How do you go about "shopping your loan" around?

[mccallb]

I am currently building a home and am about 11 weeks away from completion.  I have already given the builder my deposit,(obviously) and have the cash saved up to pay 5% to get a conventional loan.

I currently have a bank which appears to be filled with sheisters and crooks and am interested in seeing if anyone else is interested in my loan.

I know I'll lock my rate around 8 weeks out, so my question now is, to avoid unnecessary inquiries, should I wait until i'm 8 weeks out and shop the loan around then?  I started this process in the beginning of May and have no inquiries or new credit since.

I just realized, I don't even know where to start to just pass this stuff to someone else.  Also, any chance another lender would match my $2500 preferred lender credit to get my business, or is that likely out of the question?

Thanks!

[DrZoidberg]

I would start at a credit union if you could. Their PMI is usually lower and their rates are better. We shopped around without applying and landed on a local CU that had the lowest PMI, best rates and guarantee not to sell off the loan. 

[mccallb]

Oh, thats a great idea. I can take it to someone who can give me an idea without applying?  

I really dont want to get a bunch of credit inquiries 4 weeks before i should be locking my rate.

[Anonymous]

Starting in 2012, I started contacting loan companies to inquire about rates. Most are happy to give information based on their knowledge of the company they work for when you give them a detailed account of your finances. You don't give them your social.

And they don't do hard pulls for general info unless you tell them too.

Also, last I heard, you can do hard pulls within a 15 day period and it only counts as one due to your just mortgage shopping around. This might have changed for a longer period since then, maybe 30 days now.

Check and make sure.

Good luck and start asking around. Make those calls.

[ezdriver]

Depends on the objective that you are trying to achieve. If referring to rate shopping, I suggest that other than getting some generic/general rate information from a few lenders, there is not other way to guarantee any rate until you lock one. Generally, you are not in a position to lock a rate until a mortgage application and supporting documentation have been reviewed by an underwriter.

My recommendation would be to:

1) Select a lender and obtain a preapproval. This ste would include some prescreening of the lender/loan officer by the borrower.

2) Find the target property and secure a purchase agreement.

3) Submit loan application to lender used for preapproval and maybe two other sources....simultaneously.

4) Make final lender selection based on results received from lenders.

My opinion is that if one still feels the need to shop around for a mortgage after working with up to three lenders, then the borrower is unrealistic in approach, process and expectations.

[bdhu2001]

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@ezdriver wrote:

Depends on the objective that you are trying to achieve. If referring to rate shopping, I suggest that other than getting some generic/general rate information from a few lenders, there is not other way to guarantee any rate until you lock one. Generally, you are not in a position to lock a rate until a mortgage application and supporting documentation have been reviewed by an underwriter.

My recommendation would be to:

1) Select a lender and obtain a preapproval. This ste would include some prescreening of the lender/loan officer by the borrower.

2) Find the target property and secure a purchase agreement.

3) Submit loan application to lender used for preapproval and maybe two other sources....simultaneously.

4) Make final lender selection based on results received from lenders.

My opinion is that if one still feels the need to shop around for a mortgage after working with up to three lenders, then the borrower is unrealistic in approach, process and expectations.

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Great information EZ driver. I'm not sure if I used this site or Zillow for lender prescreening.  I believe it was this and I ended up getting calls from lenders.  I just picked up the phone on three and let the machine answer the rest.  Thus I ended up with three Pre-approvals and hard inquiries.

What EZ driver said is better, because you just have the one hit until you actually find and secure a purchase agreement; then you take the three hits or two more hard pulls and inquiries on your credit report.  Everything I read stated that all of the mortgage pulls w/in 15 days are treated the same, but that's only if everything is coded correctly and they realize it's a mortgage company.  Because the pull won't say ____Mortgage, it will say clear choice or some other entity that the mortgage company uses for credit reports.

[mccallb]

Im in a weird problem.  I contracted to build a home in May.  The builder had a "preferred lender" who was an actual person, not a bank. Let's call him Adolph.

Adolph preapproved me in the beginning of May for a loan with the bank he was employed at, lets call it "Austria".

Sometime in May, Adolph got fired from Austria, and moved to a new bank, lets call it Berlin.  Berlin pulled my credit in mid May, at Adolph's request, although I'd never ever heard of Berlin.

Fast forward a few months and many more illegal scumbag things, and Adolph has been fired.  

Now I've been assigned a new LO officer in Berlin, lets call him Goebbels.  Goebbels is a lying moron.  

Fast forward to today, and I'm sick of the whole thing.  They've broken ground on my home and its set to be complete in 11 weeks.  The builder has 3% of the sales price in cash as a deposit, and my current bank is having to rewrite my application from scratch.  (This is after Adolph sabotaged it and Goebbells lied about everything he was supposed to do with it...)  Since I have to start a whole new application, I have no interest in sticking around in Berlin.  (Its terrible here)

So... I'm trying to figure out the best way to jump ship without hurting my credit or screw anything up between now and November.  Goebbells wants to pull my credit again now, even though its going to need to get pulled again in November, just because he's a lazy moron. 

My credit has been on the mend, and is right around a 700.  Until my inquiries in May for the home, I had none for the last year, and am desparately trying to get above a 700  (preferably 720) by the time I lock my rate.