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expired Posted by Greenworld123 • Dec 8, 2019
expired Posted by Greenworld123 • Dec 8, 2019

Amex offer: $2,500 statement credit for home refinance Better.com

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Must have an amex to add offer to your account. Details:

Unlock even more as an
American Express® Card Member with an exclusive mortgage offer from Better.com
Better.com is making the homebuying and refinance experiences more rewarding, with a $2,500 statement credit and more, exclusively for eligible Card Members. See offer terms below.

https://www.americanexpress.com/u...-OfferHub2

EDIT information from Better.com!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Hello,
I work with Better,com and wanted to see if you could please add in the following information to your post on Amex/Better,com deal as it reads incorrect as it stands, especially regarding eligibility. We want to make sure the offer is stated as accurately as possible:
1) Mortgage rates of any specific customer, stated or otherwise, should not be taken as indicative of a mortgage rate available to all customers. Pricing is based on a number of factors, including the individual credit profile of a potential borrower.
2) The offer is only available to those borrowers who have been marketed to directly by American Express, and those who have not received the offer on their Amex portal or via email are not eligible.
Community Notes
About the Poster
Deal Details
Community Notes
About the Poster
Must have an amex to add offer to your account. Details:

Unlock even more as an
American Express® Card Member with an exclusive mortgage offer from Better.com
Better.com is making the homebuying and refinance experiences more rewarding, with a $2,500 statement credit and more, exclusively for eligible Card Members. See offer terms below.

https://www.americanexpress.com/u...-OfferHub2

EDIT information from Better.com!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Hello,
I work with Better,com and wanted to see if you could please add in the following information to your post on Amex/Better,com deal as it reads incorrect as it stands, especially regarding eligibility. We want to make sure the offer is stated as accurately as possible:
1) Mortgage rates of any specific customer, stated or otherwise, should not be taken as indicative of a mortgage rate available to all customers. Pricing is based on a number of factors, including the individual credit profile of a potential borrower.
2) The offer is only available to those borrowers who have been marketed to directly by American Express, and those who have not received the offer on their Amex portal or via email are not eligible.

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Jul 4, 2020
6,329 Posts
Joined Oct 2010
Jul 4, 2020
YanksIn2009
Jul 4, 2020
6,329 Posts
Quote from Freak4Dell :
My initial approval was with my builder's preferred lender. When it came time to rate lock, they offered 3.5% with about $9K in closing costs (to be covered by the builder, so really $0 for me). I started shopping at that time, because I knew 3.5% was high. Ally offered 3.375%. A local mortgage broker offered the same. SoFi did 3.25%. Better matched the 3.25% with a lower closing cost. PenFed wanted to lock me at 3.0%. UFCU quoted me at 2.875%, and then the next day called me again and said if I locked right away, they could do 2.75%. Closing costs at all of the above excluding the builder's lender were in the $5-6K range. I don't bother shopping based on closing costs because 1) anything they do to make the closing costs $0 is just offset in the rate or somewhere else, and 2) while I don't plan on staying in the home I do plan on keeping the home and mortgage so my considerations are total cost over the full length of the loan.

For me, not just blindly going with the lender will save me about $40K over the life of the loan. I'll spend a little more cash now, but will get huge savings overall. And this is a relatively small mortgage. A quarter point rate difference can make a huge impact on something like a jumbo loan. So it's absolutely worth shopping around, and worrying about credit inquiries is totally silly. With everything being online, it only took me a couple hours to shop around. I filled out applications one night before I went to bed, and started receiving calls the next day.

The only regret I have is that I didn't wait until getting the quotes from the credit unions before I asked Better for a price match. They granted the first match, but denied when I asked them again, likely because they knew they had already fulfilled the terms of their guarantee. Other people here were able to get great rates from Better by giving them a great rate to match in the first place. Lesson learned.

