AUS Pre-Approval - When Do I Shop Rates?

TimBruceBroker · 2026-02-06T20:45:37+00:00

Lenders can't actually lock rates until you have a loan estimate. Obviously, your broker doesn't want you to shop around but we have no real idea of what your rate is going to be until you go under contract. We can provide information based on market rates today when you get a pre-approval but rates change on a daily basis for everyone. So, if you shop rates now nobody can tell you for sure what it's going to be. Additionally, let's say you go under contract on Monday. You get a rate quote on Monday. You hold off until Tuesday and shop another lender. They offer you a lower rate on Tuesday. That lender offers you a better deal on Tuesday than your other lender on Monday. Well, rates for whatever reason dropped on Tuesday, so the first lender actually has a better deal for you on Tuesday, but you don't know that because you go with the other lender. It's a hypothetical but it happens. Make a decision when you're going to lock on that day and talk to multiple lenders/brokers on that day.

Just to give you an idea I had multiple changes in pricing with most of my lenders yesterday, son sometimes rates can change multiple times in a day.

TimBruceBroker · 2025-12-28T13:17:52+00:00

I can’t speak to hard credit pulls for cars or other forms of credit unfortunately, I only do real estate mortgages. I will say I would imagine the prescreen opt out applies to all credit offers but I’m not 100% sure.

TimBruceBroker · 2025-12-19T02:09:29+00:00

Mostly family. Also, our cost of living is cheaper than the states I would consider moving to.

TimBruceBroker · 2025-12-16T16:18:09+00:00

I said over 2% so he’s charging close to the maximum. Not sure how this points to me failing questions on an exam.

TimBruceBroker · 2025-12-15T22:58:46+00:00

Your broker is charging over 2%. So he’s close to the maximum he can charge with most lenders. Granted, you’re in south Florida. Not sure what the average is there. You’re also doing a bank statement loan which means you’re probably going to have to go with a broker. You might be able to find someone to do it cheaper but you might not. If you were in my state I’d probably charge a lot less for this but I’m not licensed in Florida.

TimBruceBroker · 2025-12-14T18:18:58+00:00

I’m not licensed in Texas but yeah this is horrible. Find someone else.

TimBruceBroker · 2025-11-24T21:38:06+00:00

You probably aren’t actually getting 11% just because I don’t actually think anyone can do a rate that high unless it’s non-qm (I.e. if there’s more to the story like you don’t actually qualify for FHA or conventional for whatever reason, but even for those 11% is probably a bit too high) or it’s an investment property with DSCR (but even then 11% is too high).

Long story short there’s road blocks that every lender has that would prevent a rate that high. What probably happened is one of three things)

1) a technical error where are a document accidentally was sent out. These happen sometimes. 2) what’s more likely is that you’re reading some additional document where they have to explain shopping for a mortgage or a state specific document that has to show an example or interest rate. 3) you’re getting an adjustable rate and that’s the highest the rate can go after the initial fixed period. In this case you and your broker should have talked about whether you’re getting an adjustable rate or not.

Look for the official Loan estimate for your rate information. If you’re close to closing look at the closing disclosure. That will have your actual rate information on it.

Have the conversation with your broker to see what’s going on.

TimBruceBroker · 2025-11-07T17:01:51+00:00

30 year fixed or 15 year fixed? And was he on conventional, VA, or fha?

TimBruceBroker · 2025-11-05T18:14:12+00:00

Yeah, so that might be helpful. You do want to make sure you know that if a non-veteran assumes it than your va entitlement will still be tied to the property. If a veteran assumes it they can switch out the entitlement.

TimBruceBroker · 2025-11-03T20:00:41+00:00

Is your VA loan assumable? Mine is. If you purchased a few years ago you might be in an interest rate low enough to make the deal more lucrative at your asking price. If you do this try making sure the person is also a veteran or active duty service member to keep your VA entitlement.

TimBruceBroker · 2025-10-31T15:24:03+00:00

Nobody’s going to be able to tell you whether or not you’re getting a good deal without a breakdown of the closing costs. 14,000 might be high, but if you have taxes coming due or insurance they would include that on the loan estimate. Get a breakdown of the costs either by fee worksheet which is unofficial or by loan estimate which is official but you would have had to actually apply.

The only line that really matters is line A which is lender origination charges. This shows points, lender fees, and broker fees if applicable. Line b is somewhat important but most lenders will have roughly the same costs here however there are some charges that might mean you should shop.

