How To Choose A Mortgage Lender When Buying a Home - YouTube

Hi everyone this is your Tampa Bay Realtor Lance Mohr.

In this video I want to talk about how to choose a mortgage lender and that I'm going

more specifically go over mortgage brokers versus banks versus credit unions.

Tell you the difference between those.

Tell you the pros.

Tell you the cons and then we're going to go over a little bit about what questions

you need to ask the lender to make sure you get a really good mortgage lender for you.

So let me start off talking about different types of institutions where you could get

home loans.

Through a lot of times when people think about buying a home they think.

Hey, let me just give my local bank.

Bank of America, Wells Fargo a caller when they give my credit union their call or what's

the whole thing with mortgage brokers?

What's a mortgage broker?

How does that work?

What's the difference between a mortgage broker and a bank?

The difference between that and a credit union.

So I'm going to go over all this.

Let me first start off with credit unions and you know I'm just going to give you how

I see it because I've been in this industry for over 20 years prior to being in real estate

as an agent.

My prior life was a mortgage banker and that's what I did for a number of years.

I'm going to give you things how I see.

I'm not a big fan of the credit union.

I think credit unions are great.

They do car loans that you do checking savings CDs much like a bank.

They have really really good customer service.

They really care about their members and I think that's great.

The problem is I don't really think the training there and I'm a person that really really

believes in knowledge.

You know I'm not saying that if you work with a credit union or you know someone works with

the credit union in or go through a credit union.

Not saying this about all credit unions.

I'm using this in a general sense.

They just don't have the best training in the world.

The other problem with credit unions is the people who are doing the loans.

The loan offices the credit union a lot of them are strict salary.

If they're not strict salary, their salary plus bonuses and I'll get to this in a little

bit later.

So that's why I'm not really a big fan.

Years ago when I used to be in mortgage banking.

I actually used to go to credit unions.

They were some of my clients to get loans from because they didn't have all the knowledge

and they were telling people they weren't qualified because they could not work with

them.

Now the good thing about credit unions because they are so customer service oriented they

would pick up the telephone and say hey Lance we can't do this loan can you do it?

So at least they're going to do that.

Banks?

Nope, they're not like that.

This is one of the things with banks.

Banks have a lot of a lot of good advantages.

As a matter of fact, if you're going to be using bond money.

You're probably going to be using banks.

If you need construction loans you're probably going to be using banks but banks like credit

unions.

They're a jack of all trades.

They're not a master of one.

They're doing the checking, they're doing savings, they're doing CDs, they're doing

car loans, boat loans you name it.

They're doing anything and everything and when you tend to go to the loan officers and

a lot of banks not all of them.

So again you know if you work with a bank don't get mad but I know a lot of people that

have worked for banks and what happens is you they get what's called the foot traffic.

They're not going out there hitting the pavement every day.

A lot of the loan officers where the banks are just sitting in the bank and just waiting

for the business to come to them.

They're not going out.

It's sort of like I always look at our industry.

Are you have the lion and you have the gazelle.

Oh, there are a lot of lions with banks but most of them are gazelles.

They're sitting back.

Again banks pretty much most of the loan officers are on a salary plus a Bonus.

So you know they're not straight commission.

That's one of the things.

Now when it comes to banks again there are their pros.

When it comes to banks you have to understand that they're only one when lending their money.

This could be a problem if you go in and maybe figure on an FHA loan and maybe that's not

really very good in their wheelhouse.

They might tell you well you're not qualified for a loan.

They're not going to say well you could probably get a loan but you just can't get one through

us that's the problem because you're only using their money.

If you're a square peg and they have a round hole you're going to have a hard time fitting

in that and that's the unfortunate thing.

You know there's a lot of fallout.

There’s a lot of people banks tend to want the cream of the crop buyers.

If you're walking in with 750 credit scores.

Putting down 20% your salary and employee great but what happens if you don't fit into

that?

You may be working with a bank.

You may not know the thing about banks is they're generally a little higher on the interest

rates than say a mortgage broker but they're a little bit what lower on closing costs because

everybody's in-house and that's the nice thing about banks is their in-house.

Now I will say this if you are going to use a bank.

If you’re going to use a credit union, if you are going to use a mortgage broker get

someone local don't go with Wells Fargo and go to some 800 number or you walk into Bank

of America and they say oh let me give you this 800 number Des Moines Iowa and you're

what I am in Tampa or somewhere else.

You want someone local.

Out of sight out of mind.

You want someone if things aren't going your way you could go in there and pound on their

desk and say what the heck's going on.

