Did you shop around for your mortgage?

Goldy

I'm looking to become a first time home owner and was wondering if you guys shopped around for your interest rate or if you just picked a random bank. I see a lot of online banks that offer nice rates and was wondering if anyone has used those.

ENFIDL

I used one of the "premier lenders" that my builder was offering a 15K discount through when I bought mine earlier this year. I'm actually doing a refinance right now and dropping my interest rate from 6 to 4.5 and using the same lender I did before. Before that I had looked at a few different banks but the percentages were roughly the same on them all.

Goldy

ING has a very attractive 2.99% mortgage that I am interested in but having never needed a loan I really dont know what I am doing.

Joeyjoe21_8

Depends if you buy a new built house...which they will have a lender you have to use...but either way, Go with a FHA first time homebuyers loan...you will get a rate of 4.00% and apr of 4.5% automatically and only required of 3.5%......any bank will give you the same rate for that loan....its goverment backed and the best way...thats what i did and I just re financed down to 4.5 percent.....i origianlly bought my house at 5.5 percent

bandyt09

Goldy:

ING has a very attractive 2.99% mortgage that I am interested in but having never needed a loan I really dont know what I am doing.

ING is a coventional loan, high 700's in FICO and at least 20% down.

FHA is a loan with less down and lower FICO reqiurements. However, with less down you are required to carry PMI which is 2.5% up front, a monthly payment and you must carry for a minimum of 5 years and then can only be taken off once you exceed 20% value. FHA is a good loan and depending on your credit there are some good rates out there, you can even pay some points up front to buy down the rate even lower.

I just closed on a loan so if you want PM me with some questions and I'll try to help as much as I can, however, some things may be different state to state.

Goldy

Thanks guys. I want to stay away from PMI so we are going to put down 20%. My tenative plan is to get the lowest interest possible and make additional payments biweekly to reduce the principle as fast as possible.

Does anyone know what closing costs on the home loan are typically like?

Goldy

bandyt09:

Goldy:

ING has a very attractive 2.99% mortgage that I am interested in but having never needed a loan I really dont know what I am doing.

ING is a coventional loan, high 700's in FICO and at least 20% down.

FHA is a loan with less down and lower FICO reqiurements. However, with less down you are required to carry PMI which is 2.5% up front, a monthly payment and you must carry for a minimum of 5 years and then can only be taken off once you exceed 20% value. FHA is a good loan and depending on your credit there are some good rates out there, you can even pay some points up front to buy down the rate even lower.

I just closed on a loan so if you want PM me with some questions and I'll try to help as much as I can, however, some things may be different state to state.

PM sent

bandyt09

Goldy:

bandyt09:

Goldy:

ING has a very attractive 2.99% mortgage that I am interested in but having never needed a loan I really dont know what I am doing.

ING is a coventional loan, high 700's in FICO and at least 20% down.

FHA is a loan with less down and lower FICO reqiurements. However, with less down you are required to carry PMI which is 2.5% up front, a monthly payment and you must carry for a minimum of 5 years and then can only be taken off once you exceed 20% value. FHA is a good loan and depending on your credit there are some good rates out there, you can even pay some points up front to buy down the rate even lower.

I just closed on a loan so if you want PM me with some questions and I'll try to help as much as I can, however, some things may be different state to state.

PM sent

PM replied.

Krieg

My wife actually works for a mortgage lender. She basically takes loans and makes sure they are compliant w/ Federal Law and State Law and basically make them closeable. And let me tell you, some of the crap that she sees brokers do will amaze you. They are CROOKS. She was able to refi our mortgage and we went from a 6.25 to a 4.8! If you are interested, I will talk to her and see what she recommends.

Rob1110

Goldy:

ING has a very attractive 2.99% mortgage that I am interested in but having never needed a loan I really dont know what I am doing.

Be careful with that and read all fine print. The 2.99 I found was for a 5 year loan and the closest thing on a 30 year was a 5 year fixed at 3.1 and 25 year adjustable. I wouldn't want my rate jumping all over the place and if you can get a loan now in the low 4s or high 3s, you probably won't want to re-fi in 5 years. I don't see rates going much lower than this.

Sandman1am

This post reminds me that I need to refinance my mortgage.

Theedge

I had putting off a refi as I didn't want to jump through the hoops, I'm with GMAC. I finally called, they asked a few questions, I went from 6.25 to 4.5 just that quickly. They e-mailed the paper work for electronic signature. I was really suprised at how easy it was.

Goldy

Rob1110:

Goldy:

ING has a very attractive 2.99% mortgage that I am interested in but having never needed a loan I really dont know what I am doing.

Be careful with that and read all fine print. The 2.99 I found was for a 5 year loan and the closest thing on a 30 year was a 5 year fixed at 3.1 and 25 year adjustable. I wouldn't want my rate jumping all over the place and if you can get a loan now in the low 4s or high 3s, you probably won't want to re-fi in 5 years. I don't see rates going much lower than this.

I am 98% sure that I will be moving in 5 years (and probably fewer than that) so I'm not too worried about needing to refi until we buy a new house. Am I right in assuming that loans are non-transferable from old house to new house?

I think I have made up my mind and will be going with ING for their 2.99% loan simply because this house is a short term house. getting 3% insead of 4% saves us an extra 150 bucks a month which will make a great cigar budget.