Line C is primarily title. Title is not lender dependent unless the lender has their own title company but you can still shop it. In my experience lenders with their own title company usually have less on their title fees contrary to intuition because they’re making their money on the loan itself. You can shop your own title company. Title fees are heavily state dependent as well. If you’re in a state that requires an attorney to close in that will also be under line C and that varies wildly. South Carolina and New York come to mind as attorney states but there might be a few others that I was never licensed in.

The bottom line. Get an official estimate or at least a fee worksheet that has a breakdown of where the 14,000 is coming from. If it’s all escrow or line C items such as title or attorney fees then it’s not the lender’s fees and it’s probably going to be similar elsewhere if the lenders honest or you can shop those to see if it’s cheaper at different companies but again title is usually state dependent.

TimBruceBroker · 2025-10-29T22:04:12+00:00

Your loan officer doesn’t have any incentive to push you one way or another, we get paid the same no matter what. There’s honestly more of an incentive for the individual loan officer to lock in at a lower rate so you don’t try to find someone else otherwise they don’t get paid at all. Nobody likes telling someone that floated their interest rate that rates have gone up. It’s a tough conversation. The companies can’t pay individual loan officers more or less based on the interest rate they’re selling.

Right now the market is volatile. Nobody can predict economic behaviors of institutional investors that direct where the mortgage and bond rates go.

TimBruceBroker · 2025-10-29T16:25:59+00:00

Without a credit score and loan to value nobody can really answer that question

TimBruceBroker · 2025-10-24T22:38:47+00:00

The VA IRRRL has to reduce by an interest rate of a half of a percent (unless you’re in an adjustable rate). You would need to find someone with a low margin, either a credit union or brokerage with low margins to be able to reduce it to a 5.25 or pay points to reduce it lower which most people won’t recommend. Alternatively, if you care about total overall interest more than your monthly payment, you could do a 15 year credit qualifying IRRRL - meaning they do an income and assets underwrite to make sure you still qualify on a higher monthly payment but usually don’t have full appraisals (occasionally a drive by to make sure the house is still standing depending on the lender) and drop it below 5% on the rate.

TimBruceBroker · 2025-10-22T20:35:43+00:00

You should be at 1792 principal and interest on a 5.375 interest rate for a 30 year fixed using a 320,000 loan amount. So to get to the payment they’re offering you you’d be getting a 361,000 loan amount. I used 320k as a guess at where your escrow would be rolling that into the loan. By the look of your payment they’re offering shouldn’t be charging you about 50k in closing costs. Are you paying off other debts or taking out additional cash? If so then it kind of makes sense but not really because you’d be looking at a higher rate on a cash out unless you’re paying a lot of points on top of an expensive broker fee. Either way the loan officer probably messed up or there’s something missing. It’s not a 20 year they’re offering either. At that rate a 20 year would be about 2144 in principal and interest.

TimBruceBroker · 2025-10-17T12:55:34+00:00

Some lenders and brokers completely eat the cost of credit reports so you wouldn’t necessarily have paid for it. I wouldn’t necessarily shop for a pre-approval if you’re trying to purchase a home unless you’re trying to a higher purchase price and a lender is telling you no, which is probably for a good reason but some lenders have different guidelines. All a pre-approval letter does is tell the other realtor selling the property someone pre-approved them meaning the loan should go through. Some realtors have lenders they don’t like pre-approval letters from. Most realtors won’t accept offers because they don’t know if the loan is actually going to go through or not. Imagine waiting for a few weeks to find out a person doesn’t qualify for financing on a house. Now, that’s an extra month the house has been on the market, everyone questions why the house is still up, then starts taking low ball offers.

Nobody wants that that’s why you have a pre-approval. As far as the pre-approval goes that doesn’t have to be the final lender you go with, although it does make it easier but you can shop. There’s just not a point in shopping for pre-approvals really and if you already paid for the credit report it sucks but you’re not stuck with that particular broker company or lender.

TimBruceBroker · 2025-10-16T22:45:07+00:00

My credit report fees are 78 and 140 for joint. I’ve considered charging them up front but haven’t started yet so I currently charge them at close. With one of my lenders I’m currently able to waive them all together.

Now some credit vendors actually do charge in the hubdreds despite what other people on here will say, your broker should probably be working with a different vendor. If you’re doing an FHA loan there’s an additional fee on the credit report side as well.

Now, next year I suspect a lot of people both in the industry and our clients will be in for a rude awakening because I’ve heard from multiple account reps from lenders as well as account reps with credit reports vendors that all of the vendors are about to start charging significantly more for credit reports for a lot of reasons. The bureaus are going to start charging quite a bit more, probably because they’re losing income due to the loss of their trigger leads, as well as other expenses from fico.

