Mortgage question...

[Crawlin]

How many places did you shop for the best rate? I already have a $ and % pre-approval amount w/ $0 down but looking to improve on that. I don't want to shoot it off to 20 different places since that's too many inquiries in my opinion. I just did it through countrywide financial since there seems to be alot of them on the bureau's i'll run. That and it allows me to search nationwide in case of me moving

[Russ Jerome]

I don't want to shoot it off to 20 different places since that's too many inquiries in my opinion.

Shoot it out to 50 places, its not like credit inqure's when you
buying a car on your credit record.

Dont buy all the hype from banks about "oh nobody is buying" or
from realtors "oh its a buyers market". The economy is so screwed
up banks apear to be afraid to lend money as much as they whine.

I've got a fat pre aproval letter in front of me, I couldnt buy this
property I want thats going into foreclosure if I had 20 grand to
throw down and I plowed my banks driveway for 30 yrs. Shop
that loan around everywhere they will accept it. I hope this whole
realty market crash's hard, hope to see realtors and bankers in the
un employment line this coming year, they can thank the government.

[Karps TA]

Definetly check out credit unions like Landmark. They usually have the lowest rates and least restrictions. Other then that it's just call around till you find someone you like dealing with.

I could have sworn I read Bank of America is buying Countrywide. If that's the case, they might end up selling your mortgage on you later.

I would like the see the realty market on an upswing this spring so I can get my house sold this spring if possible.

[Slow Joe]

I agree with Landmark Credit Union... They've been very good to me, very easy to work with... :thumbsup

[Nix]

Wells Fargo and the wife and I couldn't be happier with how things worked out. It seemed that more places were espically willing to help out if you were also building new for some reason or another? If you want our guys nu,ber let me know Chris and I can hook you up. Good luck!

[USMARINE1108]

I checked with about 15 places when I bought my house. I ran my own credit from one of the many websites that let you do it for free, and most of the mortgage lenders let me use my report since it was less than a month old. Even if checking your credit adversly effects your score (to be honest, I really don't know), it will build back up over time. If you're not planning on taking out a loan for awhile after buying a house, it doesn't really matter anyway. I ended up going with a local bank (in South Carolina) who did the closing and then sold the loan to Chase.

[Flight_740]

Not to stray off topic but you can thank the independant agents for slamming people into homes they can't afford. They were aproving anybody for a while. It was the independant agents that caused this in my opinion.

[u_say_go]

my personal opinion (which means schit) is, mortgage companies suck. Go with a local bank or credit union. My mom is VP for North Shore bank and has told me numerous horror stories of mortgage companies selling your loan to out of state brokers and thats just no good.
Landmark Credit Union is THE place to go. They are so easy to work with and give you all the details up front, no hidden b.s.
If you're a first time homebuyer they offer no closing fees, and have different programs for you.
good luck!

[USMARINE1108]

If you're a first time homebuyer they offer no closing fees, and have different programs for you.
good luck!

My bank did that too. The seller gave me a check for $3k for the costs anyway since that's what they were offering. :headbang

[PB86MCSS]

Getting something with zero down is near impossible now, I'd say. Even with awesome credit. Shop around but not sure on 20-50 places, but do as you please. IIRC the more places that check your credit it may drop a bit. I also don't know if its a big deal if/when a company sells your loan to someone else, you still pay the same amount, nothing changes.

Rates are dropping since I closed on my place in fall, already working on re-financing. Its a buyers market provided you have good credit and/or something significant for a down payment. If you have neither, you won't be in the drivers seat for a home...the majority of the housing "crisis" is because of people with nothing down. They stopped paying, oh well....nothing lost, they basically rented their place for awhile.

[lasttimearound]

credit unions are the best imo, my father owns lots of land and leases and sh*t and did most of his financing through credit unions, i bought my used ram through a credit union with 5.6% financing. credit unions rock man. had i not inherited my house i would have gone through a credit union.

[jamest]

I checked with 10 places. Most only had a very slight difference in APR. I ended up going with Great Midwest Bank.

[Smokey1226]

Dont buy all the hype from banks about "oh nobody is buying" or
from realtors "oh its a buyers market". The economy is so screwed
up banks apear to be afraid to lend money as much as they whine.


Speaking as a Realtor....This is a perfect time to buy. I have sellers who have lost $40k+ from what their houses are valued at and what they recieved. So obviously its not a seller's market.

