LOL...
Welcome to mortgage hell....home of constant worry andsleep deprivation. Torture comes during the infamous hell week!! 
Congrats SunknLiner!
I actually greatly appreciate your posting your letter... I somewhat fortunately didn't "have" to write one in my case (Realtor suggested might be helpful and I was like dude, it's two guys selling their mom's house that was in a trust, it's all about the money) because I really didn't know what I could've said as my purchasing decision is somewhat coldly rational when looking at it; did read some things off a web search that suggest taking note of what you see in the walkthrough and using that to write the letter as I can see you did, so I'll definitely be on the lookout for that next time heh.
Also appreciated the content myself, had I been the seller, I would've definitely given it a second glance and I'm not one to make many emotional decisions.
@Anonymous wrote:Question:
Prior to going shopping over the weekend, I submitted a mortgage application with my local area bank. The branch manager just called me to ask where to send a formal committment letter, and the terms are outstanding at 3.5%. Now, I have already provided a copy of the Purchase & Sale Agreement, as well as all of the other documentation requested, to the mortgage broker recommended by my Realtor. He has yet to respond, but I only did this yesterday.
What are the rules here? Can I work with both at the same time, and then cut one loose when the other proves to be a better option? I assume the broker will eventually land a lender for my USDA RD, and approach me with their terms. At that point, if things are working well with the local bank I contacted directly, can I just say "No thanks!" and move on? Or, because I have already started the process with the broker, and I locked in to working with him?
This is just my opinion after going through the initial steps (probably rushed) of the process. Not gospel.
You can work with two lenders; just be aware it's double the cost (you're on the hook for both appraisals typically) if you go down that route. I might because I'm just really really unconfident with my lenders right now. While a part of me hopes my offer is accepted, another half is thinking: I could really use two weeks to nail down some lenders and get this done right. I know what I personally need and if I just need to pay some money to do it, that's a bargain.
There's some push back and I can honestly see their point: if you want a lender to commit to you, you should commit to them, but I'm finding it's non-trivially hard to get it done... there's so many steps and every lender is different: hard to know if one UW department is going to screw up, and while I understand that happens, when I in theory have to close in 30 days, and it's going to cost me my earnest money if I don't... sigh. Paying 5 application fees even would be a bargain-basement price as an insurance policy.
I can infer that it's such a big problem (from the lender perspective) that within the last year Chase has rewritten their policies to stop costing them as much time (money) on deals they weren't winning... which sucks as they were doing something kind of unique unfortunately, and it's precisely what I need meh. At this point I just need to know I'm going to get funded and I just don't even care what the rate is: I'll refi in six months if it sucks.
End of the day I'm realizing I have to sort getting a mortgage pretty much on my own (with helpful education from the folks here, again thank you thank you thank you!) because much of the mortgage industry, is a little confused when looked at in small pieces. Do what you need to do to get a loan underwritten, make peace with the lenders as you desire.
...I have two lenders on the hook ...one is my USDA specialist ...but she's not registered with the state bond program so I went to a recommended lender that is but doesn't do USDA loans ...the USDA program has turned out to be too restrictive for me in that 95% of the homes in the target area that meet my max price/min acreage needs are manufactured homes that USDA won't finance ...I found 3 stick built homes in the past 6 months and not one of them panned out for various reasons ...so I decided to try FHA but that meant I would need state bond help to cover dp/closing costs ...thus the lender switch ...both have been very responsive and are still working with me ...when/if I get a good contract fully accepted, I'll have to actually pay a fee to the one that best fits the contract ...until then, I have no qualms about using both ...hth
Amazing Journey! Congratulations 