How To Find The Best Mortgage (With The Best Rate)? (real estate, insurance)

[aheadofthecurve]

Hi everyone,

I am considering to buy a home and would like to investigate what mortgage options are out there. What is the best strategy to find the best loans? Does anyone have lenders that they recommend? What is the best way to find the best lenders? All input is much appreciated!

[Denton56]

Ask your real estate agent. They know who is best. Or contact terry.schenck@prosperitymortgage.com He is REALLY good. He gave us the best rates on our mortgage and now on a refi.

Seriously, send him an email, or call him. He's great.

[sssb2000]

Do what i did:

go to craigslist.org

find and call about 15 or so mortgage lenders (brokers prefarably)

get the rate from each one, narrow it down to 6 or 7
then make them FIGHT over the rate! yes, make them fight over you!
i just bought a house in december and i did that and got a 5.25 rate (best rate at the time). Tell each of them that you have a good faith estimate from 6 or 7 other places and ask if they can match or beat them.

MAKE SURE that you take into consideration the closing costs. just because someone is giving you the best rate, doesn't mean that you should go with them. Go with the lowest rate AND lowest closing cost (i'm sure you knew that already) :-)

Good luck.

[VEIK]

Hey, i got a q...
is it possible to refinance without paying closing/refi costs these days?

We purchased two years ago, and now might be the time to get a new rate.

Thanks

[fdeitz]

If you have an FHA mortgage you can do a "streamline refinance" in which there are virtually no closing costs. That's what we are in the middle of doing now (closing at the end of the month on the new mortgage). Got 5.0% with 0.5 points for a 30 year fixed FHA mortgage of $440,000. Currently had a 6.25% 30 year fixed FHA loan.

[vlh71]

Hi VEIK. There are always costs associated with closing. Most people who re-fi roll all costs into the loan. Obviously the new loan amount will reflect what you owe on the property + the rolled in costs so you will have a slightly larger loan amount. You will get the escrows on the current loan back typically within 15-30 days of closing on the new loan, so those costs end up being a wash. You can pay all closing upfront, a portion or roll everything in typically. It really depends on the situation. Do you know approx. how much you owe against the assessed value of the property? What type of loan/rate do you have? Is it a 1st and a 2nd? If you have a 2nd, is it a HELOC - have you used the HELOC in the last 12 months? I have some people re-fi who have a conventional loan but re-fi using FHA because of the housing values...you only need 3.5% equity with FHA. Unfortunately, this means a MIP (mortgage insurance premium at 1.75% of the loan amount) and mortgage insurance at .55% for 60 months. The MIP can be rolled in in some cases. Again, it all depends on your specific situation.

[HEATHER72]

Another refiancing scenario...

We also bought our house just over 2 years ago. We were going to do a VA loan but were told it would be cheaper/easier (?) to do a 80/10/10 piggyback loan. So we put 10% down, had a loan against that 10% worth of equity and then financed the rest. The equity loan is at 6.875%. The home loan is at 5.5%. We do not pay PMI. Now our house is not worth what we paid, so I'm assuming we're stuck with the interest rates we have i.e. impossible to refinance?

[dalexan242]

Originally Posted by Denton56

Ask your real estate agent. They know who is best. Or contact terry.schenck@prosperitymortgage.com He is REALLY good. He gave us the best rates on our mortgage and now on a refi.

Seriously, send him an email, or call him. He's great.

We used Eric Johnson at Prosperity and were very happy with him as well.

[VEIK]

I think I might wait for the new Obama plan.

Details should emerge by Spring.

[becwells]

Originally Posted by snorkey

30 year fixed 5.25 today. That is pretty good rate.

This thread kind of makes me want to .

We bought our townhouse in South Riding in November 2007, when prices in the area were slowing starting to drop. We thought we were getting a good deal - the price was dropped by 20k overnight, so we swooped in on it, ending up with a 6.75% 30-year fixed mortgage. Of course, we had no idea the market would take such a big plunge. Now we're underwater and stuck with a much higher interest rate than what's available now. We'd love to take advantage of the slump and buy a bigger, SFH closer to DC, but it looks like we're just going to have to ride it out until our home value is more than what we owe.

Oh well. Such is life, I guess.