The loan officer you meet with to begin the process of obtaining a home loan is not the lender’s gatekeeper but your “loan coach.” Their job is to identify the loan that best meets your needs and to find a way to help you get it.
Loan and financing issues are inseparably linked with other aspects of the home buying process. There are many reasons why you should begin your home search by sitting down with a good loan officer. With them, you can talk through the options that are available to you. In our section about Mortgage Lenders, you’ll see a discussion of the roles the various people play who are involved in providing you with a loan. There, we’ve outlined a game plan for helping you choose a mortgage lender to work with.
Home Loans
The loan officer you meet with to begin the process of obtaining a loan is not the lender’s gatekeeper but your “loan coach.” Their job is to identify the loan that best meets your needs and to find a way to help you get it.
If you’re going to buy a home in the next year, don’t pay off credit cards, sell or buy a car, or do anything else to get your financial house in order before you meet with a loan officer. Outline your financial situation and your home purchase plans with the loan officer and let them help you put together a game plan.
It is generally best to work through a local bank or mortgage broker, not through the internet or with a lender in a different state. You will generally get the same money at the same rates, but with the local lender you’ll also get the benefit of their knowledge of local financing and home purchase practices.
Less is More
The web provides an ocean of good mortgage loan information. Links to some of the best sites are provided below. A word of advice: Don’t go overboard in exploring this ocean of information. You will flounder and you might drown. More specifically, don’t try to replicate the loan officer’s knowledge and experience by reading books or surfing the web. You don’t need to do that and you won’t succeed. Moreover, much of what you’ll read about mortgage loans on the web — or in print — is wrong. And all of it is incomplete.
It is wrong or incomplete because:
Change is the only constant in the mortgage loan market
Local real estate practices influence loan practices
The specifics of your situation may not translate simply into the general rules that govern the mortgage loan industry
Useful Links
The information on the web can be well worth a few hours of your time as long as you don’t let it overwhelm you. And don't let it discourage you from talking with a loan expert in your area, .
“Freddie Mac” has a great tutorial on the home buying process with sections on credit and loans. The site provides a number of useful calculators to help you compare renting to buying, estimate how much money you may be able to borrow, and so on.
HSH Associates’ site will take you beyond the basics. It’s one of the richest sites on the web for general information on loans, for housing and mortgage statistics, and for its variety of loan calculators
Most mortgage loans in the U.S. are ultimately funded by either FHA, Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, or the VA. Their sites provide robust sources of reliable and relatively unbiased mortgage loan information.
Our phone number is 303-448-8808.
When you buy a home using our services, our team is paid a commission by the seller 99.9% of the time. Since 1992, only two of our clients have contributed to the payment of our commission. In the 1,000 or so other closings, the buyer paid nothing. There is no financial benefit to going it alone.
Norris Minick, our founding broker, has been exclusively representing buyers since 1992 and started Agents for Home Buyers in 2005. Our other brokers each have at least 10 years of real estate experience, contributing knowledge and insight from a wide range of backgrounds.
At A4HB, we always work as buyer agents, and we take our fiduciary responsibility to you and your interests very seriously. We work as a team, so you’ve got support whenever you need it. We’re salaried employees, not salespeople working on commission, keeping the focus is on you and your needs, not ours. We are 100% committed to helping you locate, evaluate and safely purchase residential property.