As a side note, shopping around also lets you learn which lenders are actually good to deal with. My builder's lender refused to price match, and acted like I was the stupid one for walking away from $10K in closing costs being paid (mind you, half of that is made up fees just so they can say they gave a huge discount). I wasn't happy with that loan officer from the start, but her reaction to me shopping around cemented my opinion about her being a totally awful person to work with. I'm sure she's accustomed to preying on people who don't bother shopping around. The guy at PenFed was super communicative at first, and I went as far as locking the rate and having him send me the paperwork to sign. At the the same time, UFCU was also sending me their paperwork, and I ultimately decided to go with them, so I never signed the paperwork with PenFed. I have yet to receive a call or email about that from them. If they can't bother following up on an almost-done application, I'm not super confident they would be good to work with through closing. I have a few more days to go before closing, so I hope I'm not jinxing it, but so far I'm happy with the lender I chose.


Builder's with their own financing company or a relationship with one are often shady as they come in my experience. I had a friend who was looking at a new construction and the builder kept pushing the financing and no closing costs which was only if you went through their company.

My friend was looking to pay cash and the builders were going to charge him more let alone not cover closing costs. Even the real estate agent called them out for running a scam on cash buyers with that. They want you to take a loan out through their firm because they make a lot of money off the loan over time and the terms are often no where near as good as elsewhere. In this case, they actually wanted to raise the price of the home for cash buyers, which beyond being unethical, I thought was illegal, but just their attitude was enough to make my friend run away from them.
Jul 4, 2020
1,258 Posts
Joined Oct 2007
Jul 4, 2020
micky_d
Jul 4, 2020
1,258 Posts
LOL Applause You did the exact thing I did 5 years ago. The builder's lender and their incentive of builder credit, total BS. In my case I started with credit union, which based on my reading at the time suggested lower rates. In fact their website was advertising lower rates than Wellsfargo/BoA etc. So it was an easy starting point, then when it came to real close on making the decision, I got a bit more aggressive with couple of big lenders and quickenloan to see if I could get any better. Finally landed up with credit union. Usually they are very competitive , much better rates, and easy to deal with. Clearly your builder was trying to rip you on rates. Math has to make sense, I do not like to roll in closing costs in loan amount because over the period of loan you are losing twice the amount of that money. And it will take me far long to recover that cost over time.

Again, I did not mean to not shop around Smilie it's more about the time when you should do that with formal credit check. If you are ready to pull the trigger in next 3-4 weeks then absolutely do that. Be a smart shopper.



Quote from Freak4Dell :
My initial approval was with my builder's preferred lender. When it came time to rate lock, they offered 3.5% with about $9K in closing costs (to be covered by the builder, so really $0 for me). I started shopping at that time, because I knew 3.5% was high. Ally offered 3.375%. A local mortgage broker offered the same. SoFi did 3.25%. Better matched the 3.25% with a lower closing cost. PenFed wanted to lock me at 3.0%. UFCU quoted me at 2.875%, and then the next day called me again and said if I locked right away, they could do 2.75%. Closing costs at all of the above excluding the builder's lender were in the $5-6K range. I don't bother shopping based on closing costs because 1) anything they do to make the closing costs $0 is just offset in the rate or somewhere else, and 2) while I don't plan on staying in the home I do plan on keeping the home and mortgage so my considerations are total cost over the full length of the loan.

For me, not just blindly going with the lender will save me about $40K over the life of the loan. I'll spend a little more cash now, but will get huge savings overall. And this is a relatively small mortgage. A quarter point rate difference can make a huge impact on something like a jumbo loan. So it's absolutely worth shopping around, and worrying about credit inquiries is totally silly. With everything being online, it only took me a couple hours to shop around. I filled out applications one night before I went to bed, and started receiving calls the next day.

The only regret I have is that I didn't wait until getting the quotes from the credit unions before I asked Better for a price match. They granted the first match, but denied when I asked them again, likely because they knew they had already fulfilled the terms of their guarantee. Other people here were able to get great rates from Better by giving them a great rate to match in the first place. Lesson learned.