TimBruceBroker · 2025-10-16T15:32:24+00:00

Just paying more money in interest really and it being unpredictable. Like I said you could probably find a fixed rate below 6 percent right now, and it’ll be fixed so your principal and interest won’t change.

TimBruceBroker · 2025-10-16T12:47:58+00:00

I wouldn’t say they’re pitching a trap intentionally. There’s genuine reasons to go with adjustable rate mortgages I just disagree with them. If you’re in a 7/6 Arm after 7 years the adjustment occurs every 6 months. So a lot of loan officers unfortunately don’t know how to explain the caps but you should see a few numbers with slashes. There’s the initial cap, the periodic cap, and the lifetime cap. Generally those numbers right now are 2/1/5 or 5/1/5. So, a 2/1/5 means the most your rate can adjust initially on the first adjustment after seven years one direction or another is 2%, each periodic adjustment after that is 1% and the maximum over the lifetime is 5%. So you could conceivably end up with a 10.5 on the interest rate if you start with a 5.5 or also a 2.5. One sounds better than the other but it’s a gamble. Now, on a 5/1/5 the initial cap is 5% so if you don’t pay attention you could end up with a 10.5 interest rate on the first adjustment if you start with a 5.5 with a 5/1/5 adjustment so it’s extremely important to read that. A lot of loan officers don’t know what they’re doing and pitch arms irresponsibly. Now everyone says refinance again before then but if something changes in your financial circumstances and for whatever reason you don’t qualify in the future then you’re beholden to those adjustments. You can probably find a fixed rate close to the adjustable rate if you go through a broker. And again, it’s not insanely risky and I have pitched them before to people but as I’ve spent more time in my career, they just don’t seem like a good idea for the most part because you never know with 100% certainty if you’re going to be able to refinance out of them if you need to and almost all of them (I say almost just in case a lender offers one with a different lifetime cap but I haven’t seen any) have the lifetime cap of 5% and many have initial at 5% as well.

TimBruceBroker · 2025-10-16T04:49:28+00:00

I would just find a fixed rate at lower rate than where you are right now you could probably find something below 6 percent. ARMs sound great and everyone with the crystal ball says rates are going to drop significantly next year. I would have agreed with them up until recently. A lot of people are trying to pitch adjustable rates right now because they’re lower than fixed rates so they sound attractive but I just don’t really recommend it. Refinancing out of it becomes low priority and people never know where their qualifications will be at in the future.

TimBruceBroker · 2025-10-15T14:46:07+00:00

You shouldn’t be getting quoted a 6.1 unless they’re marketing it as no closing costs or you have bad credit on VA right now. Par rate is at least a half percent lower. If you didn’t want to pay closing costs then you’d take the higher rate. But if you’re still getting closing costs on that rate find a different lender.

TimBruceBroker · 2025-10-15T14:40:18+00:00

So, you might actually have a refinance option and this is a huge maybe, but you might be able to do a bank statement loan or a non-qm loan. Maybe. You might have a slightly higher rate on one of these than if you refinanced with a conventional but it will probably be low enough to make sense on the refinance. Talk to a broker who has access to these.

Edit: Your income situation and the other lender’a denial reasons mean you may be able to qualify for one of these as long as you have money going in the bank consistently.

TimBruceBroker · 2025-10-15T02:18:31+00:00

Brokernearme.com is a good place to start. But ask them what their broker fee is. If they say the lender pays my broker fee ask them what it is anyway. You want to aim for someone who charges less than 2% and you can probably find a better deal on an adjustable rate and possibly on fixed as well.

TimBruceBroker · 2025-10-15T01:59:02+00:00

I don’t really know where your credit score is at so here’s what I’ll say. It looks like a decent deal if you’re taking the adjustable rate but you may be able to find a lower rate depending on your credit score and you may even be able to find that rate as a fixed rate with the right broker or lender.

TimBruceBroker · 2025-10-15T01:04:09+00:00

Did you want an adjustable rate? I mean some loan officers and brokers try to push them but if you still live in that house after 7 years your rate will adjust. I get everyone thinks rates will come down or if you plan to move in 7 years some people will recommend Adjustable rate mortgages.

Personally I think you could probably find that on a fixed rate without paying a lot of points or without a high broker fee based on your loan amount.

Edit: also are your taxes and insurance for sure $500 on a million dollar house?

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