Your Loan Officer Isn’t Santa Clause
Posted by admin under: Main Dec 06Loan officers are little businesses trying to make money. Even if they have a broker they set the price of the loan and share the fees they earn with the broker. The loan officer may be nice and pleasant. They are helping you secure a lot of money. It is exciting. Can you believe it, I am going to get a couple hundred thousand dollar loan you think. Hello my dear, your loan officer isn’t Santa Clause. You aren’t child any more. Home Buyers – Use Your Instincts – Then Be Brave – Or Get Ripped off.
Today, a current real situation. It kind of goes against what I preach, use your agents loan officer. It causes me to inject, use your instincts, then be brave, or get ripped off as a point of importance.
In this case the aqents loan officer is also the agents’ sister. Todays story is of a first time home buyer in Sacramento. The market is hurting there, so are many agents and many lenders. It is a buyers market. One of my clients called me to seek help for his daughter. She needs an attorney. Her instincts told her she was being ripped off. We will see how brave she gets.
Now the home price is good. She made an offer way below the asking price. It is the loan that stinks. She has good credit. She is being told her interest rate is 6.5%. Something told her this was too high to the market. So she called dad.
After some research she told her agent she wanted to go to a different lender. She wanted an FHA loan. Yesterday she could beat the pants of the rate her agents sister was quoting.
Here is where the mortgage business still needs to clean house. I told her father her daughter should contact the California Department that oversees mortgage lenders.
Why? 1- She was given no good faith estimate. 2- She was told she couldn’t change lenders now that she had started the process.
Not all lenders have FHA. I am sure this one didn’t. Some relationships are too nepotistic. Even when you use your agents lender, be aware of the market enough to not get gouged. Your mission is not to price shop for the cheapest rate, that is a losers game. Your mission is to know what the market is and find a dependable lender.
In this case our friends daughters instincts told her something was wrong. It was, it is. Now, will she be brave? Will she push these badgers into their proper place? She will or she will get ripped off. We shall see.
Source: Your Loan Officer Isn’t Santa Clause
Thursday, December 6th, 2007 at 5:34 pm and is filed under Main. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.