Mortgage Loans

[cassembler]

Looks like next week is the week to seek pre-approval!

Long and short, a local mortgage bank comes highly recommended, and retains servicing on 98% of their loans, so that's probably my top pick. BUT, I've been "schooled" to always shop around, and am also considering Chase (bank with them) and USAA... Any thoughts on if the additional inquiries/hastles are worth the potential benefits?

[webhopper]

Don't do it.... I shopped and it dropped my score enough so that by the time I was ready to close; I was not approved anymore and I had to go with a 20 yr mortgage instead of a 30 yr. Stick with one lender. I tried my local bank first and their system pulled mu score three times only to decline. Then I went to another lender and they pulled twice then declined. Then I went to my sellers lender. They pulled twice; decline. Keep in mind that I made an offer with 4 pre approval letters sitting in my inbox.

I finally went with a broker who was very aggressive in fixing an error on my report caused by santander consumer Usa. Santander bought an account with citi auto that was a 0 balance account in 2009... they reported a chargeoff on a 0 balance account in 2010! The darn thing was paid off before they even bought it. Anyways; long story short; pick a lender who will fight for you. Literally my broker was on a three way call with santanders executive office threatening to sue their pants off!

My initial credit pulls had a middle score of 698... by the time the fiasco was over I had a 681 and barely got to close.

[JusdoNit]

Have a good idea of who you may want to go with and start there.  As you make offers on homes you like you may find yourself having to be cross qualified with several lenders.  Each home will have it's "must be cross qualified with X before submitting your offer"  in it's realtor notes.  Not all do, but by the time it was over with i was preapproved or cross qualified with several (and yes more than 5) lenders.