Tips for Choosing a Mortgage Lender

Mar 212011
 
local mortgage lender
bybill barber

When it comes time to apply for a mortgage, you may be confused as to where to begin. A home is most people’s most significant investment, and the thought of carrying a large amount of debt can be stressful. To keep the process as seamless as possible, it makes sense to choose a trustworthy and competent mortgage lender. How to choose the right one? Follow the tips below to help make you with your choice.

Know what type of lender you are looking for

Mortgages are available at your local bank, through national lenders, and through mortgage brokers. To make the best choice for you it is important to understand the difference between each type of lender. When applying for a loan, many people begin their search at their local bank. A bank where you already hold accounts is often a good choice, you know the people, they know you, and by having more than one account at a bank, you may save money on fees and closing costs. There are drawbacks to working with your local bank as well. Small banks may not have as much freedom with lending practices, and may not be able to offer a loan to someone with less than excellent credit. They may also have trouble competing with larger institutions in regards to interest rates and closing costs.

National banks have an advantage in that they often offer lower rates as well as more variety of loans. The disadvantage is that you are not likely to work closely with your loan officer, and are “just a number”. Many of your dealings may be via email or telephone messages, with few, if any, face to face meetings. Mortgage brokers are a “go between”. They work with a variety of lenders. Their goal is to find the best loan package for your circumstance, whether it is of a first time home buyer, problem credit, or refinancing option. If you choose to go with a mortgage broker, it is important to ask how they will be paid for their work, so there are no surprises when closing day arrives.

Reputation is important

If you are going to trust a stranger to help you make the most important financial decision of your life, it is important to make the right choice. Once you have narrowed down your choice of lenders to a few, ask acquaintances who have recently purchased homes who they recommend. Who they recommend, or who they do not recommend, can give you some insight into who would be a good choice for you. While everyone is different, and has different expectations, if you hear complaints about a particular lender that you were considering, it makes sense to follow up on those concerns. Before finalizing your choice in lenders, make a few more inquiries. Particularly in the case of a national lender or a mortgage broker, it is important to make sure that they are licensed to do business in the state where you are located. Once you have confirmed this, typically through your state’s banking oversight division of state government or the secretary of state’s office, you can move ahead in your inquiry. Next contact both the attorney general for your state as well as your state’s Better Business Bureau. Complaints filed through these two agencies should be taken seriously before moving ahead with a lender.

Communication and responsiveness

Once you have narrowed down your choice in mortgage lenders, finalize the deal by choosing someone that you are comfortable with. The most well respected mortgage lender on the planet will not do you any good if they do not return your phone call or treat your questions as irrelevant. It is not unreasonable to expect your questions to be answered immediately, and calls and emails to be returned the same day. An important consideration is that if the mortgage lender is less than responsive or less than forthcoming when trying to win your business, what can you expect once they have your business?

Forthcoming

All mortgage lenders should be willing to provide you with a good faith estimate. This is an estimate on the amount of money that it will cost to close your loan. The good faith estimate takes into consideration appraisal fees, any points you may pay to lower the interest rate, title insurance, and other fees that are included in the cost of the loan. If the mortgage lender wants a commitment from you before providing you with a good faith estimate, it is time to look around for another lender.

Personality

It is perfectly okay to admit that you do not hit it off with someone. Even if family and friends have had excellent experience with a lender, if they make you uncomfortable, seem unwilling to answer your questions, or you just generally do not get along, there is no reason to feel obligated to choose them as your lender. The mortgage relationship is a long one, and you should choose someone who you get along well with.

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Video Rating: 4 / 5

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What to do when a lender doesn’t respond?

Mar 162011
 

Pulled my credit report and there is an old student loan that says it in collection and lists the school as the lender. I haven’t seen any collection attempt made, I’ve called the school for a week now and get no where, they say its prob. a perkins loan and someone will have to call me back, should I dispute w/ credit bureaus or Should I write the school and ask for debt validation? What happens when they don’t respond to that too?

Have you rehabilitated your loans, but your credit report still shows a negative status?

