Mortgage Referrals
Advice on where to go to get a mortgage. A borrower can always select a loan provider by throwing a dart at the Yellow Pages. A referral is of value if it raises the probability of a good outcome above that from throwing the dart. The four major sources of referrals are real estate sales agents, other borrowers, Internet referral sites, and builders. Real Estate Sales Agents: Home purchasers accept more referrals from real estate sales agents than from all other sources combined. Sales agent referrals generally are to individual loan officers or brokers, as opposed to firms. An agent with great confidence in a loan officer will continue to refer clients even when the loan officer switches firms. Sales agents have the same interest as buyers in completing transactions. Hence, they refer clients to loan providers who can generally be depended upon to close on time. This is the agent's major concern, and it is a concern of borrowers as well. Sales agents have no comparable interest in the mortgage price or whether the borrower is placed in the right kind of mortgage. However, the agent doesn't want the price to be so far out of line or the service provided so abysmal that the borrower throws a fit and blames the agent. Other Borrowers: Referrals from other borrowers are usually based on a single transaction. Internet Referral Sites: These Web sites provide price information for a large number of lenders and mortgage brokers, usually listed by state. They also provide quick entree to the Web sites of each loan provider listed. Builder Referrals: Builder referrals are usually to a lender with whom the builder has a financial arrangement. Hence, they are suspect. In some cases, preferred lenders price loans above the market and kick back some of the excess to the builder. Self-Referrals: Responding to self-referrals (solicitations) usually is a bad idea. Not all lenders who solicit are predators, but all predators solicit.
Popular Mortgage Terms
A comprehensive and time-adjusted measure of loan cost to the borrower. IC on a Mortgage: IC is what economists call an 'internal rate or return.' It takes account of all payments made by ...
A borrower who must use tax returns to document income rather than information provided by an employer. ...
Also called variable or flexible rate mortgage, an adjustable rate mortgage (ARM) is a mortgage where the interest rate is not constant, but changes over time by the mortgage lender. ...
The lender's risk that, between the time a lock commitment is given to the borrower and the time the loan is closed, interest rates will rise and the lender will take a loss on selling ...
A borrower who does not meet the underwriting requirements of mainstream lenders. Sub-prime borrowers pay more than prime borrowers and are sometimes taken advantage of. ...
A mortgage loan transaction in which the lender assumes responsibility for an existing mortgage. A wrap-around can be attractive to home sellers because they may be able to sell their ...
A lender commitment to make a mortgage loan to a specified borrower, prior to the identification of the property that will be mortgaged. On a pre-approval, unlike a pre-qualification, the ...
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. ...
A reverse mortgage program administered by FHA. ...

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