Mortgage question (short sale, mortgage broker, credit report)

[NYCtotheATL]

My wife and I are about to buy a home and have been pre-approved for a mortgage through our bank. My question is: should I call a mortgage broker and see if I can get a better deal? Has anyone had an experience with one and is it worth it dealing with a broker? It looks like our bank is giving us a pretty good deal and our rep is awesome.

Any advice would be appreciated. Thanks!

[Mishap]

Originally Posted by NYCtotheATL

My wife and I are about to buy a home and have been pre-approved for a mortgage through our bank. My question is: should I call a mortgage broker and see if I can get a better deal? Has anyone had an experience with one and is it worth it dealing with a broker? It looks like our bank is giving us a pretty good deal and our rep is awesome.

Any advice would be appreciated. Thanks!

If the rate is already that good there's minimal benefit these days I'd say. It really can't hurt you to inquire what their rates are though. I'd just avoid asking for a full pre-approval since it can affect your credit score. I had a broker do a pre-approval for a short sale that fell through and the bank I wound up using for my actual purchase made me go through and document every new tradeline on my credit report to prove to them I wasn't buying multiple houses at the same time.

[noah]

You can get as many pre-approvals as you like within I believe 30 days and it won't affect your score,they will all be considered as one. Its not just the rate you can get but how much fees are you paying. You can always get a better rate if your willing to pay more in fees.

Originally Posted by Mishap

If the rate is already that good there's minimal benefit these days I'd say. It really can't hurt you to inquire what their rates are though. I'd just avoid asking for a full pre-approval since it can affect your credit score. I had a broker do a pre-approval for a short sale that fell through and the bank I wound up using for my actual purchase made me go through and document every new tradeline on my credit report to prove to them I wasn't buying multiple houses at the same time.

[Mishap]

Originally Posted by noah

You can get as many pre-approvals as you like within I believe 30 days and it won't affect your score,they will all be considered as one. Its not just the rate you can get but how much fees are you paying. You can always get a better rate if your willing to pay more in fees.

Well maybe not credit score (I should have been more specific in how it affects things, I work for FICO) but that doesn't mean they aren't going to have the underwriters give your file an extra few passes which may just mean lots of time spent scanning/copying every financial document you've ever had. The bank I went with had credit inquires down to ones I had pulled the day before from another bank.

I did try to fee shop but since the builder had preferred lenders and they were paying closing costs, the fees were almost identical and apparently I offended a lender by asking for lower origination fees.

[Herr_Brush]

I have found that mortgage brokers usually have the best deals, and a deal needs to be defined not only by interest rate but also by total loan costs (fees, points, etc.)

The easiest thing to do is check on writealoan.com - their rates are usually very good and you can easily check them online. Be sure you are comparing apples to apples with the loan costs!

[NYCtotheATL]

Thanks everyone! We shopped around and it turned out our bank gave us the best deal so we went with them. Should be closing early-mid July.