The Money Mustache Community
Learning, Sharing, and Teaching => Ask a Mustachian => Topic started by: jjones1438 on October 11, 2019, 11:49:42 AM
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I think I have a basic understanding of how this works. I use their website, submit my stats, they have multiple banks provide a bid, I get 5 offers and can make my choice.
Seems convenient, but appears the downside is they sell my data and I'll get bombarded with calls, emails, etc. And I also read they could pull your credit multiple times which could negatively impact my credit score (I'm strong around 780, but still don't like that idea).
Has anyone used Lending Tree? Would you recommend it?
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It generally doesn't give the best rates, but if you don't care much and want people to call you, you can then haggle with a more limited pool of people- usually pop-up fly-by-night mortgage shops. Just get all your info together and shop the big banks, a couple credit unions and you can try a broker but they are scum in general.
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Worked fine for me. I got a 3.25% 30 year on there a couple of years back when rates were low. At the time Chase, Wells and others were 3.50%+. They will spam your phone and e-mail hard for a few days, so be ready if you go that route.
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Worked fine for me. I got a 3.25% 30 year on there a couple of years back when rates were low. At the time Chase, Wells and others were 3.50%+. They will spam your phone and e-mail hard for a few days, so be ready if you go that route.
Was there any drawbacks? Was the loan through a big bank, small bank, credit union?
I don't mind the spamming in the short term if it leads to a good loan. We have excellent credit, income, etc.
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No drawbacks. It was to some no-name shop. I didn't care at all who the lender was since it was a refi; the closing was much smoother than when I originally took out a mortgage with Chase. All these loans are immediately packaged into mortgage backed security pools and sold anyway. It is now held by TIAA Bank.
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I went ahead and did it, have gotten a handful of calls already, one guy followed up by email and after Googling his name and company, the third result was listing him as being 1 of 9 indicted on a multi-million dollar mortgage fraud case in 2010, sounds like an honest guy! Ha
Other options explored:
1) Before submitting on LendingTree, it showed me 5 banks and I went ahead and called one, NBKC Bank - appears they have a strong rating from Nerd Wallet - found here - https://www.nerdwallet.com/reviews/mortgages/nbkc-bank?scrollTo=full-review-scroll-target
Some comfort in knowing they are located in Kansas City which is not too far away. They referenced significant discounts if I was a Costco member (Origination Fee is only $275 instead of the usual $675). Said the rate today is 3.75% and I could buy 1 point to take the rate to 3.5% if I wanted.
2) I also called a Credit Union here in town (large Metro city, credit union has many branches has been around 80+ years). She referenced today's rate for a 30 year loan being 3.75% and said they charge ZERO Fees of any sort and said it is all just third party fees I would be responsible for (appraisal, title fees, etc.). She also mentioned that they do not sell of their loans and that they service all of them. Said no pre-payment penalties.
3) Called Rocket Mortgage - guy said they are one of the largest lenders in the nation, that their fee is always the same, no matter if it is a house purchase or a car purchase, the fee is $1,250. He said they are seeing high 3% - low 4% and then wanted to pull my credit. I decided against that.
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I used Bankrate.com and inquired with the lowest APR result. The process was super smooth, no scammy calls whatsoever. The one I happened to use was Homefinity, my new rate is 3.375% 30yr. They told me at the outset that it is their intention to sell to a big bank, so I wouldn't be surprised if my mortgage changed hands soon.
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I used Bankrate.com and inquired with the lowest APR result. The process was super smooth, no scammy calls whatsoever. The one I happened to use was Homefinity, my new rate is 3.375% 30yr. They told me at the outset that it is their intention to sell to a big bank, so I wouldn't be surprised if my mortgage changed hands soon.
Interesting. I just plugged in my info and I see AimLoan.com has 30 year fixed rate, 3.75% APR, and no upfront costs.
The top option they show is 3.25% rate, 3.46% APR, BUT that included buying 1.77 points for $6,969.
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This brings up a whole new topic. Buying Points. The loan will be $337,520, the example NBKC Bank gave was that buying 1 point would cost = $3,375 and would change the rate from 3.75% to 3.5%, which he said would "save $48-$49 per month and hit break even at 69 months". Of course, this does not take into account, opportunity cost, so I would need to think about the true break-even in some other metric.
Does it make more/less sense to buy points if you are higher income vs lower income?
In our situation, while many say this, we intend for this to be our "forever home" where we plan to have kids, etc. Located near family, we have been in same career/ job 10 years, etc. We would have no reason to move.
