Thanks, Closing and Mortgage advice

Congratulations! and enjoy! The greatest real estate in the world is in Manhattan.

Try Manhattan Mortgage(brokers) and I'm pretty sure SE commenter Shong will be commenting shortly. He is very knowledgeable. Good Luck.

spqsydney: Congratulations and best of luck. I agree with steveF (not words I type frequently) about Manhattan Mortgage. They are pros. I think M. Cohn is also pretty candid about how her firm makes money, so you can make an informed decision about whether their service is worth the incremental embedded cost.

I've had good results with Manhattan Mortgage.

Wells Fargo has been great to deal with on our initial purchase three years ago and a recent refi. Try Mitchell Steinberg at steinbergmortgage.com. Professional, effective and always available.

Thanks to you both. West 81st, your recommendation counts for a lot - having trawled through most of the streeteasy discussions for the past 6 months there seems to be no-one who is more highly respected as a poster than your good self.

I've had really good luck with Brian Gallagher at Countrywide/BoA. He's in NYC and knows the market well.

212.508.2227

Also, re: your question on credit scores, the banks won't take a score from you. They have to pull it themselves and really won't be able to provide you with much information or help until they do so. Also, about the reduction in scores, hard pulls occurring within a period of time are aggregated and considered only one "pull", so your score isn't affected that badly. I recently applied for a mortgage and had mine pulled 14 times (across all three agencies), and my ~800 score didn't drop in any material fashion.

spqsydney: you are not insane. Mazel tov to you! We're in a very similar situation to you and are about to go into contract on a co-op. Its a great time to buy IF you get a good deal AND you intend on sticking around for the long haul. Of course, maybe we ARE insane but we're going in with a totally clear conscience.

Sunny Hong has been great (I found him as a frequent poster on SE). He was once with Countrywide which was taken over by BoA. Very knowledgable and accessible. I would also shop around. You can try Wells and Manhattan Mortgage or Preferred Empire too. We've been quoted in the 4.8-5.25% range (depending on points) for a pseudo-jumbo.

Good luck!

spqsydney - it might be a good idea to establish a relationship with a private banker, regardless of how you proceed on this particular mortgage decision. With 500k in the bank, I don't think you should be dialing the 800 numbers anymore.

I have had great success with Manhattan Mortgage (brokerage) and Chase Mortgage (directly). Congratulations...

spqsydney: gentle question: did you check your scores and/or get pre-qualified before signing the contract?

Wow, this is all helpful, thanks and keep it coming.

Stlblufan: so you seem to be saying that the banks / financiers / mtge brokers will look at our credit scores as soon as we submit an application? I didn't realise that. But you are also saying that within a period of time, all searches will be aggregated so it doesn't really matter? So if I am following you, we should not bother to get the credit score ourselves and should just accept that the banks and others will be "pulling" (I didn't know that is what it is called).

jmkeenan: Actually, we will still have quite a bit of other liquid assets (cash) after closing as well. Sorry to sound clueless but how does one establish a relationship with a private banker? Also, doesn't that mean that he is only going to represent his/her bank's products? I don't see how that would really help.

khd: Mazel tov to you too! I think we may well be insane but there is a lot about real estate that is simply not rational. The truth is that we really really want to own. We owned in Australia, we sold when we came here, we put the proceeds in the stock market .... [I don't need to finish that sentence]. I liked owning a house, I didn't find any joy in owning shares. I am sure that there IS benefit in shares but I felt pretty hard done by (a) to lose so much money on the shares and (b) to be socked with tax on the dividends so I had some huge tax bill for 2008 even though we lost a sizeable chunk of our assets. Maybe it is dumb but I just feel a lot happier about the idea of buying furniture and decorating my new apartment that I ever did reading the (many, many and voluminous) disclosure information that we seemed to get on a daily basis.

sjbh: yes, checked scores prior to signing, info is above. Re: pre-qualified, BoA told us that they wouldn't pre-qualify "in this market" but that they would give us a mortgage up to $1m based on our assets and financials. But do you think we should have gone further?

spqsydney: totally agree 1000% on all fronts!
Re: financing: it is a confusing business. The banks will need your SS#s and check your credit scores for you. It won't hurt to have several banks check (normally you can get ding-ed if you check too often, but as long as it is associated with home purchase/load approval, the credit bureau doesn't take off points from your score).

If you have awesome credit and are getting a loan under 630K, you should be able to get a decent rate. Since you are paying such a huge down, you should be able to get a great rate, actually. The other tip I learned was not to lock in the rate until after contract signing and possibly until after you've scheduled your co-op board interview. If the rate expires before you close, you can pay a penalty to keep the rate. How to co-ordinate, beats me! I was told by one lender that at this time of year it is very hard to herd the co-op board to do the interview, which may delay the closing. Hopefully that will not be the case.

