Finding a mortgage broker

December 20, 2004 11:35 AM

Finding a mortgage broker?

I need to find a mortgage broker for a first time home buyer relocating to Atlanta GA. There seems to be a lot of "noise" on this subject as far as searching the web for information is concerned.

Can anyone offer any advice/recommendations on finding a broker?

posted by jca to work & money (9 comments total)

ask your real estate broker for recommendations and/or lending tree to keep them honest on rates.
posted by elsar at 11:47 AM on December 20, 2004

We lucked out that when we went to buy our first house, our landlord was a mortgage broker, so we used him and have done business with him ever since and recommend all our house-buying friends to him. He sends us a nice basket at Christmas every year for throwing business his way.

Ask someone you know personally for a recommendation.
posted by briank at 11:54 AM on December 20, 2004

I second elsar's advice (here's Lending Tree) if you don't know anyone in town. Also, helpful tips on dealing with mortgage brokers, including some reasons why you might not want to use one.
posted by naomi at 12:19 PM on December 20, 2004

The Mortgage Professor has tons of real-world information -- see this page specifically about brokers.

I found Lending Tree to be pretty useless myself, but YMMV.
posted by xil at 12:43 PM on December 20, 2004

Well, there are two very different types of "mortgage brokers":

1) The online mortgage marketplaces, like LendingTree--they try and automatically consolidate dozens or even hundreds of lending institutions in a competitive environment. I've never used one, but the warnings in naomi's article all make sense. Certainly, once you make contact with a given institution, you're on your own.

2) An individual who works as an intermediary on your behalf, and deals with several local lenders to get you the best deal on your mortgage.

The latter, if you can find someone you trust, I can't recommend highly enough. A good mortgage broker is going to have personal relationships with the lending officers at various banks, and they're going to know a lot more about your various financing options than you probably will. Both times I've bought a house, we ran our own investigation and then turned to a broker, and both times the broker got us a much better deal than we could have gotten on our own. What's more, they're hopefully going to be in a good position to help smooth the mortgage approval process, like helping to explain a 3-year old ding on your credit report.

That's not to say every one of these people are perfect, or that they're 100% on your side. Like many financial professionals, they're potentially making money from the companies they're referring you to, so you need to make sure they're putting your interests first. Finding one through a personal reference is definitely the best way to go, and take everything with a grain of salt, but that should be a given no matter what.
posted by LairBob at 12:57 PM on December 20, 2004

Treat mortgage brokers like used-car salesmen until you know for sure that you've found one you can trust.

Depends on your situation, but even not so upstanding brokers can be helpful. Especially so if you are trying to get non-conventional loan (no-docs or higher loan-to-value, etc.), since they will guide you what to disclose and not to disclose in your documentation as the only thing they care about is the deal.

--zeikka--
posted by zeikka at 1:38 PM on December 20, 2004

I found my broker through an ad in the local paper. He was awesome. He had his own brokerage with a partner and had a real personal touch. I don't usually go into things so blindly, though, and ymmv.

Feel free to interview them a bit - find out what their background in the industry is, how long they've been a broker, how they approach the needs of a first-time homebuyer. Ask what thier fee is (mine was a flat $400, plus $300 for the appraisal). I would totally endorse using a broker as a first-time buyer, instead of shopping around yourself for a mortgage. It truly does minimize the headache, not to mention the constant and endless pings that it would otherwise generate on your credit report.
posted by contessa at 1:55 PM on December 20, 2004

I would second the idea of doing your own investigation before contacting a mortgage broker. Many big banks (Washington Mutual comes to mind) have very good rates and are very consumer friendly. They may be able to get you a loan at the same or lower rate than a broker.

Remember -- the broker is just getting the mortgages from banks, same as you could do on the phone. Worse, the broker adds a middleman which can mean more costs. These costs are not always apparent up front in the loan rate -- they might be tacked into some sort of closing cost fee.

I took my mortgage straight from a bank -- no broker -- and was very happy with the decision.
posted by Mid at 5:00 PM on December 20, 2004

My wife and I went through lending tree, talked to several, and settled on one. He couldn't have been better. Great experience.
posted by justgary at 11:58 PM on December 20, 2004