How to go about Finding a Mortgage Lender
Finding a lender willing to give you a mortgage is not all that hard; the real challenge for most people will be in sorting out all of the offers that you do get. Unless you have really bad credit there will be somebody out there willing to give you a mortgage. The key however is to make sure that you get the right mortgage to meet your needs and that means being able to tell the good offers from the bad ones.
The first thing that you are going to want to do before you start looking for a mortgage or getting a refinance mortgage, is to get copies of your credit reports. Since mortgage decisions are based largely on your credit score you are going to want to make sure that it is as good as possible before you start applying for a mortgage. Your credit score won't necessarily have too big an impact on your ability to get a mortgage but it will have a big effect on the interest rate that you pay. Make sure that everything on your credit report is accurate, get any mistakes corrected and see if there are things that you can do to improve your score before you apply.
The next thing that you are going to need to decide on it whether or not you want to apply directly to the banks or if you want to go through mortgage broker. Most people will apply directly to the banks however this is usually not the best option. People tend to avoid using a mortgage broker because they don't want to have to pay the fee that is involved. However if the broker can get you a better mortgage deal the fee will be basically irrelevant.
Regardless of whether you use a broker or not you are going to want to get quotes from more than one lender. This will allow you to compare the terms of the mortgage to make sure that you are getting the best deal possible. The big thing here is that you are going to have to make sure that you are comparing similar mortgage terms. A fifteen year fixed term mortgage will be very different than a thirty year variable term mortgage will be so you really can't compare the two.
Once you have several different mortgage offers you are going to have to decide on what kind of terms you want. Sometimes it might make more sense to go with a variable rate and other times it might make more sense to go with a fixed rate. Ideally you should get quotes for both from the lender so that you can compare how much each option will end up costing you. This will help to ensure that you get the right mortgage for your needs and keep you from paying more than you have to.