Best Mortgage Company in San Antonio
If you are buying or refinancing a house, you want to get the lowest mortgage rate possible and find the best mortgage company in San Antonio. After all, mortgages are a commodity. You do not get extra special benefits for paying more every month.
What Is A Mortgage?
A mortgage is a type of loan that uses your home as collateral. It’s typically used to buy a home or in refinancing situations to secure a more favorable deal and possibly convert equity in your home to cash. If you have the resources, you could consider paying with cash, but most people either don’t have that option, don’t want to deplete their life savings or divert money from other investments.
Plus, mortgage interest is usually deductible from your taxes. You usually have one mortgage tied to your home at any given time. However, one of the ways to access home equity is to take out another mortgage that takes a second priority. You can also do a refi to fold your second mortgage back into a primary mortgage. We’ll touch on why you might do that a bit later.
The first thing you need to know about mortgage rates or any interest rates is that you’ll often see two of them when you’re shopping around. The lower of the two interest rates is what your principal and interest payment is based upon every month. The second, higher interest rate often displayed next to or below the interest rate for monthly payments is called the annual percentage rate (APR). The APR incorporates the interest rate associated with your monthly payment, but it also factors in closing costs and any applicable mortgage insurance payments. You can find all closing fees on your loan estimate.
APR is intended to give you a look at the true cost of the loan. One easy way to get an idea of relative differences in costs between lenders is to look at the difference between the interest rate and the APR. A bigger difference will mean more costs associated with originating the loan.
Check your credit report before the lender does.
You need to convince lenders that you’ve got the financial discipline required to pay back your mortgage. One way they investigate this is by searching your credit report(s) to find out if you have got a good repayment history. Your credit report lists details from any accounts you’ve had open over the past six years, including:
- Credit cards
- Loans
- Overdrafts
- Mortgages
- Some utilities
If your credit file info’s wrong, you have a right to do something about it – either having the error corrected or, at the very least, having your say. Your first step should be to check if the error is on your credit file held with other agencies, then talking to the lender.
Check your file with other agencies. See if your file with them has the same error. If you get it corrected with one agency the information should be sent to the others, but it’s better to contact them yourself to ensure your file with all three – TransUnion, Equifax, and Experian – have the right details.
Contact the lender. Most will have a system in place to deal with customer disputes, and if you’ve proof, it should be resolved quickly. Write to it, say you think the error is unfair, and ask it to wipe it from your file. If it is a default and you’re prepared to settle with your lender, either in part or in full, you could also try negotiating with it. As part of negotiations, you could make a condition of settlement that the default is wiped off your credit file. Companies can do this for disputed defaults.
Your ex-partner’s score can wreck yours
Ex-partner can impact your credit score. If you’re financially linked to someone else (which only happens when you apply for joint credit, such as a bank account, mortgage, or loan) but you’re now separated or have nothing to do with them, then de-link yourself.
If not, any late payments or misdemeanour they’ve committed will reflect badly on you. Write to the credit agencies and ask for a notice of ‘disassociation. You could still be linked to old flatmates if you had a joint bank account for bills, so it’s worth checking that their credit history isn’t affecting yours. If it is, de-link yourself quickly. Even if the person you are linked to has a good history now, you still risk problems in the future if they miss payments. For more information about purchasing and financing your first home, contact Pilgrim Mortgage today here. Or send us an email here.