So just keep that in mind but you know them generally everybody's in a localized area.

You'll have your underwriter there.

You have your processor there.

They do have some programs that they have a little bit more flexibility on because they

could just decide not to sell that but they might keep it they might keep it in their

portfolio but generally speaking the main thing I would probably rather choose and I'll

get into mortgage brokers in just a little bit.

Why I tend to like mortgage brokers better because a bank their loan officer is getting

paid usually a salary plus a bonus.

That’s the opposite.

So, now let’s talk about mortgage brokers.

Mortgage brokers they're basically pretty much all of them out there.

It's sink or swim.

They don't get paid unless they find a way to say yes.

So if you walk in like when I was in mortgage banking and brokering.

If you walked in and I'm with the broker and you were on an FHA loan program I'm probably

going to have one lender for that.

That it's going to be really really focused on FHA.

If you're VA you're probably going over to this later.

If you're on maybe a conventional in a fight for sit down you're over here.

If it's a 20% down you're over here.

If it's a jumbo it's this linker if you go in and maybe you have low credit scores you're

over with this lender right here.

So they don't have just their money.

They have everybody's money now.

I know you go into these brokers and they're like, we have 50 lenders.

Let’s face it most mortgage brokers will only use two or three.

They'll probably have five to seven at any one time but they are very efficient because

this is all they do and they don't get paid and unless they find a way to say yes that's

why I sort of break it up.

Is there are the lions and there are the gazelles and I would have rather have someone that

is on a straight hundred percent commission.

That if they don't find a way to say yes they don't get paid.

That's a huge motivator.

So there is the thing with a little bit different like the banks.

Keep in mind brokers broker out so they're going to broker out to a bank.

They could even be broken out to the same bank you're getting the quote from.

It's pretty rare but it could happen but they're going to have usually a little bit more costly

because they're going to have the underwriter in-house and I mean in-house but they're going

to charge for that.

They're going to have the processor that there been a charge for that.

So they're going to have a little bit more cost but they get their pricing and wholesale

pricing not retail like a bank.

It’s usually going to equal out so there's and if you're looking at going with bond money

you pretty much never going to go with a broker if you're looking to get in a construction

loan.

You're probably not going to go with the broker but again it's all about choosing the right

broker.

It's all about choosing the right loan officer and you know that's what you need to do.

You need to choose the right person.

So I did a video if you want to know how to get the best interest rate I'll put it up

above.

You could look at it but let's go over what you really need to do when it comes to choosing

a loan officer.

You want to always start off with your real estate agent.

First know maybe you could get a recommendation from your real estate agent you could get

a recommendation from friends, co-workers but dig a little deeper.

Don't just get that recommendation.

Ask enough to say why you think this loan officer is so good.

Why are you referring me to this person?

What is it about them that makes them so good?

You can also go and take a look at sites like Yelp.

Go to their LinkedIn page check their website.

Read up on them but overall loan officers are horrible at marketing so don't hold that

against them.

I know when I was a loan officer I wasn't the best marketer in the world.

So you know you definitely want to dig a little deeper and ask him and then when you're talking

to them just like an interview in a real estate agent.

You need to ask them two questions at least.

These two questions why should I work for you and why should I work for your company?

Basically, let them tell you what makes them good.

Let them tell you why you should be working with them.

If they don't have an answer to those questions you really have to wonder but you know you

definitely talk to your real estate agent.

That's a good source and just make sure the loan officer knows what they're doing.

Yeah I mean feel free to ask them what training you have.

I mean I never got this when I was in a loan office.

When I was one officer but I had no problem I don't have it when people ask me.

This is a real estate agent if they're interviewing me or asking about my experience or how long

I've been in the business or why they should work with me or what makes my company good.

It's not as important as a realtor but what the loan officer it's everything if you go

into the better business bureau and they don't have a good rating.

You really have to wonder if that someone who you want to work with.

So do these and you're going to be good to go but definitely pick loan officer at the

end of the day get someone that you trust to get someone that you know is knowledgeable.

Who's been in the business that you feel has the proper training because one thing I discuss

in my video?

How to get a really good interest rate is it's more about the loan program.

If you're in the wrong loan program the interest rate doesn't matter and if you choose a loan

officer that doesn't understand different loan programs and they put you in the wrong

one program.

You could have a great interest rate that one program but it may not be the greatest

interest rate you could get or you need.

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I wish you all the best of luck.

If you're looking for a realtor in Tampa Bay I would love to help you.