Anyone who’s even remotely interested in shopping for a home loan has probably paid attention to the commercials on TV touting the ease of using any of a variety of Internet services to compare mortgage offers from the comfort of your home. You may even have tried a couple of them yourself, although you truly do need to watch out when trying to use the Internet to do the heavy lifting for you. Sometimes, these Internet services might work fairly well for certain people. However, the one-size-fits-all approach they offer is going to leave a lot of people with loans that aren’t the best for them, or even worse, they may be shut out of the process altogether.
The problem with these services is that they never really get to know anything about your financial situation other than your credit history and income level. Basically, what winds up happening is that you’re reduced to a number to them. If they don’t like whatever that number is, you’re out of luck.
Here are three things you should watch out for when shopping for home-finance products on the Internet – things most online mortgage sites hope you ignore:
- Do they take the time to find out about your unique situation, or are you just a cyber-borrower in their eyes? Most of these sites simply don’t have the manpower to individually work with every borrower. So a lot of times you wind up with a bad loan simply because there was no one to check if they could have found a better deal.
- What do they offer people in special financial circumstances – such as the self-employed or people with damaged credit? Most of these sites don’t even want to work with you unless you meet their stringent criteria.
- Do they provide advice to help when choosing between loan products? Most sites simply gather offers, throw them in your lap, and pressure you to choose between them. Unless you’re a pretty experienced mortgage pro, deciding on the best offer can be difficult, if not impossible.
So, what’s the solution? Use the Internet to educate yourself and then work with a real human being. You may not have thought about “old-fashioned” methods of finding the best deal, such as working with a mortgage banker. However, for anyone who values a real person sitting down with you and working through the process, there’s no better option. Give me a call or send an email, 512.809-7680 / efranke@swbc.com - I would be happy to discuss the options available to you!
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