Before Rate Shopping

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If I was getting a mortgage, I'd look to see what rates are out there. Heck, we even moved to back to being brokers to make sure we could shop your rate across as many investors as possible. 

Online shopping has taught us to look for the lowest price and to order it. It's what most everything will recommend on the first few pages of Google, but for the most part advertised rates are exactly that-ads designed to get the phone to ring, so I've made this video to explain how the mortgage business works. 

The rates are almost always based on unrealistic assumptions about the parameters of the file, have hidden discount points or fees for things like origination. Worse than that, some loan officers fail to perform and either close late, which costs money, if they close at all. You can look at more accurate rate averages here and if you click "Learn About Our Rate Survey," you can see why this is more accurate and timely.  

For the most part, the lowest rate typically has the highest cost and a low rate with the wrong strategy could cost you thousands. It's the same reason you probably trust retailers like Target over the cheapest sites like Wish.com or Alibaba. If the lowest rate was what truly mattered most, there would only be one or two mortgage companies that everyone worked with.