As a side note, shopping around also lets you learn which lenders are actually good to deal with. My builder's lender refused to price match, and acted like I was the stupid one for walking away from $10K in closing costs being paid (mind you, half of that is made up fees just so they can say they gave a huge discount). I wasn't happy with that loan officer from the start, but her reaction to me shopping around cemented my opinion about her being a totally awful person to work with. I'm sure she's accustomed to preying on people who don't bother shopping around. The guy at PenFed was super communicative at first, and I went as far as locking the rate and having him send me the paperwork to sign. At the the same time, UFCU was also sending me their paperwork, and I ultimately decided to go with them, so I never signed the paperwork with PenFed. I have yet to receive a call or email about that from them. If they can't bother following up on an almost-done application, I'm not super confident they would be good to work with through closing. I have a few more days to go before closing, so I hope I'm not jinxing it, but so far I'm happy with the lender I chose.
Pro
Jul 4, 2020
5,053 Posts
Joined Jul 2006
Jul 4, 2020
shahhere
Pro
Jul 4, 2020
5,053 Posts
Quote from Freak4Dell :
Mortgage scores are typically not available in the free FICO score offerings (some do, though), and even the cheaper FICO score monitoring solutions don't include mortgage scores. So you have to go out of your way to get those scores, which the overwhelming majority of people don't do.

At the end of the day, I just don't see why it matters. Nobody should be window shopping a mortgage. Publicly available rates give more than enough information to know whether it's time to be serious about buying or refinancing, and if you are serious, you will have to do at least 1 hard inquiry. Given that 1 hard inquiry has the exact same effect as 20 hard inquiries, there's really no downside to just doing the credit check. Unless you're just paranoid about security or something. I would say the only time to be worried about a credit check is if you're on the fence about whether you'll be approved for a loan at all. But for that, there's plenty of lenders that can do a pre-qualification with a soft check, so impact.

Thats why its so invaluable to have a website like this and people's contribution like mine and others who are posting their own rates and % and points which helps not having to submit and get Loan Estimates yourself.


These numbers sharing should give you a very good baseline of what your numbers should be given the same credit guideline and the fact that rates did not drastically change since the OP posted.

https://slickdeals.net/e/1223863-03-06-2009-best-mortgage-rates-from-big-reputable-lenders-30year-5-15year-5-arm-s-etc


Shahhere
Last edited by shahhere July 4, 2020 at 12:51 PM.
Pro
Jul 4, 2020
5,053 Posts
Joined Jul 2006
Jul 4, 2020
shahhere
Pro
Jul 4, 2020
5,053 Posts
If you guys find it informative i'll revive the post I was managing a few years back showing the lenders who were best reviewed on the forum and their sample rates.


https://slickdeals.net/e/1223863-03-06-2009-best-mortgage-rates-from-big-reputable-lenders-30year-5-15year-5-arm-s-etc


Shahhere
Last edited by shahhere July 4, 2020 at 01:00 PM.
Jul 4, 2020
1,258 Posts
Joined Oct 2007
Jul 4, 2020
micky_d
Jul 4, 2020
1,258 Posts
Quote from shahhere :
If you guys find it informative i'll revive the post I was managing a few years back showing the lenders who were best reviewed on the forum and their sample rates.


Shahhere
Absolutely , do it. hugSmilie
Pro
Jul 4, 2020
5,053 Posts
Joined Jul 2006
Jul 4, 2020
shahhere
Pro
Jul 4, 2020
5,053 Posts
Quote from micky_d :
Absolutely , do it. hugSmilie

LOL, anyone know how to revive an archive? From FW where I had a much much longer thread but its dead:
https://www.fatwallet.com/forums/finance/788032


Shahhere
Pro
Jul 4, 2020
5,053 Posts
Joined Jul 2006
Jul 4, 2020
shahhere
Pro
Jul 4, 2020
5,053 Posts
Quote from micky_d :
Absolutely , do it. hugSmilie

I have copied the shell over to a new thread that i'll link in the wiki of this one:
https://slickdeals.net/f/14173061-07-04-2020-best-mortgage-rates-from-big-reputable-lenders-and-sd-reviews-30year-2-75-15year-2-25-etc?v=1&p=138528197&newthread=success#post138528197


People who have good LE can reply to to that thread and i'll update the main post with the lender information.