Mar 042011
 

That’s what happened to me, as I’ve mentioned in several threads here in the forums.

 

I am working on getting a home equity loan, and my student loan defaults are the only thing holding it up. I needed to show the lender some sort of proof that they were no longer in default, but the DoE and the Loan Guarranty folks say that due to red tape and approvals, that could take weeks.

 

I may have found a solution, and want to share it with you. If you visit the webiste for the National Student Loan Data System www.nslds.ed.gov and look at the report page for your OLD rehabilitated loans, it says there plain as can be: Not in default or “non-defaulted”.

 

I just printed these as PDF files and sent to my banker, and she will send on to the lender. We’ll see if it makes a difference.

 

I’m also wondering if these would be helpful in disputing the info/status showing in credit reports.

Huge Jump!

Mar 042011
 

So I have been rebuilding my credit to puchase a car. Last month, I achevied that goal and bought my brand new 2011 Jetta with scores of TU 663, EQ 656 and EX 658 (EX score was accroding to the lender). My car loan just hit my reports and I decided to enroll in TU quarterly monitoring and my score jumped to 695! I hope that just gardening my cards and making payments will soon bring me into the 700 club :smileyhappy:

 

Thanks to everyone here to helping me jump from low 500s to almost 700 in just over a year!

To Consolidate Or Not To Consolidate Student Loans

Mar 042011
 

I am considering consolidating my student loans and wonder if this will impact my credit score and how and why it will.  I have asked this question before on the forum but never got a discernable answer.  Maybe I didn’t clearly ask the question?

 

So here is the skinny.  I turned to searching the internet and got mixed opinions.  Several sites suggest a real bump in my FICO score with most suggesting 50pts or more depending.  They suggested that the following reasons would factor in as a positive to my score:  1)  Several accounts would show as being paid and since payment history is 35% this would be a big help  2) Reducing the number of accounts from 10 to 1 would be helpful…  they also said some factors would give me a small negative such as 1) Opening a new account shortens the AAoA to which I agree  2) I might have a credit check on my report from the lender depending on the lender of course – not sure about this one since the new loan is not credit based as far as I know.

 

Before answering please consider that I am currently in repayment.  I have a few months worth of repayment on record with no lates or derogs.  The only other reason I am considering consolidation is to possibly reduce my payment by a third so that later when I am ready it can offset some of a new car payment.  I am currently doing fine with the payments as they are otherwise.  Many thanks for a reply :)  

PFD success on SL accounts?

Feb 172011
 

As many of you are now well aware (haha, sorry I talk about it so much!), I have 11 student loan charge-offs. Outside of high util %s (which I’m working on now), those are the only negatives on my credit reports and they’re soooo frustrating because I feel stuck and my credit scores are terrible. Most of the balances on the COs are pretty high ($10K or more), but one is just $1K.

 

I’m thinking about testing the waters with a PFD on that one just to see if the lender, Key Bank, will bite and agree to delete the entire tradeline, including CO info, for a PIF in the form of a PFD.

 

I realize that private SL lenders are different and tend to be more difficult to work with. Has anyone had any success with PFD on SL accounts?

Old Collections – Paid off for a Lower Score

Feb 102011
 

I am beyond frustrated.

 

I spent from September of 2009 until around November of last year bringing my credit up from a 470 to a 630 by way of paying off open debts and paying my credit card on time, etc.

 

My goal was to get a mortgage and I had some collections on my report, many of them several years old but I knew that the lender would require me to pay them off and so I did, in November of 2010.  My score then dropped around 50 points to a 570 again.

 

After researching collections online I realize now I may have jumped the gun in doing this and maybe I should have gotten approved for the loan before paying the debts.

 

What I cannot find an answer to, is how long will it take for my score to recover from this?  I payed off 6K in old debt and my score dropped 50 points!!  This makes no sense!

My process on Rehabilitation with my defaulted school loans

Jan 292011
 

I’m brand spanking new to this forum and I have to say, its freaking amazing. It’s comforting to know that I’m not alone on the issue of trying to fix/rebuild my credit. Well, here’s my 2cents on the Rehabilitation Program for defaulted school loans. Any advise, tips or comments to help me on my situation is more then welcomed as well.


