Urchina
Full time employment: Posting here.
Yesterday I spent an hour or so talking (in two separate conversations) to a couple of mortgage brokers. We're thinking about moving into a larger house and want to know if we'll be able to keep this place as a rental and still buy a larger place.
The difference between the brokers was stunning. One guy told me, off the top, that if I wanted a 30-year fixed on both places I was dreaming, and that reality dictated that we'd need to go with a portfolio lender and get a 5 or 7 year option ARM if we wanted to stand a chance of getting a mortgage for a bigger place. He pointed out that we would need to refinance when the ARM reset in five years, probably, but implied that since that was in the future we wouldn't need to worry about it now. (Hello? With interest rates at a current low, why would I want to refi in five years when they're almost assuredly going to go up?)
The second guy I talked to said "Well, here's how to do what you want to do" and then proceeded to lay out the calculations and conditions (many of which are new as of this month per Freddie/Fannie changes) so that we could crunch the numbers ourselves.
I hadn't shopped for a mortgage broker before, but after this experience will never choose the first broker I talk to again, for sure. We still don't know if we'll be able to get a bigger place with or without keeping this one (haven't run the numbers yet) but I do know which broker I won't be using.
The difference between the brokers was stunning. One guy told me, off the top, that if I wanted a 30-year fixed on both places I was dreaming, and that reality dictated that we'd need to go with a portfolio lender and get a 5 or 7 year option ARM if we wanted to stand a chance of getting a mortgage for a bigger place. He pointed out that we would need to refinance when the ARM reset in five years, probably, but implied that since that was in the future we wouldn't need to worry about it now. (Hello? With interest rates at a current low, why would I want to refi in five years when they're almost assuredly going to go up?)
The second guy I talked to said "Well, here's how to do what you want to do" and then proceeded to lay out the calculations and conditions (many of which are new as of this month per Freddie/Fannie changes) so that we could crunch the numbers ourselves.
I hadn't shopped for a mortgage broker before, but after this experience will never choose the first broker I talk to again, for sure. We still don't know if we'll be able to get a bigger place with or without keeping this one (haven't run the numbers yet) but I do know which broker I won't be using.