I'm delighted to see that we have a lot of very experienced loan officers here at Active Rain. I am a full service Realtor and can appreciate that many mortgage brokers here provide full service and want to get paid accordingly.
But I'm a simple guy who just wants to get a good deal without all the frills. I look at a mortgage as a commodity. I want to get it at the cheapest price. When I buy stocks, I use etrade. I don't want advice or friendship. I just want to buy a stock with the least amount of fees associated with it. That's exactly what I want when getting a mortage.
I know there are a many different mortgage products today. But many seem to be created for people with special needs. I also think that many are created in order to make it difficult to compare apples with apples. How can you really compare programs that are not exactly the same?
Most of my clients are like myself. Great credit scores, good ratios, wanting an 80% LTV loan or less, loan amount between $200,000 and $400,000, just want a 30 year fixed rate or 15 year fixed rate or a 5 year adjustable if the rate is substantially less than a 30 year fixed. We are slam dunks as far as getting approved. We have all documentation that is needed.
We want to work with competent people who can guarantee that the loan will be there as promised.
We don't want financial advice. We have CPAs and finanacial planners for that.
We don't want opinions about where interest rates are going. If anyone knew that with any certainty they would be making a million dollars in the bond market.
We want people to be friendly but we don't really care to become a friend for life.
We don't want any advice as to when to lock a rate. We found a home that we love and just want to get locked in as soon as possible and get the deal done.
We want to know all the costs of the loan. Give us the interest rate and what the total lender associated fees will be. Don't say that you can't give a definite number on what your costs are going to be by bringing in outside costs that you have no control over. I know it depends on what closing attorney I decide to use or what day of the month that I close. Just tell me what your costs for doing the loan are going to be.
We want your best deal the first time we ask. We don't want to dicker. If you come back later with a better deal after we shop around, it's too late.
I know that a lender who deals with a wide variety of borrowers ends up spending a lot more time with some and then makes up for it by getting other easy clients where they don't have to spend much time. Well, I don't want to be the one who is the high profit margin transaction. I am an easy to deal with, well qualified client and I want to personally reap the benefits of this. What I'm looking for is a lender who specializes in easy clients like me and can therefore still make a nice living by selling low cost mortgages.
We don't want any tricks. I want to trust you on your quotes but I also want to verify. I want a simple way to verify that rates really did go up in the two weeks that I waited for before I locked.
If you make a claim that you never have missed a closing, that's great. But how about some sort of guarantee. How about agreeing to some sort of penalty if the loan isn't ready by the closing date?
I've read all about Yield Spread Premiums in other threads and on other websites such as the mortgage professor and thexbroker.com. I love the concept that the XBroker is working on and hope he can make it happen. But in the current state of affairs, how does one get the best deal?
Please tell me if there is a better way than how I currently recommend shopping for a mortgage. If you show me a better way and you really have the goods, I'd feature you on my website for free and recommend you to everyone. I really think that there are many more people exactly like me and someone could make a good living by catering to us.
The way that I shop for a mortgage is to first go to eloan.com where they have their rates and fees clearly posted and updated every day. I pick an interest rate and see what the total lender related fees are. They make it very easy because they list them out exactly how they will show up on a HUD-1 statement. I also know that since they publish their rates every day I won't have to worry about them telling me rates went up after the point of no return(when I don't have enough time to switch to another lender and still close on time). With that as my basis, I then compare that with a couple other lenders that have been competitive in the past. These are lenders that I've done business with before and feel that I can trust. I keep the interest rate the same and find out what the lender related costs will be. I have found that most lenders can not beat eloan.com. I know that the X Broker put them in the same category as DiTech but to me they seem to be the one to beat. Ditech is always much more expensive so I don't even bother looking there anymore. But it is nice that they always have their rates and fees posted for all to see. I've always liked doing business with a local person and would always pick a local lender vs. eloan if they had similar costs.
I used to always get nervous when a client went with an "internet lender", especially if it was someone from Lending Tree. But eloan to me seems to be an exception. As far as service goes, I had two clients use eloan recently and it was the best experience I've ever had. The loan officer at eloan sent email updates that kept everyone informed of everything that was happening every step of the way. It was easy to contact her by phone whenever it was needed. They had the loan approved in two days and had the package to the closing attorney two weeks before closing. The day before closing they had the money ready to be funded.
If you were a former loan officer and wanted to get the lowest cost mortgage, how would you do it? Or, what would you recommend to your mother who is on a fixed income and needs to watch every penny?
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