Consumers Finding Shopping Mortgages Getting Tougher

Consumers have been taught, in many cases by the Realtors they work with, that they should shop multiple lenders. Today many consumers are finding rate shopping of little help in finding the best mortgage. A few of the reasons why:

1) First, a lot of lenders still use bait and switch tactics to attract business. They know when a consumer calls they won’t be making application that day so they can quote what rate they want and the next day when the client calls back they can simply say the “the market changed”.

2) For most of this year lenders have been getting rate changes on average every four hours.

3) Lenders are making quotes without knowing all the factors they need to know in order to make a valid quote. I’m talking about credit score, debt ratio, income, and a whole list of other variables.

4) The rules that go into effect with the new Good Faith Estimate (GFE) January 1 say that a lender who issues an estimate must have an application and can not change certain charges including the origination fee for a set number of days. So how many lenders are going to issue a GFE without the customer having a firm sales price and loan amount? So much for shopping for closing costs. I think this will open consumers up to making an application and then finding their costs are higher that they should be.

In today’s enviroment I’m seeing more Realtors referring their clients to specific lender partners who they know will treat their customers fairly, who know the business, and will get the deal done. When you think about it when you hand a deal to a lender you are basically trusting your commission to them.

There has never been a time that a partnership between Realtor and lender has been more important.