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I used Bankrate.com and inquired with the lowest APR result. The process was super smooth, no scammy calls whatsoever. The one I happened to use was Homefinity, my new rate is 3.375% 30yr. They told me at the outset that it is their intention to sell to a big bank, so I wouldn't be surprised if my mortgage changed hands soon.
Interesting. I just plugged in my info and I see AimLoan.com has 30 year fixed rate, 3.75% APR, and no upfront costs.
The top option they show is 3.25% rate, 3.46% APR, BUT that included buying 1.77 points for $6,969.
People on this forum have said good things about AimLoan. I think you can sort to see the structuring you want. I personally went with the 30 year fixed with no upfront costs with Homefinity. I could have bought down the rate by buying points, but I'm not sure I'll be at my place long enough for that to make sense.
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you might want to keep looking. In our neighborhood in LA First Republic is offering rates at 3.125 with no points.
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you might want to keep looking. In our neighborhood in LA First Republic is offering rates at 3.125 with no points.
For a 30 year??
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I just refinanced, made my first "new" payment on a 15 year refinance at 2.25%. I wish I shopped around more, but in the end it turned out well. I got immediate calls from Quicken and started the process w/them, they were very good to start, got me a 2.99% rate on a 15 year w/limited fees, then someone from Loandepot called mid-way through and said their goal is to always beat Quicken b/c they are #2 to them, and they will ALWAYS beat them. So I gave the benefit of the doubt and right away they gave 2.75% and lower fees, so I switched over and Quicken stopped returning my calls. So I just phased out w/them and continued w/Loandepot. I paid some points to lower it to 2.25% (lowest rate) just b/c we plan on being here for 15+ years, so over the lifespan it saves a decent amount of coin as long as I don't pay it off too early (since fees would exceed at that point). So we're just changing our strategy from before (prepaying more money to principal) to standard payment and then invest the rest.
On that note though, we were able to get such a good rate and an easy process b/c we paid down our mortgage a decent amount over the last 6 years. Long story short, shop around, even if you go w/one of the "big guys" they can sell your loan (ours already got sold to Mr. Cooper or something like that), so it can get sold no matter who you go with, so work on them to get the best rate, make them compete against each other, even if you've started the process w/someone else. As long as you haven't signed the final paperwork you are still fair game.
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you might want to keep looking. In our neighborhood in LA First Republic is offering rates at 3.125 with no points.
Say what? Don't see those rates anywhere? That must be with a ton of points bought down.
On the subject of points, after further review, will NOT be buying any.
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I used Bankrate.com and inquired with the lowest APR result. The process was super smooth, no scammy calls whatsoever. The one I happened to use was Homefinity, my new rate is 3.375% 30yr. They told me at the outset that it is their intention to sell to a big bank, so I wouldn't be surprised if my mortgage changed hands soon.
That sounds like a crazy good deal if no point purchase is involved.
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I used Bankrate.com and inquired with the lowest APR result. The process was super smooth, no scammy calls whatsoever. The one I happened to use was Homefinity, my new rate is 3.375% 30yr. They told me at the outset that it is their intention to sell to a big bank, so I wouldn't be surprised if my mortgage changed hands soon.
That sounds like a crazy good deal if no point purchase is involved.
No points. Caught it at the bottom about a.month ago.
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I used Bankrate.com and inquired with the lowest APR result. The process was super smooth, no scammy calls whatsoever. The one I happened to use was Homefinity, my new rate is 3.375% 30yr. They told me at the outset that it is their intention to sell to a big bank, so I wouldn't be surprised if my mortgage changed hands soon.
That sounds like a crazy good deal if no point purchase is involved.
Wow that is an excellent find!
No points. Caught it at the bottom about a.month ago.
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Talked to a few more people, including a referral from a friend over the weekend, not much that could be done today with the holiday.
Have inspections tomorrow and hope to know more on the loan front by end of tomorrow as well. It appears most are in the same interest rate range (surprisingly, Rocket Mortgage through Quicken has had the highest rates and fees), the fees vary, with the local credit union, allegedly having none (outside of third party fees like appraisal, title fees, etc.) being the most lucrative. Credit union seems to be a take it or leave it type by phone, whereas some of the other lenders "want" the business more than others, asking what my other options are, comparing costs, etc.
Some have tried to tell me how great it is that they typically service their own loans, while others straight up told me they plan to sell the loan in the next few months (actual lenders, that package and sell to Freddie and the other two). Kind of interesting with each organization different than the next.a
I presume it will be in my best interest to just have each compete with the other and choose the best option by end of week. More to come.