Choosing Mortgage Lenders

There are many types of mortgage lenders and each one focuses on a special slice of the market.

Seller-financed

The seller of the property provides financing to a buyer. This type of arrangement is highly risky. Most sellers profit from borrowers twice: first, from the outright sale of the property, and second, from the interest of the borrowed money.

Savings and Loans

These mortgage lenders use the savings of private investors to provide mortgages. They are one of the largest mortgage providers in the country.

Mortgage Bankers

Here’s a rule of thumb in dealing with mortgage bankers: the bigger the bank, the better the rates they can offer. When dealing with mortgage bankers, you must be cognizant of the fact that they will control the loan throughout the whole process, from underwriting to servicing and even to the selling on the secondary market.

Mortgage Brokers

Brokers are the ones who sell loans for lenders, such as mortgage bankers. In the loan distribution network, they are at the storefront. It is possible to find a good mortgage broker through friends, co-workers, and online searches.

Credit Unions

These are owned by members and it is precisely for this reason that they give good rates and services. They operate in a similar manner as mortgage bankers.

Below are important things to note when shopping for mortgage lenders.

Finding Mortgage Lenders

It’s easy to locate mortgage lenders. If you know a real estate agent, ask this person to recommend a lender to you. If you know someone who purchased a home very recently, ask him or her for a referral. Finally, if you have a telephone and a phone directory, then turn to the yellow pages. Couple this with looking out for advertisements in print and broadcast media.

It is the Department of Commerce that issues licenses to mortgage lenders.

Reducing the Names of Your List

To weed out the names on your list, call the Department of Commerce or check their website. Go to the portion marked Consumer Info & Services and click on Enforcement Actions. You will then find a listing of any action taken against mortgage lenders.

The Department of Commerce updates its list of mortgage lenders with complains and violations. It has the authority to publicly reprimand a mortgage lender for failing to follow rules. Should another incident requiring government intervention occur, the department may choose to revoke or suspend the mortgage originator’s.

Finding the Best Rates

Comparative mortgage charts are printed in local newspapers’ real estate sections. This is a good place to look for a mortgage lender. Call the mortgage lenders who interest you and ask the following questions:

1. Are these the best rate and terms that I can qualify for?
2. Do I qualify for a better loan product that you are not offering to me?
3. Will I do better with another mortgage lender?

Take your time to shop around for mortgage lenders. Finding a mortgage lender is as crucial as finding a home itself. After all, borrowers’ relationships with mortgage lenders range between 15 to 30 years. For the relationship to last that long, it must be a match made in heaven.

Looking for the best mortgage rate? Visit our site today and get access to home loan lending rates from various competing mortgage lenders.

This entry was posted on Friday, April 27th, 2007 and is filed under Home Loans, Home Mortgages, Mortgage Refinance. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
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How Credit Scores Affect Mortgage Applications

With a good credit score an applicant will receive prompt response from many lenders, all of them offering low interest rates and low down payment options. The loan amount offered also may be high. On the contrary a low credit score would result in a lot of rejection from various mortgage financers. Because creditors wouldn’t come forward easily to give credit to individuals that have a history of difficulty in repaying existing loans. After all, creditors take risk when they finance mortgages against the credit history of a debtor. Naturally, they will wish to remain on the safe side and pick up less risky ones that have good credit histories. A good credit score means less chance of missing on payments and therefore less risky.

But there are some real risk takers that will come forward to finance mortgages for individuals with bad credit scores. They would charge high down payments and always high interest rates though. They may also fix additional charges for every little paper work and may charge high closing rates. The loan amount offered will also be considerably less. The individual with poor credit scores will not have much choice but to accept the terms and conditions as there are no other alternatives. This is a tight situation and to avoid this you must have a good credit score.

People with bad credit may fall in to the trap of ’secured loans’. Secured loans are the ones where the loan applicant offers an asset as collateral security. The lender becomes secure about the repayment of the loan and not the borrower. Securing a loan with bad credit score becomes easy only when the applicant is willing to offer some asset as collateral security. This again is a very dangerous situation where an individual runs the risk of losing his entire collateral asset in case of failing to pay the loan installments in time. An individual should always avoid such type of a loan.

Resort properties normally require large amounts of finance which a person with bad credit may find it difficult to obtain. So it is always advisable to keep your credit score high. Incase the credit score becomes low due to unavoidable financial reasons it can be improved upon. There is no need to lose hope simply because a person has a low credit score. If the property that he intends to buy has good equity he should go out and try to obtain finances for it. There are many sub prime lenders willing to offer their services.

For a review of your credit report as it relates to a mortgage loan and a consultation on the best loans available to you, give us a confidential, no obligation and no cost call.