Shahhere

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Jul 4, 2020
3,913 Posts
Joined Jan 2007
Jul 4, 2020
Freak4Dell
Jul 4, 2020
3,913 Posts
Quote from YanksIn2009 :
Builder's with their own financing company or a relationship with one are often shady as they come in my experience. I had a friend who was looking at a new construction and the builder kept pushing the financing and no closing costs which was only if you went through their company.

My friend was looking to pay cash and the builders were going to charge him more let alone not cover closing costs. Even the real estate agent called them out for running a scam on cash buyers with that. They want you to take a loan out through their firm because they make a lot of money off the loan over time and the terms are often no where near as good as elsewhere. In this case, they actually wanted to raise the price of the home for cash buyers, which beyond being unethical, I thought was illegal, but just their attitude was enough to make my friend run away from them.

Quote from micky_d :
LOL Applause You did the exact thing I did 5 years ago. The builder's lender and their incentive of builder credit, total BS. In my case I started with credit union, which based on my reading at the time suggested lower rates. In fact their website was advertising lower rates than Wellsfargo/BoA etc. So it was an easy starting point, then when it came to real close on making the decision, I got a bit more aggressive with couple of big lenders and quickenloan to see if I could get any better. Finally landed up with credit union. Usually they are very competitive , much better rates, and easy to deal with. Clearly your builder was trying to rip you on rates. Math has to make sense, I do not like to roll in closing costs in loan amount because over the period of loan you are losing twice the amount of that money. And it will take me far long to recover that cost over time.

Again, I did not mean to not shop around Smilie it's more about the time when you should do that with formal credit check. If you are ready to pull the trigger in next 3-4 weeks then absolutely do that. Be a smart shopper.
Yeah, I was wary about the builder's lender from the start, and seeing their loan estimate with a crapton of totally bogus fees did not help. Anyone can give a $10K discount when $9K of that is completely made up. The dumbest part of it all is that they just refused to give even a little bit to close the deal. After I got these other quotes, I straight up told them that because everything was already approved, I'd meet in the middle at 3.25% just for the sake of convenience. I was willing to give up half a point, but they couldn't give up a quarter. They also told me they only do loans for the builder, so you'd think they'd have some incentive to work with the buyer a little bit. After all, if your customer base is already tiny, why would you chase away the few buyers you do get? I can only assume their business is based solely on uneducated and gullible customers.
Jul 4, 2020
489 Posts
Joined Feb 2012
Jul 4, 2020
Mikey122687
Jul 4, 2020
489 Posts
Has anyone gotten better to "match" a lower rate (ie 2.75 to 2.625) during processing and after they cleared all lenders title?
Jul 4, 2020
2,383 Posts
Joined Oct 2005
Jul 4, 2020
ludhianvi
Jul 4, 2020
2,383 Posts
Just signed a contract to buy a new home. House will be built by December. Can I somehow lock-in the low rates now and use that to buy the house when the house is ready to close?

I am in CA, excellent credit score, and LTV will be around 60%. It will be regular conventional loan (loan amount around 300K).

Thanks.
Jul 4, 2020
1,004 Posts
Joined Mar 2019
Jul 4, 2020
CycloneFW
Jul 4, 2020
1,004 Posts
Quote from ludhianvi :
Just signed a contract to buy a new home. House will be built by December. Can I somehow lock-in the low rates now and use that to buy the house when the house is ready to close?

