After you’ve read this blog in its entirety, if you want to find out how just much money you will be saving, all you have to do is talk with a mortgage broker willing to provide you a Good Faith Estimate and, as you will discover, there is a compelling reason to get that Good Faith from a broker, not a direct lender.
When you approach the broker, keep in mind that your primary objective is to convince him that you just got off the turnip truck and don’t know the first thing about mortgages. Tell him that you are looking to buy a new home or refinance the one you currently own. Be prepared to provide him with all the basic information he would ordinarily need to prepare a Good Faith Estimate – the purchase price or estimated property value; if a purchase, the down payment you are prepared to make; how much money you will have left to cover closing costs; and an overview of your credit history but don’t offer any more information than that. Just answer his questions without elaboration and act like a sheep who is indifferent to getting sheered. Once you’ve listened to him drone on about the bizillion options available to you (a strategy incidentally that clever loan officers employ not to inform but to overwhelm), ask him to prepare and fax you a Good Faith Estimate. Some brokers may refuse to do this but if you’ve done a good job convincing him that you’re mentally challenged, all you have to do is tell him that you don’t want any inquiries to show up on your credit report right now because repeated inquiries can lower your FICO score and stick to that stated conviction. In this day and age multiple inquiries could prove disastrous, especially if you have border line credit issues.
If the first broker you talk to won’t prepare a Good Faith without pulling your credit or submitting an application, keep at it until you find a broker who will.
There’s an easier option if you are one of those highly organized people who has an obsession about keeping records. You may very well be able to make a determination about your savings if you happen to have retained your paperwork from a past purchase or refinance. If you do that, make sure the lender you were dealing with was a broker. You won’t be able to determine if your lender overcharged you if you deal with anyone else.
