7 ms·

Better.com stock gets clobbered as it begins trading publicly down more than 93%

27 points by remote_phone 3y ago

bombcar 3y ago
None of these “fancy pants” mortgage ℠ companies could beat my boring old banks
- bluecheese452 3y ago
  Rocket mortgage beat my bank by over a percentage point. My bank wouldn’t even match.
  - bombcar 3y ago
    Key is “my banks” - I had already found low rate low fee mortgage providers and ended up using them again
  - uslic001 3y ago
    Rocket Mortgage was the worst mortgage company I ever worked with. I ended up using my local bank with better rates and a much faster closing.
  - SkyPuncher 3y ago
    My aunt is an agent. In the past, she’s said Rocket Mortgage is considered a less competitive offer. It sounds like they have a high reject rate.
- lotsofpulp 3y ago
  Better, as well as other online lenders, were definitely offering very competitive financing, especially with the AmEx credit. See this thread for pages and pages: https://www.bogleheads.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=289559&start=12600 https://www.bogleheads.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=289559&star... I never found a local lender that came close to LoanDepot/Better.
  - bombcar 3y ago
    I really tried to make it work, because I wanted that deal, but the fees and other things associated with Better kept coming out worse.
    - lotsofpulp 3y ago
      I always assumed they were undercutting other lenders by burning Softbank/Middle East money.
      - bombcar 3y ago
        I'm sure there was some of that, and maybe it was my location/mortgage situation (maybe they excelled at jumbo loans?) but when I did a full comparison they were "just normal" (some things had moved around on the fees which can make it harder to compare, mind you). Maybe I came a bit after they were tightening (this was just before covid IIRC). After all, they just resell the loans same as anyone, not sure what there really is to optimize away.
        lotsofpulp 3y ago
        Yes, the best deals were only for jumbo loans, maybe only even in California. Refinancing smaller loans is less lucrative.
  - toomuchtodo 3y ago
    They were juicing volume for their capital market debut.
  - thedougd 3y ago
    I took the money and ran. I took the AMEX credit, an employees friends and family discount, and because of a mistake better.com covered a significant moving expense. They didn’t even ask how much it was before covering it. Anyhow, all in the discount was low 5 figures. I closed just before their peak.
yieldcrv 3y ago
any secondary market debut without a stabilizing bid should be avoided and to my knowledge, only actual IPOs have stabilizing bids SPAC mergers and direct listings do not, this was a SPAC merger
the-dude 3y ago
The Adyen stock collapse awakened memories for me. Now this. I am feeling dot-com-bust vibes. Adyen lost approx 50% and has not recovered. This time it is different!
toomuchtodo 3y ago
https://www.nasdaq.com/market-activity/stocks/betr https://www.nasdaq.com/market-activity/stocks/betr Already non compliant with NASDAQ listing standards.
Racing0461 3y ago
They knew, the original investors just wanted a payout with someone else holding the bag. As more index funds blindly buys stocks, we will be seeing this more and more.
- chrisgd 3y ago
  Sorry, but this makes no sense. First, it was a de-SPAC combination so only two investors putting fresh money in and, it seems, all the SPAC IPO investors dumping ad quickly as possible. Second, index fund buying would be a positive so not sure why that is mentioned here. SPACs were not of interest for 20 years, anyone still contemplating has likely been turned down by everyone else.
- OneMorePerson 3y ago
  As far as I know (correct me if I'm wrong), indexes do blindly buy stocks but they only buy once a quarter or so (roughly) so unless they IPO at the exact "right" time, its not going to just grab it up right away. If its that volatile its going to be bought up after the significant losses happen, if it gets bought at all. Also the 90% loss is from the initial release which happens to private investors, mutual funds typically don't get into it until it's more publicly available (later stages), and this stock has only dropped ~35% since becoming publicly available.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]

27 points by remote_phone 3y ago

bombcar 3y ago

None of these “fancy pants” mortgage ℠ companies could beat my boring old banks

bluecheese452 3y ago
Rocket mortgage beat my bank by over a percentage point. My bank wouldn’t even match.
- bombcar 3y ago
  Key is “my banks” - I had already found low rate low fee mortgage providers and ended up using them again
- uslic001 3y ago
  Rocket Mortgage was the worst mortgage company I ever worked with. I ended up using my local bank with better rates and a much faster closing.
- SkyPuncher 3y ago
  My aunt is an agent. In the past, she’s said Rocket Mortgage is considered a less competitive offer. It sounds like they have a high reject rate.
lotsofpulp 3y ago
Better, as well as other online lenders, were definitely offering very competitive financing, especially with the AmEx credit. See this thread for pages and pages: https://www.bogleheads.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=289559&start=12600 https://www.bogleheads.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=289559&star... I never found a local lender that came close to LoanDepot/Better.
- bombcar 3y ago
  I really tried to make it work, because I wanted that deal, but the fees and other things associated with Better kept coming out worse.
  - lotsofpulp 3y ago
    I always assumed they were undercutting other lenders by burning Softbank/Middle East money.
    - bombcar 3y ago
      I'm sure there was some of that, and maybe it was my location/mortgage situation (maybe they excelled at jumbo loans?) but when I did a full comparison they were "just normal" (some things had moved around on the fees which can make it harder to compare, mind you). Maybe I came a bit after they were tightening (this was just before covid IIRC). After all, they just resell the loans same as anyone, not sure what there really is to optimize away.
      - lotsofpulp 3y ago
        Yes, the best deals were only for jumbo loans, maybe only even in California. Refinancing smaller loans is less lucrative.
- toomuchtodo 3y ago
  They were juicing volume for their capital market debut.
- thedougd 3y ago
  I took the money and ran. I took the AMEX credit, an employees friends and family discount, and because of a mistake better.com covered a significant moving expense. They didn’t even ask how much it was before covering it. Anyhow, all in the discount was low 5 figures. I closed just before their peak.

yieldcrv 3y ago

any secondary market debut without a stabilizing bid should be avoided and to my knowledge, only actual IPOs have stabilizing bids SPAC mergers and direct listings do not, this was a SPAC merger

the-dude 3y ago

The Adyen stock collapse awakened memories for me. Now this. I am feeling dot-com-bust vibes. Adyen lost approx 50% and has not recovered. This time it is different!

toomuchtodo 3y ago

https://www.nasdaq.com/market-activity/stocks/betr https://www.nasdaq.com/market-activity/stocks/betr Already non compliant with NASDAQ listing standards.

Racing0461 3y ago

They knew, the original investors just wanted a payout with someone else holding the bag. As more index funds blindly buys stocks, we will be seeing this more and more.

chrisgd 3y ago
Sorry, but this makes no sense. First, it was a de-SPAC combination so only two investors putting fresh money in and, it seems, all the SPAC IPO investors dumping ad quickly as possible. Second, index fund buying would be a positive so not sure why that is mentioned here. SPACs were not of interest for 20 years, anyone still contemplating has likely been turned down by everyone else.
OneMorePerson 3y ago
As far as I know (correct me if I'm wrong), indexes do blindly buy stocks but they only buy once a quarter or so (roughly) so unless they IPO at the exact "right" time, its not going to just grab it up right away. If its that volatile its going to be bought up after the significant losses happen, if it gets bought at all. Also the 90% loss is from the initial release which happens to private investors, mutual funds typically don't get into it until it's more publicly available (later stages), and this stock has only dropped ~35% since becoming publicly available.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]