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Does the Lender Make a Difference?

By
Real Estate Agent with Lyon Real Estate, Fair Oaks CA (Sacramento Area) DRE# 00809499

When a new buyer chooses a lender, what is their choice based on? Interest rate?, the trust of a referral?, who has the prettiest sign? Often it's who seems to have the cheapest interest rate. What a mistake!

Airplane over Hudson RiverConsider Captain Sulley. He looked like everyone else who flew. He always landed those planes, so it's hard to say how good he was. But when disaster hit, he was able to pull off the miraculous, and land a giant engineless jet in the cold frigid waters of the Hudson River. He used his years and years of experience, training, drills, and lessons learned from the inevitable mishaps he must have faced before to pull it off.

Your lender is the same. They all seem comparable... until disaster strikes. And when it does, you want experience on your side. A few months ago I sold a home in a great neighborhood of Citrus Heights, located 1/4 mile from a very seedy street (one of our areas worst). Any local appraiser would have understood to not use comps from the seedy street, as it was insulated from my buyer's home by geographical factors. But as the crow flies, it's another story. Our appraisal came in fine... actually above our price. It was the desk review that shot us down. It came in $60K low! Why, because the out-of-area underwriter used a zillow-like process to estimate the value... which included sales within a bull-eye radius. And that meant our seedy street became our comparable.
Airplane over Hudson River
But my lender has been doing this for over 30 years, and understands the ins and outs of lending like the back of her hand. She whipped into action, and got the loan through. Did she use magic?, coercion?, bribery?... no. She used her experience to know which of the many paths to take to make it work. She could have gone a number of different directions, but she knew exactly the turns to make at each fork in the road, as she led our transaction down the path to a closed escrow.

So don't just pick the lender with the cheapest quote. It could mean the difference between getting your home or not.  Always go with experience.  Don't know who to call? 

                      CALL ME... I GOT PEOPLE!

flickr Photo by mpflies2

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Check out my other posts that might be of interest.....

HOME BUYERS AND SELLERS..........Buying a Home, Selling a Home, Loans, What Happens if....

LOCAL INFO................................. Fair Oaks, Carmichael, Sacramento, Folsom, Citrus Heights

ABOUT SALLY DUNBAR.................. How I learned to...., Personal stuff, My Wordless Photos

OTHER STUFF............................... Inspiration, Attitude, Humorous Stuff, Charity, the Economy

TECHNOLOGY, BLOGGING ............. Active Rain, Technology

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Your Fair Oaks Realtor for homes for sale in Fair Oaks and the Sacramento Area of California.... I'm your gal (Sally Dunbar). I'm occasionally knowledgable, periodically humorous, and always willing to tell you everything I know.  What more could you ask for?

Here are the newest listings for Fair Oaks, Orangevale, Citrus Heights, Folsom, Carmichael, Gold River, and Roseville - all CA, of course.

More Blog posts by Sally Dunbar at www.FairOaksHomesAndMore.comSally's Website at www.sallydunbar.com to search for all homes in the MLS, and for tons of information for buyers and sellers.  You'll find schools information, market statistics... you name it, I got it!  Come visit me.

 

 

 

Sally Dunbar, 35 year Broker Associate, Lyon Real Estate, Fair Oaks, CA (916) 524-1548, SDunbar@GoLyon.com "Your Fair Oaks Realtor"

Bob Hirsch
The AVD Group - Bellflower, CA

Sally, great post!  When I was doing residential lending (doing commercial now) I would periodically survey experienced Realtors about what they valued most in a lender.  Rate was never number one.  Frequently it was for newbies but as they gained experience they realized the importance of closing the deal.

Mar 13, 2009 12:31 PM
Sally Dunbar
Lyon Real Estate, Fair Oaks CA (Sacramento Area) - Fair Oaks, CA
Fair Oaks Realtor - Fair Oaks Homes for Sale

Bob - absolutely, yet it's hard to explain to a new buyer how important factors other than rate will become to them as we get closer to our close date.  They are usually just focused on the rate.  Even those last minute documents, which an experienced lender should be able to foresee, can become a nightmare, but that's hard to imagine at the beginning.

Mar 13, 2009 12:59 PM
Cameron Wilson
Labrum Real Estate - Murrieta, CA
The Short Guy - Murrieta,Temecula,Menifee Californ

The lender at times can make or break a sale. Experience is something that cannot be taught or bought.

Mar 13, 2009 02:45 PM
Mike Jones
SUNSTREET MORTGAGE, LLC (BK-0907366, NMLS 145171) - Tucson, AZ
Mike Jones NMLS 223495

Sally,

As a lender, I love what you have to say here.  Kudos!  I hope this gets featured.  (Here's a little yellow star to prime the pump, so to speak.)

Mike in Tucson

Mar 13, 2009 03:26 PM
Sally Dunbar
Lyon Real Estate, Fair Oaks CA (Sacramento Area) - Fair Oaks, CA
Fair Oaks Realtor - Fair Oaks Homes for Sale

OK, Mike in Tucson.... what is the star?  I'm sort of a newbie (getting ready to crest 10K points) and don't know what it is.  But I must admit it's cool to have one!... whatever it is.

Mar 13, 2009 03:54 PM
Khash Saghafi NMLS
Liberty Home Mortgage Corporation - Cleveland, OH
Mortgage Loan Officer, Cleveland OH NMLS 1114762

Hey Sally,

  Can I steal your Captain Sully story for use at my seminars (lol)???  Congratulations on breaking the 10k too!  You are 100% correct on the point that knowledge and experience is not a big deal until a problem arises and then you find out really really fast what the value of that is. Very nice!

Mar 15, 2009 04:01 AM
Sally Dunbar
Lyon Real Estate, Fair Oaks CA (Sacramento Area) - Fair Oaks, CA
Fair Oaks Realtor - Fair Oaks Homes for Sale

Khash - sure, use the Capt Sulley story, but you probably ought to get his name right!  I couldn't remember it, and in my creative flurry, decided it wasn't important - everyone knew who I meant!  Good to have you on board for my AR flight!

Mar 15, 2009 04:16 AM