Buying A Home
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Our tech team has launched updates to The Nest today. As a result of these updates, members of the Nest Community will need to change their password in order to continue participating in the community. In addition, The Nest community member's avatars will be replaced with generic default avatars. If you wish to revert to your original avatar, you will need to re-upload it via The Nest.
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Note: This only affects The Nest's community members and will not affect members on The Bump or The Knot.
How many mortgage brokers did you contact?
Or applications did you fill out? I've got recommendations from CWs and friends coming from left and right for mortgage brokers. I've heard you should shop around for a mortgage. So how many did you contact - how many would you recommend? I'm thinking 3-4 - does that seems excessive or about right?
Re: How many mortgage brokers did you contact?
Broker or financial institutions? I would only start with one broker, interview them, and use them or move on to number 2. Fwiw, I had a huge issue with using 3 banks at once trying to get the best rate. All three had tons of personal info on me and one guy ended up being crazy and I thought he'd steal my identity or something. Turns out we had credit card fraud a few weeks later. He had our credit report with account numbers, etc. second issue was to get the final interest rates, they'd all have to pull my credit reports, and doing that too many times lowers scores somewhat.
Just educate yourself on what rates should be and try to get the best rate. Many banks list them on their websites, or you can call and ask. Wells Fargo tends to be great for many people.
We did three. I contacted a local mortgage broker (referral), the bank that held our previous mortgage and also the mortgage company that works primarily with our builder.
Three lenders total.
One broker, our first-choice lender, then our builder's lender.
Despite reading Homebuying and Mortgages for Dummies, it appears I'm a bit confused. Doesn't the broker contact and work with the bank? Or are we supposed to contact the bank separately?
I have a rough idea what rates we'll get - but I'm not certain since our loan will be above conforming loan limits. I've heard than can add .5% to the interest rate. We were hoping to do a conventional 80-10-10 loan.
I know there can be an issue if you shop too much and get your credit pulled a bunch of times - thanks for the confirmation on that issue.
3-4 brokers sounds excessive. With one broker, you're already essentially getting quotes from a variety of different banks.
We used one broker, and I inquired at a few local area banks, and checked bankrate to see how what she was offering compared. We went back to the same broker when we refi'ed two years later. She was getting competitive rates plus helped streamline the whole process for us, which was helpful.
1 broker recommended by a friend who is also an MMer.
2 lenders at specific financial institutions. 1 recommended by a friend. 1 recommended by our real estate agent.
the broker works with multiple lenders and wholesale places. the two lenders at the financial institutions can only offer me their own company's products. so far the broker has offered us the best rate and loan, per our pre-approval. once we actually find a property, we will have all three give us quotes again and compare then. at that point, we may just work with the broker and our agent-recommended lender as we dislike the last lender for other reasons.
One broker.
We'd used him before, and knew we'd have no problems/complaints.
Thanks, Ladies. I contacted a broker today -- he was highly recommended by our agency and a close friend (he's a relative and did their mortgage a few years ago).
We had a really good conversation and I started filling out the application.