I am in CA, excellent credit score, and LTV will be around 60%. It will be regular conventional loan (loan amount around 300K).

Thanks.
Google construction loans. That would be the type you want. Though what you probably want to do is just sign up with their preferred lender now and when it gets close to ready, then work on a traditional conventional.
Jul 4, 2020
2,383 Posts
Joined Oct 2005
Jul 4, 2020
ludhianvi
Jul 4, 2020
2,383 Posts
Quote from CycloneFW :
Google construction loans. That would be the type you want. Though what you probably want to do is just sign up with their preferred lender now and when it gets close to ready, then work on a traditional conventional.
Thanks for the reply. I am working with a builder, they are building a brand new community, I only have a few things that I can choose (like cabinets, flooring, etc.). Is this construction loan still the way to go for me?
Jul 4, 2020
3,913 Posts
Joined Jan 2007
Jul 4, 2020
Freak4Dell
Jul 4, 2020
3,913 Posts
Quote from ludhianvi :
Thanks for the reply. I am working with a builder, they are building a brand new community, I only have a few things that I can choose (like cabinets, flooring, etc.). Is this construction loan still the way to go for me?
No, construction loans are for people doing custom builds, where they buy the land and hire a builder to put a house on it. In your situation, the builder owns the land and sells the completed house. For the most part, lenders won't lock this early. Time for locking is typically about 30-60 days before closing.

I don't know if this Better offer will still be around, but it's unlikely that interest rates are going to change much in the next few months. So it's probably a waste of time thinking about it right now. Once you get closer to completion on the build, start shopping around and find a loan that works best for you.
Jul 4, 2020
2,383 Posts
Joined Oct 2005
Jul 4, 2020
ludhianvi
Jul 4, 2020
2,383 Posts
Quote from Freak4Dell :
No, construction loans are for people doing custom builds, where they buy the land and hire a builder to put a house on it. In your situation, the builder owns the land and sells the completed house. For the most part, lenders won't lock this early. Time for locking is typically about 30-60 days before closing.

I don't know if this Better offer will still be around, but it's unlikely that interest rates are going to change much in the next few months. So it's probably a waste of time thinking about it right now. Once you get closer to completion on the build, start shopping around and find a loan that works best for you.
Thanks. That's what my quick google search led me to believe, but may be I was not clear in my original post. I kind of agree with you on the rates not changing, but I was thinking that if I could, I should lock in now, and I can always shop around later if needed.

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Jul 5, 2020
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Jul 5, 2020
YanksIn2009
Jul 5, 2020
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Quote from Freak4Dell :
Yeah, I was wary about the builder's lender from the start, and seeing their loan estimate with a crapton of totally bogus fees did not help. Anyone can give a $10K discount when $9K of that is completely made up. The dumbest part of it all is that they just refused to give even a little bit to close the deal. After I got these other quotes, I straight up told them that because everything was already approved, I'd meet in the middle at 3.25% just for the sake of convenience. I was willing to give up half a point, but they couldn't give up a quarter. They also told me they only do loans for the builder, so you'd think they'd have some incentive to work with the buyer a little bit. After all, if your customer base is already tiny, why would you chase away the few buyers you do get? I can only assume their business is based solely on uneducated and gullible customers.

Actually, you probably would find the lender is owned in part at least by the same people who are behind the construction. It is basically a pseudo-scam imo where they offer a "deal" on closing costs but only if you go through a lender they own in whole or part. Basically it is designed to make even more money off an inflated rate loan\financing. They will not budge because they have no incentive to offer comparable rates to other lenders. Their incentive is to make money off the new construction at a certain level and if they can't get that done, they don't want to finance your loan at a lower rate and take on the risk. They are basically not in the loan business, but in the loan business for the new construction only at inflated rates. All of which I suppose is legal until possibly imo they start charging more to cash buyers, but somehow they do not get called out on it.

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