# CandidCost Muse connector

From musedirectory.ai, the independent directory of Meta Muse connectors. Not affiliated with Meta.

## CandidCost

Receipt-backed US home-buying calculators for true ownership costs, affordability, and closing-fee benchmarks.

- Record: https://musedirectory.ai/connector/candidcost
- Category: Finance & Bills
- Developer: CandidCost (https://candidcost.com/for-agents)
- Muse status: Extra setup. Not in Muse's Connectors list yet. Muse can still use it: its page gives you a request to paste into Muse.
- Health: Working, 1529ms, checked 2026-09-28T08:45:54Z
- Endpoint: https://candidcost.com/api/mcp
- Auth: No account needed; Pricing: unknown
- Screening: Screened, no issues found (2026-09-24T01:05:45Z)
- Source: Found in the official MCP Registry (com.candidcost/mcp) https://registry.modelcontextprotocol.io/v0/servers?search=com.candidcost%2Fmcp

Calculates full monthly home ownership costs (principal, tax, insurance, PMI, HOA, maintenance), affordability limits from income and debt, closing-cost benchmarks from CFPB data, and rent-vs-buy comparisons. All numbers are sourced and receipt-verified. Helps buyers understand the gap between lender approval amounts and true monthly costs.

Example request: "Show me the real monthly cost of owning a $400,000 home in New Jersey with 10% down at 6.5% interest, including property tax, insurance, and maintenance."

How to connect: Not in Muse's Connectors list yet, but Muse can still use it. Paste this into Muse: "Use CandidCost to help me. It is a free service with an MCP server at https://candidcost.com/api/mcp. It does not need an API key. Ask me before you share anything with it." Muse asks before it shares anything with the app's site. Meta does not review apps used this way, so only use ones you trust. We tested this in the Muse app on September 24, 2026: Muse used an app's link directly this way and returned a live answer.

Tools:
- true_cost_estimate: Estimate the full monthly cost of owning a home — principal & interest, property tax, insurance, PMI, HOA, and maintenance — and contrast it with the lender "approval" payment (PITI+PMI) to reveal the hidden monthly gap. Dollar inputs are US dollars; all money in the response is 
- affordability_estimate: Compute front-end (housing) and back-end (total debt) DTI budgets from income and debts, and the home price implied by the binding limit. Reports the standard 28/36 thresholds without ever telling the user what they "can afford". Dollar inputs are US dollars; money in the respons
- fee_benchmarks: Return closing-cost and rate-spread percentile distributions (p25/p50/p75 + mean) for a US state, computed from the row-level CFPB HMDA LAR for originated, first-lien, home-purchase loans. Cells with fewer than 25 records are suppressed. Dollar metrics are integer cents (…Cents);
- benchmark_rates: Return the latest benchmark mortgage rates (e.g. 30-year and 15-year fixed) from the Federal Reserve (FRED), each with its observation date and ledger receipt. Rates are fixed-precision percent strings.
- search_dpa_programs: Find down payment assistance (DPA) programs by US state and/or buyer type. Includes national programs. Each result links to its official government source and carries a ledger receipt and last-verified date.
- decode_loan_estimate_fee: Classify a mortgage Loan Estimate fee by CFPB section and control class (set by lender, shoppable, third-party, government, or prepaid), with a plain-language explanation and an educational question a buyer could ask. Omit "fee" to list the full catalog.
- payment_shock_estimate: Estimate why a mortgage payment often jumps in year two: escrow at closing is sized from the seller's current tax bill, but the county reassesses at your purchase price, and RESPA spreads the resulting escrow shortage over 12 months. Given the purchase price, the seller's current
- pressure_check: Decompose the tradeoff a rushed buyer faces: the earnest money at risk by walking away versus what overpaying to "win" costs over the life of the loan. Given the earnest money at risk, the overpay amount over your walk-away price, down-payment percent, rate, and term, returns the
- rent_vs_buy_estimate: Compare the net cost of owning against renting over a holding period and find the break-even year. Owning nets upfront cash and recurring carrying costs against sale proceeds (appreciated value − selling costs − remaining loan); renting nets rent paid against the investment gain 
- verify_receipt: Verify a CandidCost ledger receipt hash (full sha256 or short "3f9a…c21e" form). Confirms the receipt exists and that its dataset hash chain is intact, proving the underlying data has not been altered since ingestion.

Screening checks:
- MCP handshake: pass (Answered in 336ms)
- Domain against threat feeds (Cloudflare security DNS): pass (candidcost.com not flagged)
- Published packages against the OSV malicious-package database: n/a (No npm or PyPI package published)
- Hidden instructions or invisible characters in tool text: pass (10 tools read, nothing found)
- Inputs asking for passwords, card numbers or seed phrases: pass (None found)
- Domain and redirects: pass (No redirects off the domain)
- AI review of purpose and tool behavior: pass (No concerns)