We're learning as we go along, too! Your broker should help you out with a lot of this.

spq: according to Fair Isaac:

“The score ignores all mortgage and auto inquiries made in the 30 days prior to scoring. So if you find a loan within 30 days, the inquiries won’t affect your score while you’re rate shopping. In addition, the score looks on your credit report for auto or mortgage inquiries older than 30 days. If it finds some, it counts all those inquiries that fall in a typical shopping period as just one inquiry when determining your score. For FICO scores calculated from older versions of the scoring formula, this shopping period is any 14 day span. For FICO scores calculated from the newest versions of the scoring formula, this shopping period is any 45 day span. Each lender chooses which version of the FICO scoring formula it wants the credit reporting agency to use to calculate your FICO score.”

STLBlufan - many thanks for this.

Sydney, go buy Carolyn Warren's "Mortgage Ripoffs and Money Savers" now -- it's great.

She points out that you can't compare banks to mortgage brokers because the industry won't let you.

If you use a mortgage broker, they have to tell you what they're charging you to get the loan (there's a place in the paperwork where they have to limit their spread up front) while the banks can pretty much bury their premiums in their loan.

Also -- this is me now, not Warren 00 you're not buying a house, which is situation where it's easy to shop around; that's very very tough with a co-op, because you have to lock in the loan too early to be able to jump ship if your lender moves to screw you.

Since it's hard to make the call on price (sad, since we're dealing with a commodity) I generally make the call on service. Hubby and I are buying a co-op too -- his first loan, my sixth -- and we went with a mortgage broker because a) we figured the back offices of the banks were somewhat screwed up by all the firings and b) I wasn't that pleased with the service I got directly from my bank on my last loan.

We are currently using Matthew Wahler of WCS Lending, and so far his service has been great -- but we aren't closing till June, so I feel like I'm reviewing the restaurant while I'm in the middle of the main course, before I've had dessert and seen the bill.

ali r.
{downtown broker}

Very helpful - thanks Ali!

spqsydney: Use a mortgage broker and go to your local branch(es), asap.

The standard co-op contract grants you a limited amount of time to turn in the purchase application and you cannot turn in the app. w/o the paper work from the bank giving you the loan (yet there is always 'wiggle room'). Your atty. & broker are aware of this. Once the bank okays you they have to okay the co-op.

I'm a mortgage broker, www.esfunding.instantlender.com

To address your initial concerns:

Issue 1: do you need a mortgage broker. A good mortgage broker is very knowledgeable and should offer you personalized service. Speaking to bank reps can be frustrating since there could be some who have not been working in the business for a long time. Being informed in the business can save you money, not just on the rate, but on other issues that may arise. Unlike condos, co-ops don't have high closing costs. Yes your loan is pretty straightforward. The advantage to using a mortgage broker is that you should get a better rate and service. As far as mortgage brokers being limited to straigtforeward situations, that is not the case. For instance I was just speaking to a lender this morning who said they would finance in new condo developments that are not 50% sold.

Issue 2: about approaching banks,bank employees can be very experienced or have very little experience. You don't know who you are going to get.

Issue 3: even if you run a credit report, any lending institution will want to run their own credit. But not to worry about your score being affected, when a credit report is run several times within a small period of time,usually thirty days it shouldn't affect your credit score.

Issue 4: again as far as the best way to approach banks, it is difficult to make suggetions.

Issue 5: as far as banks going under 4.5%, this is determined by Fannie Mae. It's possible that could happen. But right now for a 30 year fixed that's not the case.

I couldn't think of a better place to buy, especially since it's going to be your primary residence. Good luck to you.

My random thoughts: I hate mortgage brokers because the application fee tends to be a bit higher. Watch all the fees. I use bankrate.com to find the lowest rate and contact the bank directly. A real estate broker is great if you are too lazy to fill out the paperwork, so get them to help you out.

I didn't think mortgage brokers charge an application fee; I know I don't.

Thanks again for all these comments. I have been away from my computer because I have just bought and read the book that Ali recommended, by Carolyn Warren. I feel hugely in a better position now and have about 10 times the information I had before! I definitely recommend this book to anyone who is looking to get a mortgage. It cost $20 and took about 3 hours to skim read.

Two questions arising out of this book:

- if we use a broker, the broker gets paid a Mortgage Broker Fee - I assume that is paid by the Borrower rather than the Bank? If there is no Mortgage Broker Feee then the broker gets a Yield Spread Premium over the course of the loan but either way, the Borrower pays for it. However, bankers don't need to disclose their YSP as this would be built into their interest rate. Sooo... a bank's underlying interest rate should be higher than a mortgage brokers because the banks yield is built into its interest rate whereas a brokers must be disclosed separately. Is my logic correct?

