{"id":90630,"title":"Chestnut, the first AI mortgage lender","tagline":"Save 0.5%+ in interest with the first AI mortgage lender","body":"tl;dr **-** Chestnut is building **the first AI mortgage lende**r. Our AI agents help people **save 0.5%+ on their rate**.\n\nhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M7ay1fshd-w\n\n—\n\n# 👋 Howdy\n\nI’m Spencer, the founder of Chestnut — **the first AI mortgage lender**. My last startup built a mortgage “Loan Origination System” (system of record + workflow tool used daily by 80% of lender employees) that powered 2% of US mortgages annually. During that time, I saw firsthand how inefficient traditional lenders are — and realized I should compete with them directly.\n\n# **🤨** Isn’t the mortgage process already automated?\n\nFar from it. Today, 80% of employees at traditional lenders **spend** **hours each day** filling out paper forms, manually reviewing documents, and copy-pasting data between systems. These manual processes cost lenders – and ultimately their borrowers – $12,000+ per loan ($61B+ per year).\n\n# **😲** What’s next?\n\nAI can automate 99% of mortgage operations, but **traditional lenders would take 10+ years** to adapt. They’d have to overhaul their entire tech stack, rewrite every procedure, and retrain their whole workforce.\n\n# ➡️ Enter Chestnut\n\nChestnut is **vertically integrating AI** to challenge traditional lenders directly. Besides Ashley, our AI loan officer assistant, we’ve also built agents that:\n\n1. **Find the best deals** by shopping rates across 100+ lenders (since we’re starting with brokering),\n2. **Cut borrowing costs** by automating the origination process, and\n3. **Notify clients** when rates drop.\n\nSo far, we’re licensed in Texas and Colorado where we’re helping clients with new home purchases, refinances, home equity loans, and home equity lines of credit.\n\n# 🤑 Ready to save?\n\nIf you’re exploring mortgage options in Texas or Colorado, **head over to [our website](https://chestnutmortgage.com?utm_source=launch-yc\u0026utm_medium=cta-link\u0026utm_campaign=launch-yc)** where you can get an instant quote and compare our rates to other lenders!\n\n—\n\nCheers!\n\n![uploaded image](/media/?type=post\u0026id=90630\u0026key=user_uploads/285403/adefaf94-0d5d-4bad-aafc-788d26e493ee)\n\n","slug":"NZm-chestnut-the-first-ai-mortgage-lender","created_at":"2025-05-22T17:11:21.534Z","updated_at":"2026-05-25T05:11:09.307Z","total_vote_count":111,"url":"https://www.ycombinator.com/launches/NZm-chestnut-the-first-ai-mortgage-lender","share_image_url":"https://www.ycombinator.com/media/?type=post\u0026id=90630\u0026key=user_uploads/285403/adefaf94-0d5d-4bad-aafc-788d26e493ee","company":{"id":30384,"name":"Chestnut","slug":"chestnut","url":"https://chestnutmortgage.com/","logo":"https://bookface-images.s3.amazonaws.com/small_logos/4dd28657c6905e0ff5663b74202f4b3352633204.png","batch":"Spring 2025","industry":"Fintech","tags":["Fintech","Real Estate","Consumer","AI"],"search_path":"https://bookface.ycombinator.com/company/30384"}}