Buying First Home

I'm buying my first home; and have a question in regards to mortgage brokers. Is there a way to cut out the middle man?

I feel like there's someone there trying to steer me into buying a product I may not want, or suggesting that I buy points. As shady as this industry was a few years back, it still feels pretty shady.

Also don't want to shop around too much, and have everyone pulling my credit?

 

I just bought my first home and the mortgage broker turned out to be another avenue for a mortgage. Whereas a bq m loan officer represents the bank, the mortgage broker represents a packager of mortgages (a gnma investor). He won't talk to the banks and his investors have stringent criteria (conforming and/or high credit with stable employment for several years).

I don't know your situation but I ended up going with a local bank that would hold my mortgage inhouse. It offered them more flexibility in approving me.

Pm me if you want more details.

 

Somewhat related.

Two things.

My priority was not having my taxes included in the payment. This is a difficult item to budget for on your own but if the SHTF you can go quite a few years without paying taxes (2-5 years then pay them back) but still afford the mortgage payment and avoid foreclosure. You cannot do this if the bank holds the taxes in escrow.

Secondly, they have you sign a blank form saying they can check your credit anytime they want (not sure why they do this, maybe if the bank sells the mortgage) or maybe the form was to check a tax return (not sure now which it was but I didn't like it) I didn't sign this form.

 

I am not real clear on what you mean by mortgage broker. I suspect you refer to businesses that handle mortgages that are not banks, clearly they get some kind of fee out of the deal.

One can shop for their own mortgage using online resources or by walking into brick and mortar bank. I vote for a credit union as they are not so profit pressured and seem to want to help. (My local credit union had 1/4% cheaper rates and they do taxes for free). Online lenders might have minimum amounts to lend.

In a sense I carry 3 mortgages, one through a home equity line of credit (HELOC) through credit union @ 4.75% variable, a 2nd home through credit union @2.75% fixed, and a third through local bank @4.31%APR. I paid more fees with local bank. Over the past year lending institutions ran my credit likely 10 times for various reasons, it did not seem to affect my credit rating or available interest rates.

If you need further assistance in real estate practices I'd suggest reading at the Bigger Pockets forums but keep in mind many people over there are house flippers.

 

I bought a house and later refi'd using Aimloans.com .

Extremely efficient, rock bottom costs, no BS extra fees. When I refi'd, they even sent a notary out to my house with the docs to sign.

Their website makes it easy to do detailed comparisons of various rate and term options, which you just cannot do with a traditional mortgage broker or bank.

 

Correction. It's AimLoan.com .

 

Hey Joe,

I have a little experience with real estate. First, your credit isnt' effected by the number of inquiries originating for the same type of loan ( mortgage) in a particular time frame. This means one mortgage inquiry or 10 in a month really doesn't make a difference. Secondly you can go direct by any of the ways suggested earler, but brokers can often get you a better deal than you can get on your own-- banks cut special deals with high producing brokers that can be passed along to you which you cannot obtain going direct. My suggestion would be to go for the best deal rather than insisting on only going direct to the source. Shop around and don't be shy or afraid about it due to credit inquiries. good luck, surf


<i>the “consolidation rule” is that “the score looks on your credit report for mortgage, auto, and student loan inquiries older than 30 days. If it finds some, it counts those inquiries that fall in a typical shopping period as just one inquiry when determining your score.”
The consolidation rule is expressed in such a way that most readers interpret it to mean that mortgage, auto and student loans are consolidated together. That is how I read it originally. In fact, what it means is that all mortgage loans are consolidated, all auto loans are consolidated, and all student loans are consolidated. If you shop for one of each type, they constitute 3 inquiries.
The shopping period during which inquiries are consolidated is 15 days in one version of the scoring model and 45 days in another. Since borrowers don’t know which model is being used by their credit grantor, they should assume the period is 15 days. But the most serious concern about the consolidation rule is whether or not the scorers can accurately associate inquiries with the correct loan type – especially in the case of mortgages.</i>http://mtgprofessor.com/A - Credit Issues/do_inquiries_hurt_your_credit.htm

 

I was going to try and get our home loan through a local credit union, but I didn't have a long enough credit history for them to approve me. My score was a little over 700 through on equifax which is good but I only had like a years worth of credit so they wouldn't approve me. Regions on the other hand said they just cared about the score lol! So we ended up going through them. I can't remember if we did their in house program or not though. I felt like their fees were a little high on the loan, they seemed to be nickeling and diming us. It just seemed like there was a fee for anything and everything. I ended up getting 3.8% approx on a 30yr. Overall it was a good experience and Regions worked with us a lot on a few minor issues like my short employment history (only 20) and stuff so the loan officer really helped to get it taken care of.