And with Fed Rate cut's happening about every 3 weeks, and Interests rates at the HIgh 4's low 5's....your basically borrowing money for Free.

I don't know when or how long its going to take, but when the market gets back on its feet and banks get their shit straight again, you will be wishing you bought something at 5.xx%.

Just my .02

[PB86MCSS]

Agreed with the above! I got in when the market was good but the rates had gone up a bit, which is silly given how good my credit and my friends is (bought duplex together) but we had little down.

The rates now are great, not sure how much more they'll drop either.

[jbiscuit]

I could have sworn I read Bank of America is buying Countrywide. If that's the case, they might end up selling your mortgage on you later.



This is correct. Bank of America IS buying Countrywide but they want to buy them for the loans....Countrywide has like the MOST personal mortgages held in the nation so they don't want to sell them off, they want to retain them to make their total mortgages held even larger.

I don't know if I would recommend Countrywide...they are DECENT but you have to do a lot of legwork to make things happen...they effed up a lot of stuff when I quoting out my mortgage. I still ended up getting a GREAT mortgage but it wasn't without some effort on my part

NOW is a great time to buy. Any house you find, don't offer anything CLOSE to the asking price...do a search on Shorewest.com for houses in your price range and take notice of all the homes with green grass and flowers in the front yard. Houses are not moving right now. You should be able to get a GREAT deal

[Yooformula]

Not to stray off topic but you can thank the independant agents for slamming people into homes they can't afford. They were aproving anybody for a while. It was the independant agents that caused this in my opinion.

Nobody forced them to buy it. Its their own fault for buying more than they can afford, just because you get approved for it doesnt mean you can afford it. The american dream is for those that work hard to afford not given to you just because rates were low! If you are too lazy to do your homework and not listen to advice from people telling you to NOT buy into arms thats YOUR problem not the smart salesman....you are the sucker not him!

[Crawlin]

Yeah, I got approved for a house i KNOW i cannot afford.

I am a member at landmark and sent in an application yesterday after countrywide, but it was after 5pm so I'm pretty sure I'll hear from them this today.

Countrywide only took about 15-20 minutes on the phone and the information was sent with the letter saying how much I could spend, and all that other crap to show to sellers that I'm serious buyer.

I know it affects it somewhat, but I guess at this point, since I already just got a car, and would be buying a house, i wouldn't be applying for anything else in a LONG time, so I guess I should be good. My problem is I'm seeing that even after the feds cut rates, I don't see many banks actually going through and lowering their's. I know in the auto market, only a couple of the banks (i.e. Chase and Fifth Third) have lowered their buy rates for customers.

I luck out that my sister is an agent for shorewest :) I have a good number of houses I've been looking at.

[GRNDNL]

I've been through this a dozen or so times, I've just talked to my local banks and most agents have a few people they work with, I've always found the rates really close to each other........

Usually takes a few weeks for mortage rates to catch up with prime, what are you seeing for rates now?......

[Crawlin]

6% rate / 6.6% APR is what Landmark is at. All because of the $0 down thing. Although I'll probably have atleast 5% down so that can put me in a different type loan which might lower the rate. Just trying to do it little as possible so I have $$$ for the little things like washer/dryers, mower, hoses, etc... all those little bullshit things that come with owning a house. Plus i'd like to have atleast 3-4 months in a seperate account for emergency.

[Smokey1226]

Usually takes a few weeks for mortage rates to catch up with prime, what are you seeing for rates now?......

Exactly, you wont see the drops for another couple weeks.

[Flight_740]

I agree 100% but the brokers are the ones that offered it to these people. They fudged numbers just to get it to happen as well. I have a friend that used to own his own company doing this and he flat out told me "we f..ked this market up" (meaning the smaller mortgage companies selling loans to banks)



Nobody forced them to buy it. Its their own fault for buying more than they can afford, just because you get approved for it doesnt mean you can afford it. The american dream is for those that work hard to afford not given to you just because rates were low! If you are too lazy to do your homework and not listen to advice from people telling you to NOT buy into arms thats YOUR problem not the smart salesman....you are the sucker not him!

[tbarsch]

Shop for the best mortgage rate?

www.bankrate.com

[Slow Joe]

I havn't had great luck with anything that involves Bank of America... Just my .02

[Karps TA]

I havn't had great luck with anything that involves Bank of America... Just my .02

I agree. My credit card experience with them was less the pleasant.