Best Place to Look for a Mortgage

[PricklyPete]

I'm completely new to the whole house buying affair and I am wanting to know where is the best place to start with trying to get a Mortgage for a new home. I bank at Wachovia which is probably too big and impersonal to get a loan. I also belong to a Credit Union that I basically only have a car loan from. Obviously there is also all these online firms trying to sell you Mortgages (ING is an example...and I have my savings account with them).

Anyway, I'm kind of lost and there seems to be so many options. Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks.

 

[lancestorm]

I too am interested.

Specifially a low rate on a 30 year fixed. Also low closing costs.

 

[Abe Froman]

B of A...30 year fixed...Go to your local branch and get one!

Edit- You want to make sure that they will remain the mortgage holders, and that it is not sold in the secondary market to a third party. Third party loan servicing comapnies will cause you to incur all types of fees and penalties for things you have never heard of. They will charge you 100 dollars for a payoff, 7.95 to make a mortgage payment over the phone....its pretty ridiculous. This is why I have my mortgage with B of A.

 

[iamwiz82]

Just a word of warning, we went through 3 different mortgage companies before we found one that wasn't trying to screw us in the ass.

The whole experience has left me pretty leery of the industry.

On the bright side, the one we have now seems to be really good, plus he is waiving the closing costs and there are no points.

 

[Lola]

i find that referrals of people you trust will work the best.
ask around!

 

[rh71]

referral for us too... we went with a specific guy at Wells Fargo local to here. We did shop around (physically go into banks and talked to them) before we settled. Did the online thing first to weed out the ones who were nowhere near the terms we wanted.

 

[PricklyPete]

Ah...so online is definitely not the way to go?

Have people really had bad experiences with their mortgages being sold off to larger institutions...I thought that was pretty much par for the course unless you went with a really large bank (Wachovia, B of A, ING, etc.).

 

[iamwiz82]

Originally posted by: PricklyPete
Ah...so online is definitely not the way to go?

Have people really had bad experiences with their mortgages being sold off to larger institutions...I thought that was pretty much par for the course unless you went with a really large bank (Wachovia, B of A, ING, etc.).

I'm not saying online is not the way to go, but be very careful with whatever mortgage company you choose.

 

[frankie38]

www.hsh.com

start here. good luck

 

[CalvinHobbes]

We've been with at least 5 mortgage companies in 5 years. Our mortgage has been sold, we've refinanced twice and we've never had any issues. Our latest mortgage co. is GMAC. This last time we refinanced, I went to Bankrate.com to get rates and then called and talked to the people to confirm the rates and get a feel for their company. I also got good faith estimates.

 

[nakedfrog]

Originally posted by: rh71
referral for us too... we went with a specific guy at Wells Fargo local to here. We did shop around (physically go into banks and talked to them) before we settled. Did the online thing first to weed out the ones who were nowhere near the terms we wanted.

I'm also going through Wells Fargo, and they seem pretty decent.