgage product lead, tells Digital Trends. You can let it access your tax information, for example, so it knows your employment history, including how much you make. Give the system access to your bank accounts, and it will have information about your assets. It makes both the inputting process faster and removes the “burden of proof” later down the line, with users having to submit W-2s, pay stubs, and bank statements. “We don’t have to wait for people to find pieces of paper and take pictures of them and send them to us,” says Hadiaris. “This is not a calculator at all. This is an exact mortgage quote based on all that information I entered.”

Once you get your rate, you can customize it further with slider bars. If you don’t want to pay closing costs, you slide the tab over. Switching from a 30-year mortgage to a 24-year one will instantly change the numbers, instead of waiting for a loan officer and his or her calculator.

In addition to getting the approval process down to eight minutes (getting a rate for a new home took me about 13), Hadiaris says pulling Rocket Mortgage has reduced the time it takes to close the loan from 30 days to three weeks. During that time, Quicken will verify all your information, and you’ll schedule a home appraisal visit.

At the end of clicking through the process, the system had asked to access my tax records and bank accounts and showed me my credit score — basically all information that I want extra protected. Quicken says it uses bank-level encryption and round-the-clock monitoring, and even though Hadiaris says Rocket Mortgage was designed to be done in line at Starbucks, you obviously don’t want to do it over your coffee shop’s public Wi-Fi.

Updated 12/9/2015: Updated to explain how Rocket Mortage’s approval is different from preapproval.

Editors' Recommendations

Jenny McGrath
Former Digital Trends Contributor
Jenny McGrath is a senior writer at Digital Trends covering the intersection of tech and the arts and the environment. Before…
This BLUETTI portable power station is truly weatherproof
Man using BLUETTI AC240 portable power station while camping to cook

It seems like we're covering a new BLUETTI launch here at Digital Trends every month, but that's okay. Thanks to the brand's excellent products, innovative advancements, and great features, people all over can access reliable power. Its latest launch, the BLUETTI AC240, is an IP65-rated weatherproof portable power station that delivers a comprehensive energy solution for outdoor enthusiasts, first responders, and beyond. Protected against dust, water, and elements, this expandable station creates an uninterrupted power source in any environment at any time. Moreover, it empowers users to stay connected, even with power-hungry devices, to tackle demanding tasks regardless of the current weather, environment, or location. Right now, you can save big by taking advantage of Early Bird pricing.
Buy Now
 
Why you should buy the BLUETTI AC240 all-weather portable power station

Imagine for a moment that you're camping with your family, hiking through the great outdoors, or even taking a long, scenic road trip through the countryside. In all of these situations, even when you're off-grid, you'll still need reliable access to power to charge your phone and tablet(s) and power up other electronics -- like a coffee maker when you wake up in the morning. Of course, power stations and power outlets don't exist randomly out in the wild. You could use your vehicle, but that will drain the battery and, in some cases, still won't provide enough power for what you want to do. Cue the BLUETTI AC240 portable power station and devices like it.

Read more
Snag this Roomba robot vacuum while it’s discounted to $180
iRobot Roomba 694 at Best Buy - WiFi connected robot vacuum

If you're on the hunt for robot vacuum deals because you think you need help from one of these cleaning devices to keep your floors spotless, you should head on over to Crutchfield where the iRobot Roomba 694 is available at $95 off. From its original price of $275, you'll only have to pay $180, which is an excellent price for all of the conveniences that you'll get from this machine. We're not sure how much time is remaining before this offer expires though, so you better hurry and complete your purchase while you can still pocket the savings.

Why you should buy the iRobot Roomba 694 robot vacuum
For its relatively affordable price, the iRobot Roomba 694 offers most of the important features that you would expect from a robot vacuum. It comes with a three-stage cleaning system that includes an edge-sweeping brush, roller brushes, and powerful vacuum suction. You'll be able to control the device through the iRobot Home app on your smartphone or using voice commands through smart home devices that are powered by Google Assistant or Amazon's Alexa. Once the iRobot Roomba 694 is done, or when its battery runs low in the middle of cleaning, it will automatically returns to its base station for recharging.

Read more
DeWalt Spring Black Friday sale: Power tools and accessories from $15
A DeWalt drill being used.

If you have grand plans for a major home renovation project, you need the right power tools to facilitate this. Fortunately, there’s a huge DeWalt Spring Black Friday sale going on at Amazon so you can save big on plenty of great power tools as well as accessories for enriching the experience. There are hundreds of options within the DeWalt sale so the best thing you can do is hit the button below right now and see what’s out there for yourself. However, if you want some inspiration of what to consider, keep reading and we’ll take you through what we love most.

What to shop for in the DeWalt Spring Black Friday sale
Seemingly every household renovation task can be made easier with a good quality drill. That’s why it’s a great idea to buy the which is down to $99 from $179. A considerable saving of 45%, you get a compact and lightweight drill driver which can deliver 300 unit watts out of power. Its high speed transmission has two speeds of either 0-450 and 1,500 rpm with a 1/2-inch single sleeve ratcheting chuck which provides tight bit gripping strength. It’s the workhorse everyone needs and is sure to last.

Read more