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 letter from a lender verifying that the price and other terms of a loan have been locked. Borrowers who lock through a mortgage broker should always demand to see the lock commitment ...
The policy of a second mortgage lender toward allowing a borrower to refinance the first mortgage while leaving the second in place. ...
Authorization by the lender for the borrower to pay taxes and insurance directly. This is in contrast to the standard procedure, where the lender adds a charge to the monthly mortgage ...
A rate lock, plus an option to reduce the rate if market interest rates decline during the lock period. ...
To define a home equity line of credit, we can also take a look at how credit cards work. Similarly to credit cards, home equity lines of credit are sources of funds that can be accessed ...
The payment of principal and interest made by the borrower. ...
The number of days for which any lock or float-down holds. The longer the period, the higher the price to the borrower. ...
On an ARM, the assumption that the value of the index to which the interest rate is tied does not change from its initial level. ...
Insurance provided the lender against loss on a mortgage in the event of borrower default. In the U.S., all FHA and VA mortgages are insured by the federal government. On other mortgages, ...
Have a question or comment?
We're here to help.