Mortgage Price Quotes
Rates and points quoted by loan providers. You cannot safely assume that mortgage price quotes are always timely, niche-adjusted, complete, or reliable. Timeliness: Most mortgage lenders change their prices daily, generally in the morning after secondary markets open, and sometimes they will change them during the day as well. This is a major problem for shoppers using traditional distribution channels, since prices collected from lender 1 on Monday and from lender 2 on Tuesday will not be comparable if the market has changed in the meantime. Niche-Adjusted: Most mortgage price quotes are based on the most favorable assumptions possible about your niche. Niche-adjusted prices are available from a loan officer by volunteering the information needed to determine the correct price. Usually, the loan officer will ask you to fill out an application in the process, which makes it difficult to shop. The easier way to shop niche-adjusted prices is at Web sites that offer a 'customized' price. To receive it, you must first fill out a form that provides the required information about your deal, but you don't have to apply. Multiple Web sites can be shopped in one sitting. Completeness: Most price quotes consist of rate and points only. They omit fixed-dollar fees, and on ARMs they also omit features that affect the ARM rate after the initial rate period ends. Reliability: A reliable price quote is one that, assuming the market does not change, the loan provider intends to honor when you lock. Some loan providers offer low-ball quotes they have no intention of honoring. The objective is to rope you in. They figure that once you are in the application process, they have a good chance of landing you as a borrower. If you are purchasing a house, the cost of terminating the process with one loan provider and starting again with another becomes increasingly high as you move toward the home closing date. Your bargaining power recedes with the passage of time.
Popular Mortgage Terms
A non-citizen with a green card employed in the U.S. Non-permanent resident aliens are subject to somewhat more restrictive qualification requirements than U.S. citizens. Permanent ...
The amount invested in a house, equal to the sale price less the loan amount. The House Investment Decision: Lenders impose the upper limit on how much a household can spend for a house. ...
The period you must retain a mortgage in order for it to be profitable to pay points to reduce the rate. ...
Assuming responsibility for someone else's payment obligation in the event that that party defaults. ...
A transaction in which interest is not paid on interest there is no compounding. For example, if you deposit $1,000 in an account that pays 5% a year simple interest, you would receive ...
Same as term Points: An upfront cash payment required by the lender as part of the charge for the loan, expressed as a percent of the loan amount; e.g., '3 points' means a charge equal to ...
A fee that some lenders charge to accept an application. It may or may not cover other costs such as a property appraisal or credit report, and it may or may not be refundable if the lender ...
The period between payment changes on an ARM, which may or may not be the same as the interest rate adjustment period. ...
The interest rate adjusted for intra-year compounding. Because interest on a mortgage is calculated monthly, a 6% mortgage actually has a rate of .5% per month. If there were no principal ...
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