Home Builders

[tanyagarrett]

Is it better to go with the Home Builders LO?

[ezdriver]

Some builders, my employer included, require that its mortgage partner do your preapproval. We do not accept preapprovals from any "outside" lender. We offer a 3% [of final price of home] closing costs assistance when our lender partners is used to finance the purchase. That is a huge incentive to use our lender partner. One of my competitors down the stree from my community offers a flat $3,500 closing costs assistance so that is less of an incentive in my opinion.

[onrails]

I'm kind of the middle of that as well.  My builder offers 6500 in closing costs with their lender and 3500 if you go with an outside lender.  I have estimates from both and am weighing the options.  

So far, they come out about equal on the bottom line because the fees are so much higher with the builders lender.  The interest rates ended up being exactly the same.  Of course, the builder's lender has a lot more to play with so if they really want to, they can beat out most any outside lender on paper because the math is in their favor.  Just depends on how much they are willing to budge.  

But in my case, unless the difference is huge, I'm probably going to stick with my local lender just because I feel comfortable with them, they know my situation already, and I feel like I am getting excellent service from my LO.  That's worth a few hundred dollars to me.

[ShanetheMortgageMan]

---

@ezdriver wrote:

Some builders, my employer included, require that its mortgage partner do your preapproval. We do not accept preapprovals from any "outside" lender. We offer a 3% [of final price of home] closing costs assistance when our lender partners is used to finance the purchase. That is a huge incentive to use our lender partner. One of my competitors down the stree from my community offers a flat $3,500 closing costs assistance so that is less of an incentive in my opinion.

---

What happens if your mortgage partners can't approve someone but an outside lender can?  Will you accept outside lenders pre-approvals in that situation?

[edcampbell613]

I am wondering when thats all going to change. All these laws.

[ezdriver]

---

@ShanetheMortgageMan wrote:

---

@ezdriver wrote:

Some builders, my employer included, require that its mortgage partner do your preapproval. We do not accept preapprovals from any "outside" lender. We offer a 3% [of final price of home] closing costs assistance when our lender partners is used to finance the purchase. That is a huge incentive to use our lender partner. One of my competitors down the stree from my community offers a flat $3,500 closing costs assistance so that is less of an incentive in my opinion.

---

What happens if your mortgage partners can't approve someone but an outside lender can?  Will you accept outside lenders pre-approvals in that situation?

---

We will not write a purchase agreement based on a preapproval from any lender other than our mortgage partner. Corporate policy. We do give the 3% closing cost assistance if our mortgage partner declines the app in underwriting. I have two buyers in that situation right now.