- Someone once posted a link on how to check your credit score directly from the credit bureaus. Does anyone still have this link?

Many thanks!

BTW, having read this book I can see that there are advantages / disadvantages to both banks and brokers but I can see more transparency in dealing with a broker (which now goes against my initial thoughts above).

There are many sites to check your credit score (including from each bureau directly). I've used Credit Expert in the past -- it's an Experian product. I think that it is pretty straightforward and easy to use, and it actually provides a "score" which is intended to reflect your FICO score. But it does cost money, whereas you can get individual reports from each bureau for free (though they won't have the aforementioned score).

http://www.creditexpert.com/Message.aspx?PageTypeID=3B3SProduct&SiteVersionID=2&SiteID=100003&sc=699999&bcd=

spqsydney - sorry for your bad experience with BofA so far. I hope that doesnt deter you from speaking to someone like myself that works there. Usually those 800 numbers direct you to someone in the midwest, which isnt a problem unless youre buying in NY, and a coop for that matter. It doesnt seem like you should have much of a problem qualifying for a mortgage and at a great rate for that matter. 4.5% may be a stretch for a fixed mortgage without any points. But certainly in the high 4% range should be feasible. More importantly, which coop are you purchasing in? Feel free to email the name of the coop and Ill just check if it is approved. sunny.hong@bankofamerica.com

Well spqsydney, I spoke too soon. We are backing out of our offer for the co-op (lawyer found too many problems to ignore). But I'm glad Sunny chimed in, he's been great so far. Good luck with closing!

Carolyn Warren here, author of the book you've just read. (And thank you for buying my book, Mortgage Rip-Offs and Money Savers.)

Banks and mortgage brokers have access to the same money from Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. You cannot categorically say a bank is cheaper or a broker is cheaper -- it is going to be somewhat up to the individual loan officer to choose the pricing they want to offer you.

But mortgage brokers are required by law to disclose their Yield Spread Premium (back end commission for selling you a rate higher than par rate), and banks are not required to disclose it and never will. In fact, they deny having YSP, because they don't call it that when they're a bank.

You have to compare Good Faith Estimates, as per the instructions in my book. There is no better way to shop for a loan than comparing the GFE.

Best wishes to you,
Carolyn Warren

Just to add to what Carolyn noted, you should be comparing the bank portion of the fees on the Good Faith Estimate. Those are the only fees the lender can control. The bottom half portion (title and taxes) may vary from one GFE to another. But in the end should be exactly the same no matter which lender you choose. Those figures should come from your attorney who then adds those fees to what the bank provides them.

Sunny: Thanks for your advice and thoughts. You are recommended from other threads as well so I will drop you a line.

Carolyn: I am impressed to be hearing from the author! Your book is great, I am happy to plug it because $20 is nothing to spend when one is making the biggest purchase in one's life. It was well worth it.

KHD: Sorry that your offer didn't work out.

STLBlufan - Info received with thanks

Streetsmart - can you please send me your e-mail details
Ali - do you have the details for Matt Wahler - WCS Lending website does not give it out.

Thanks,
Steve

this is a great thread...so much quality info.

sydney,

feel free to tell him ali rogers sent you:

Matthew Wahler
Senior Mortgage Consultant
Office : 877-536-3927 ext.120
Fax : 646-514-6088
Cell : 352-359-1560
MWahler [at] WCSLending [dot] com

WCS Lending, LLC
250 Park Avenue, Suite 410
New York, NY 10177

ali r.
{downtown broker}

Agree w Manhattan Mortgage recommendation; however, you need to call all big banks yourself since many no longer work with mortgage brokers. I was quoted 4.5% by Citi w 1 pt and 4.5% by BoA w no pts on 30-yr fixed. We found the cheapest rate at BoA, but all rates quoted by phone by NYC specialist were less than those quoted on-line. P.S. It is helpful to know your rating to know whether you qualify for best rates before you call.

Thanks Ali.

Thanks RE Mom. I have a specialist with BoA.
Does anyone have a contact person at Chase and / or Wells Fargo?
Thanks.

Anyone know what the rates are with 0 point/mortgage origination fees are these days for a new condo (less than 50% sold) in NYC at 870K with 20% down? My wife and I are looking for 30 year fix.

re: Chase, when I was looking for a mortgage (very recently), my Chase contact actually referred me to BoA. strange, I know, but he said that they (Chase) would not have a competitive rate and that I'd be better off with BoA. since I never actually got a rate out of Chase, I can't say, but I am happy with the rate I received with BoA. anyway, good luck.

In answer to your question, spqsydney, my e mail is: esfundingco@aol.com.

webstie: www.esfunding.instantlender.com, my contact numbers are listed on the site.