Back in June of 2008 I went into default with USA Funds, Inc. who was my creditor for my school loan. I entered to do a Rehab program with General Revenue Corporation (GRC) and completed it with no problem. 2 months later, my defaults with USA Funds were deleted off my credit record BUT my prior negative reports with Sallie Mae, before USA Funds took over, were still showing delinquencies. So I contacted Sallie Mae, their response was, “WE CANNOT DELETE ANY NEGATIVE/DELINQUENCIES PRIOR TO YOUR DEFAULT DUE TO SALLIE MAE’S POLICY BUT YOUR DEFAULT STATUS WERE DELETED.” Which then got me REALLY confused and feeling cheated because before I agreed to do the Rehab, I was told by GRC, that my default AND my negative/delinquencies prior to default were GOING to be deleted and brought up to a clean, paid on time records.


So I called Sallie Mae and requested a letter that states my completion of the Rehab Program and as soon as the letter arrived the letter stated this:


Dear **********,


Sallie Mae, Inc. is a servicer of student loans for national and state guarantee agencies.  We are pleased to inform you that you have successfully completed your rehabilitation program as of 06/24/2010. Your education loan(s) listed below was purchased by the lender and is no longer in default.


The guarantor, United Student Aid Funds, Inc., will notify the national credit bureaus to delete the defaulted status. As a result of your rehabilitation, the lender/servicer that maintained the loan(s) prior to this default will be notified. It will be their responsibility to correct any adverse credit reporting that they may have made.

 

The letter quotes, “The guarantor, United Student Aid Funds, Inc., will notify the national credit bureaus to delete the defaulted status.” which USA FUNDS, Inc, held their side of the bargain and deleted them asap! BUT this portion of the letter, quotes, “As a result of your rehabilitation, the lender/servicer that maintained the loan(s) prior to this default will be notified. It will be their responsibility to correct any adverse credit reporting that they may have made.” Now, is it not Sallie Mae’s responsibility to fix my past adverse (negative/delinquencies) reporting as the letter from USA Funds, Inc., Quotes? Sallie Mae were my original school loan creditor before transferring over to USA Funds, Inc. 

 

So I did some research and found this:

 

“Because the statute specifically refers to a stream of 12 payments as determined by the institution, the institution must work with the borrower to determine a payment amount that is appropriate. The statute does not require a signed rehabilitation agreement. In accordance with the 1998 Amendments, once the loan is rehabilitated (after the 12th payment has been made), the institution or its servicer must request that any credit bureau to which the defaulted loan was reported remove the default from the borrower’s credit history.  The borrower is brought current and is no longer considered to be delinquent or in default. Removing the default is consistent with the requirements of the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA), which requires that an institution correct and update the information it furnishes to a credit reporting agency.”

 

- The Higher Education Act

 Section 674.39 Loan Rehabilitation

 

For full article of the law that states this claim, Google the above source, as I lost the link to the site. Sorry :(


So, in your guys opinion, does it seem like Sallie Mae is obligated to make the changes to my credit report? and I have the upper hand? If so, how should I approach this to where they can’t argue back and fix the issues.


I hope what I provided is of some help to others in a similar situation and if I find out anything else, ill be sure to post it up here for everyone.


Any advise, legal advise, tips or comments will be greatly appreciated. Thanks :)

Who do I write to in Washington D. C. to report problems with my mortgage Lender?

Jan 022011
 
lender washington mortgage
byYoTuT

I’ve been having major problems with them ever since we negotiated my loan modification. This has been going on for about two years now. When I call, most times I can’t get anyone to answer the phone. When I do get someone, they never seem to know what I’m talking about. The latest thing is Thet’re returning my payments stating they don’t accept personal checks in a foreclosure. But what I’m sending are money orders!

My current home mortgage is at 7.7.5% with Washington Mutual. I was considering calling them up and seeing about a new mortgage product. However I won’t qualify for a new mortgage although the payments are lower…

What should I do?

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