By Dustin R Burke, Adonai Financial

The Real Estate Settlement Procedures Act (RESPA) requires that mortgage lenders and brokers provide a Good Faith Estimate (GFE) to customers who apply for certain RESPA regulated loans.  A GFE is a itemization of expected loan costs and fees associated with the loan and must be provided to the customer within 3 business days of application.

The GFE is only an estimate and the final costs and fees may be different.  The GFE itemizes the fees and costs into six basic headings with each line item cost having a specific number associated with the fee or costs.

This is a list of the six sections of the GFE and link with extensive descriptions on each section and many of the fees included in those sections.

Items Payable In Connection With Loan is typically the first section listed on the Good Faith Estimate and includes most fees directly associated with obtaining the loan from the lender, broker, or bank. 

Items Required by Lender to Be Paid in Advance are items that are required to be paid in advance.

Reserves Deposited with the Lender are prepaid fees that are collected by the lender to pay at a later date and are typically called escrow items.

Title Charges are fees associated with the title of the property and closing of the loan

Government Recording & Transfer Costs are fees associated with government costs of the transaction which may include recording fees, stamps on the deed and mortgage, etc.

Additional Settlement Charges are charges that do not appear in the other fives sections of the Good Faith Estimate.

Articles have been (or soon will be) written regarding each section of the GFE with their respective costs.  As you can imagine there is a lot of information available through the links above.  If you need assistance with a specific fee on the GFE please send me an email at dustin.burke@adonaifinancial.com.

"Adonai Financial, your friends in the mortgage business!"

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Copyright © 2008 Dustin R Burke | All Rights Reserved

Portions Copyright © 2008 Adonai Financial Corporation | All Rights Reserved

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Adonai Financial Corporation

http://www.adonaifinancial.com/

---The content of this blog is my opinion---