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Verbal Interest Rate Lock

If you are in the process of refinancing your home mortgage there are a number of costly pitfalls that can lead to overpaying thousands of dollars.

Rate locks are commonly misunderstood by many homeowners and not locking properly can lead to an expensive mistake. Here are several tips to help you avoid paying too much for your next home mortgage loan.

Verbal Interest Rate Lock

When it comes to locking in your mortgage rate there is one simple rule. If you haven’t got it in writing, you haven’t got it at all. When it comes to mortgage loans, verbal agreements just don’t exist. You must get it in writing AND the rate lock confirmation HAS to come from the lender, not your mortgage broker. Here’s why.

Many mortgage brokers try and pass off rate lock confirmation written on their own company letterhead. If you have a document from your mortgage broker confirming rate lock, then you do not have written confirmation of the lock. Mortgage brokers do this to conceal the commission they are getting from the lender for marking up your mortgage rate. Lenders pay a premium to mortgage brokers that lock and close home loans with higher than market interest rates. This commission paid to your mortgage broker is known as Yield Spread Premium and can unknowingly cost you thousands of dollars per year.

Bottom line, if your mortgage broker tells you that you have verbally locked your interest rate or they give you a bogus written confirmation typed up on their own letterhead, your mortgage broker is hiding the fact that they’re ripping you off.

Mortgage Yield Spread Premium

Mortgage brokers are compensated for their work by charging you an origination fee for arranging your home loan. They can also receive a commission from the lender for marking up your mortgage rate. For every .25 percent that you agree to overpay when refinancing your mortgage loan, the broker receives a commission of one percent of your loan amount for overcharging you. This markup of .25 percent may not seem like much; however, many brokers charge as much as .75 percent (or more) and over the course of a year this can have a dramatic affect on your mortgage payments.

Here’s a simple example to illustrate how commission based markup of your mortgage rate results in paying too much. Suppose for example you are refinancing your home for $315,000. Your broker quotes you a mortgage rate of 5.75 percent and charges you a fee of 1.5 percent for arranging your loan. On paper these numbers should good; however, consider the 1.5 percent or $4,725 that you’re paying the mortgage broker for “getting you a good deal.”

What your mortgage broker isn’t telling you is that your lender qualified
you for a 5.0 percent mortgage rate but your broker marked it up to 5.75 percent to get a 3.0 percent commission from the lender. That means your broker pockets your $4,725 AND $9,450 from the mortgage lender…that’s a total of $14,175 for overcharging you on your home mortgage loan.

How does this .75 percent affect your mortgage payment amount? Plug the numbers into a simple mortgage payment calculator and you’ll see that in this example the payment amount for a 30 year, fixed-rate mortgage loan of $315,000 at 5.75 percent will be $1,840 per month. If you had the mortgage rate you deserve at 5.0 percent your monthly payment would only be $1,690. That’s a savings of $150 per month or $1,800 per year!

Now you know that a verbal interest rate lock is not the right way to refinance because your mortgage broker is using it to conceal the Yield Spread Premium on your home loan. How can you avoid this costly and unnecessary markup of your mortgage interest rate?

How to Avoid Overpaying Your Mortgage Broker

To avoid paying Yield Spread Premium when refinancing your home loan you simply need to find the right mortgage broker for the job. There are honest brokers out there willing to refinance your home for a flat one percent origination fee without charging Yield Spread Premium on your loan… you just need to find the right one. You don’t have to be a financial guru to pull this off either; learn the lingo and a few tips for negotiation with your mortgage broker and you can walk away with the deal I’m describing for your next home loan. My underground mortgage videos show you how to do just this…all of the information you need to save thousands of dollars on your next mortgage in one easy to follow video tutorial.

So who is the right mortgage broker? It’s probably not going to be the brokers with the full page advertisement in your phone book or the one with a company hummer plastered with their logo. Mortgage brokers with advertising budgets, expensive sales staff, posh office spaces, and company hummers all have enormous operating expenses and will most likely be unwilling or unable to negotiate the type of deal you’re looking for when refinancing your home mortgage.

The right person for the job is a small time self-employed mortgage broker often working from home. This person will have been working as mortgage broker for at least ten years. This kind of mortgage broker will be much more likely to agree to refinance you home for a one percent origination fee without bringing Yield Spread Premium into the picture. You’ll also need to know which fees are garbage and need to be avoided… fees like mortgage broker courier fees for example. You’ll need to know where to spot and how to recognize these junks fees; here’s a tip, you won’t find them on your Good Faith Estimate.

Good Faith Estimate

Speaking of the Good Faith Estimate (GFE), don’t put much faith in this document. The GFE has become little more than a marketing tool used along with the Annual Percentage Rate (APR) to lure unsuspecting homeowners into overpriced mortgage loans. Truth in lending laws require that lenders provide you these documents; however, there are very few standards for what mortgage lenders are required to disclose. Fortunately your lender is required to give you one document prior to closing that will reveal everything your mortgage broker may be working so hard to conceal…

You can learn more about mortgage refinancing without the unnecessary markup of your mortgage rate and lender junk fees by registering for my Underground Mortgage Videos. Register today and you’ll have immediate access in the password protected member’s area to all the mortgage videos without downloading anything to your PC or Mac.

{ 1 comment… add one }
  • Kalyan March 11, 2011, 4:56 am

    I recently applied for 5/1 with a rate lock. I have received broker letter stating the rate not directly from the lender. a) if some one want to walk out from a broker what fees the borrower is obligated to? In the paperwork it says things like appraisal fee is non-refundable. Is this fee refundable if appraisal has not started or appraisal is canceled by the borrower in the last minute? b) is it wise to go with zero closing costs as that allows refinancing after say a year (assuming lender does not allow refinancing within a year)?

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