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 facility offered by some lenders to mortgage brokers where de jure the brokers become employees of the lender but de facto they retain their independence as brokers. One of the ...
Interest from the day of closing to the first day of the following month. To simplify the task of loan administration, the accounting for all home loans begins as if the loan was closed ...
The specific interest rate series to which the interest rate on an ARM is tied, such as 'Treasury Constant Maturities, One-Year,' or 'Eleventh District Cost of Funds.' ...
A mortgage loan for 125% of property value. Since such loans are only partly secured, they have many of the characteristics of unsecured loans, including relatively high interest rates. ...
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 3% of the loan ...
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 ...
Someone authorized by the original credit card holder to use the holder's card. While authorized users are not responsible for paying any charges, including their own, they are sometimes ...
The amount of the original loan remaining to be paid. It is equal to the loan amount less the sum of all prior payments of principal. ...
A variety of unsavory lender practices designed to take advantage of unwary borrowers. Predatory lending covers much the same ground as Mortgage Scams and Tricks/Scams by Loan Providers. ...
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