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Google has always been proactive in helping us with our little needs of the daily life. This time, Google has launched a mortgage calculator that pops up whenever you search for anything mortgage-related.
It’s got some pretty cool things to deal with. For one, the interface is simple. Enter the amount of the loan, the interest rate, and the length of the mortgage, and it computes your monthly payment. Or take plan 2: enter your estimated monthly payment, the interest rate, and length, and Google will tell you how much you can afford to borrow. Solid, isn’t it?
You may have noticed that such mortgage calculators have been around on other websites too in the past. And some of those other calculators do much more complex calculations too, including factoring in insurance, taxes, and adjustable-rate mortgages. The difference is: Google’s approach is about as complicated as plugging them into an Excel spreadsheet.
But here’s the worry: Google is so dominant on the Internet that we worry that this calculator’s simplicity could be misleading. We’ve read stories about first-time buyers using such basic calculations to compute their potential expenses, and only later realised how many other factors also affect their purchasing ability. If Google’s ubiquity adds to that, it won’t exactly help the prospective buyers it’s aiming to serve.
Plus, this is Google we’re talking about! We love them and expect their developments, in search and everything else, to push the limits of what’s trending on the Internet, and to inspire the rest of the companies to do better than them in the competitive phase.
But, if you’re just sitting around in your home and want to get some numbers in your head, this totally works. Always remember that buying a house isn’t an “Internet-only transaction”. And when it comes to make that move, you’ll need to talk to a real human being!
