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Ever see those commercials from LendingTree.com where bankers compete for your home loan? Well, I tried it, and they do. My big accomplishment for the day is finding a 20 year fixed rate mortgage for 4.5% (that's right: four point five percent) from Olympic Funding.
In talking to the representative, I learned that they only make about five offers a day rather than 30 (by using filters for credit ratings) so that they can follow up personally. The fact that their rate was the best didn't hurt either. I won't be saving much money from month to month, but I'll be paying our house off in twenty years instead of thirty.
Last year, we refinanced with a mortgage broker, Dan the Mortgage Man. Mistake. He put is into a loan with an early repayment penalty to get a lower rate and didn't tell us about it (yes, I should have read the contract). Basically, if we refinance within the first five years, we'd have to pay six months worth of interest as a penalty. Ouch.
I called the lender we would owe the penalty to to see if they would waive it if we refinanced with them. The answer was 'I'll have to check.' Wrong answer. Goodbye, Countrywide. Besides, their rate was in the high fives.
"The shortest and surest way to live with honour in the world, is to be in reality what we would appear to be; and if we observe, we shall find, that all human virtues increase and strengthen themselves by the practice of them." -Socrates