Better to go with mortgage broker or direct lender?

[wwinter]

Hi everyone. Thank you in advance for your collective thoughts and wisdom.

My wife and I are looking to do a cash out refi. Our house is worth $620k and we owe $340k. We have a 30 year fixed at 4.5% via Wells Fargo. 

My question is, for a cash out refi would we be better off working directly with WF or other direct lenders or would we be better off working through a mortgage broker? Is there a particular advantage to going either route?

The middle FICO score for the lower of the two of us is 677. Our DTI is currently 33%. After refi I estimate our DTI to be around 38%. Our cc utilization is 14%. We've been with WF for 5.5 years now.

Looking forward to you responses!

[StartingOver10]

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@wwinter wrote:

Hi everyone. Thank you in advance for your collective thoughts and wisdom.

My wife and I are looking to do a cash out refi. Our house is worth $620k and we owe $340k. We have a 30 year fixed at 4.5% via Wells Fargo. 

My question is, for a cash out refi would we be better off working directly with WF or other direct lenders or would we be better off working through a mortgage broker? Is there a particular advantage to going either route?

The middle FICO score for the lower of the two of us is 677. Our DTI is currently 33%. After refi I estimate our DTI to be around 38%. Our cc utilization is 14%. We've been with WF for 5.5 years now.

Looking forward to you responses!

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You are better off going with a non-bank mortgage banker.  They are correspondent lenders and many have the ability to not only originate, underwrite and fund the mortgage but to broker it out too.  Don't go directly to a big box bank (IME) because their overlays are much more restrictive than any of the non-bank mortgage originators.  Wells is particularly bad at originating mortgages.  They are good at servicing, but their origination process leaves much to be desired.  

[wwinter]

One other thing.... my wife just signed up with PenFed and was given a cc with 0% apr and a $5k initial limit. Should we look at PenFed for our cash out refi? Anyone have any experiences with PenFed and refis?

[StartingOver10]

Do a search here for PenFed mortgages. Seems that someone posted recently about their individual process.

My opinion, it is best to go to a mortgage banker that only originates, underwrites and funds mortgages for the best rates, closing costs and best process.  Otherwise, you are working with people that originate mortgages along with other banking functions (which is not a good thing IME). JMO.  Go where the lender knows what they are doing and has a variety of mortgage programs to suit your needs.