question about mortgage brokers
Hi, I am looking to refinance, and I recently locked in with a mortgage broker (manhattan mortgage). I couldn’t get in touch with my old mortgage person, who had moved to chase bank. Today, I got a call from her, who I loved, and she offered me a rate of .25 less than the other…
Hi,
I am looking to refinance, and I recently locked in with a mortgage broker (manhattan mortgage). I couldn’t get in touch with my old mortgage person, who had moved to chase bank. Today, I got a call from her, who I loved, and she offered me a rate of .25 less than the other rate (which is 100$/month or so, at the amount I’m borrowing).
Now obviously I’d like to go for the cheaper rate, but the broker said he “doesn’t trust Chase”. Does anyone have good reason not to? Any more than any other bank?
Also, at what point do the mortgage brokerages charge your credit card? When you get the application in, or when you lock in the rate? I’d obviously rather not pay the double application fee but if it must be done, it must. Thanks so much for your input!
Chase is great, it is your mortgage broker you shouldn’t trust.
Eons ago (last spring/summer) we got a pre-qualification letter from Chase at a pretty decent rate (5.5%) but wound up putting our actual application in through a broker (it was a complex application with some self-employment history and reliance on rental income) who couldn’t get us a rate below 6.875%. Big difference. I asked him why it was so high and he gave me a lot of slick talking. So I went back to our original loan officer at Chase (who’d done our pre-qualification) and gave him the story, including all the reasons the broker had rattled off about why we couldn’t get a better rate. Jason (at Chase) took about 20 minutes to call me back and confirm that, while he couldn’t do 5.5%, he could do 6%). So I called our mortgage broker and asked him to forward our loan application to Chase. He f-l-i-p-p-e-d. Accused me of lying. Told me that Chase is horrible and will put all kinds of obstacles in our way, and then accused me of lying some more.
What Chase ultimately told us was that they’ve had too many bad experiences and as a result they don’t offer brokers any express lane anymore, and that they want to use their own appraiser and won’t accept the appraisal that the broker got for us. All of which seemed entirely reasonable. It sucked that we’d already paid a fee to our broker and had to pay a second application fee, but Chase turned our application around in record time and, though we never closed (the seller had a freak out, long story) Nothing that happened leading up to the closing gave me the impression that Chase wasn’t perfectly forthcoming. We accepted our deposit back three days before closing so we were *right* on the cusp.
If we’d had time to mess around, I would have tried to stop payment on our mortgage broker because he was flatly refusing to forward the application he’d compiled for us to Chase and there is no good legal reason why he can do that. We never committed to only take a mortgage from someone who’d give him a commission and the paperwork we signed said only that we understood that he may receive financial consideration from the lender. Unfortunately, we thought we had to leap to action to get our mortgage application processed through Chase in time for a closing that never happened.
I’m pretty sour on all brokers after our experience, but at a minimum if a reputable bank is offering you a better rate, your broker is probably just trying to cling to the threads of their commission.
There are plenty of fly-by-night banks out there, but Chase is not one of them.
Smart chap once told me, you don’t care who you borrow money FROM, only who you give it TO.
Granted, if your lender’s called Soprano or Paulie Walnuts, I’d maybe take a second look at my mantra. Otherwise, if the rates are low and you (and your property type) qualify, then the fact that your mortgage broker “doesn’t trust” Chase, means diddly.
Good luck!
I meant exited
Chase has excited the wholesale mortgage business. They are still doing correspondant lending to bankers. Bankers are responsible for the performance of their loans for a given period of time. Therefore their loans are less risky to Chase.
In my opinion Chase is OK. I have my mortgage with them because one year ago they really didn’t care about presale requirement for condos. That has since changed. I havent had any issues with them and I am happy with the servicing.
I would be happy to discuss your situation. I am a direct mortgage banker and have helped numerous brownstoners already. I sell loans to most of the major lenders so I have access to all their programs. One issue that you may have with a broker today is turntimes. Some of the best priced wholesale lenders are at ridiculous turn times of more than 2 weeks once they submit your file.
Click my handle or google my name.
Adam
adahill@approvedfunding.com
I am not a professional but it seems that if you get a closing document that states the rate, you’re good.
Maybe your broker means that they don’t trust that Chase will actually deliver what they are advertising.
Once the deal is done, it’s done.
There was an article today or yesterday that Chase is no longer working with mortgage brokers… so that might be why he “doesn’t trust them”, in other words, he’s not able to work with them. The theory is that brokers can shop around for the best rate, but in reality, their selection is fairly limited.