I built a dashboard to compare mortgage rates across 120 credit unions
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When I bought my home, the big bank I'd been using for years quoted me 7% APR. A local credit union was offering 5.5% for the exact same mortgage.I was surprised until I learned that mortgages are basically standardized products – the government buys almost all of them (see Bits About Money: https://www.bitsaboutmoney.com/archive/mortgages-are-a-manuf...). So what's the price difference paying for? A recent Bloomberg Odd Lots episode makes the case that it's largely advertising and marketing (https://www.bloomberg.com/news/audio/2025-11-28/odd-lots-thi...). Credit unions are non-profits without big marketing budgets, so they can pass those savings on, but a lot of people don't know about them.I built this dashboard to make it easier to shop around. I pull public rates from 120+ credit union websites and compares against the weekly FRED national benchmark.Features:- Filter by loan type (30Y/15Y/etc.), eligibility (the hardest part tbh), and rate type - Payment calculator with refi mode (CUs can be a bit slower than big lenders, but that makes them great for refi) - Links to each CU's rates page and eligibility requirements - Toggle to show/hide statistical outliersAt the time of writing, the average CU rate is 5.91% vs. 6.23% national average. about $37k difference in total interest on a $500k loan. I actually used seaborn to visualize the rate spread against the four big banks: https://www.reddit.com/r/dataisbeautiful/comments/1pcj9t7/oc...Stack: Python for the data/backend, Svelte/SvelteKit for the frontend. No signup, no ads, no referral fees.Happy to answer questions about the methodology or add CUs people suggest.
HN · launched Dec 3, 2025 · 393 upvotes (top 2%) · 0 views
Niche: comparison engines and tools · 286 launches, 33 in the last 7 days · Explore this niche →
Category and tags
- Fintech
- Analytics & BI
- B2C
- Not AI
- Hobby / open-source project
Visit website ↗ Source listing ↗
More like this: all 286 launches in comparison engines and tools →
Could you build this?
Yes The dashboard displays public mortgage rate data scraped or pulled from 120 credit union websites and presents it in a basic comparative frontend table.
Discussion
20 comments analyzed.
Competitors mentioned: Index funds (for investment allocation vs. real estate), Consumer Finance Bureau rate exploration tool, Large banks (vs. credit unions), Mortgage specialists with wealth management arms
Concerns raised: Displayed rates may not reflect actual rates for all credit scores, Lack of transparency about which rates are 'normal' vs. adjusted rates, Closing costs and realtor fees make moving prohibitively expensive, Most home buyers stretch beyond their means, not suitable for niche products, Credit union apprehension due to coordinated promotion appearing too good to be true
Feature requests: Add rates for investment properties, Show rates for fix-and-flip scenarios, Display how credit score affects available rates
Competitors
Other products that read as similar to this one : 659 launches clear the similarity bar, closest 8 shown.
Attention rank: #6 of 660 (itself plus its competitors, highest first, normalized so YC and Product Hunt are compared fairly).
Launched 30 days after the earliest competitor.
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- What Affects Your Mortgage Rate? 7 Key · ph · 2026-10-22 · 1 upvotes · similarity 0.50
- U.S. Credit Card Database, banks and CUs · ph · 2026-09-22 · 1 upvotes · similarity 0.50
- How Much Down Payment Do You Really Need · ph · 2026-10-22 · 1 upvotes · similarity 0.49
- Estima.ca · ph · 2026-11-02 · 1 upvotes · similarity 0.49
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