LendingTree.com

[Luca Brasi]

Anyone have any good or bad experiences with LendingTree.com?

I'm applying for a mortgage and have already been approved by a local mortgage company. However, I registered on lending tree and have received what appear to be some pretty good offers. I of course understand that they are approved pending credit checks, salary confirmation, etc.

However, I heard a pretty alarming story this morning about someone who got all the way to closing and was told that the offer wasn't legit and they ended up paying a higher interest rate and about $2000 more in closing costs.

Has anyone heard or experienced anything similar?

Any advice is much appreciated.

[Riggo-toni]

I can't remember if it was lendingtree or ditech, but I tried one of those when I was looking for a construction loan. Next thing I knew, I was suddenly getting flooded with mortgage related spam from everywhere.

Create a new email account in yahoo or hotmail before you try one of these places - an account that you use only for such purposes and that none of your friends would use to contact you. (Hey, it's free after all). Then try out lendingtree and ditech. Once you've gotten the info , if you start getting flooded with spam to that address, just delete it - and then warn all of us here at Extremeskins...

[Hog Fever]

My experience wasn’t positive at all. I’ll preface this by saying that our credit is very good.

We were looking for a home loan before we moved to our new place about 2 years ago. After filling out the paperwork we waited a day or so for the responses to come in. We were less than impressed. Of the four loan companies who responded two were eliminated right off the bat because of their interest terms. The two that were a little more reasonable on the rate wanted closing fees that we though were a little out of line. Turns out we were right.

We ended up going though a local mortgage company who we were very pleased with. I thought the whole Lending Tree experience was a waste of time. To me there is nothing more important than your home. I’d much rather sit down and talk to someone face to face about something this important. There’s less chance of a “gotcha” cost surprise.

Maybe my experience is not typical. I know I’m not going to bother with Lending Tree if I need a loan in the future.

PS - I just read the other post. Yes, we did get a LOT of spam mail after we applied for the Lending Tree loan. I had set up an alternative account but it was still a pain.

[Kilmer17]

A better option for you is to go to bankrate.com and use it to find the best offers in your area, then call that lender directly.

Do some research though and make sure you are getting a good deal with the terms you want.

And always always always ask for a good faith estimate from each company you talk to. Remember that ALL of these inquiries will show on you credit report BUT they will count as 1 inquirie towwards your beacon score. Slightly different than applying for credit at Dept stores etc.

[riggins44]

I would recommend you use a local mortgage company. You might even want to talk to your bank, normally most banks

have a mortgage arm.

In the Classified Forum here, there is a thread for Extremeskin

Networking. There is a member here that is a mortgage

loan officer.

For me, I'd rather have a real person to work with. This way

you got someone to fall back on if a problem arises.

[RyansRangers]

I work for a mortgage co. dont use any of those lending tree or lowermybills.. If you do dont put your ssn #.. THey will pull your credit at least 8 times possibly lowering your score. Lending tree will send you name to 10 lenders lowermybills will at least 5.. You will get no stop calls for about month

[@DCGoldPants]

ads like that on TV are best used to sell Big Macs and Political Agenda's.

Face to Face is the best way to go.

[Luca Brasi]

Thanks guys. You confirmed what I was afraid of. I really do appreciate the advice. It's pretty cool that I can get honest opinions from experienced people in a matter of minutes. Thanks a bunch.

[gbear]

Washingtonpost.com realestate section also keeps running tabs of current rates and points from a lot of lenders in the area.

Using that seems like a good way to get a feel for what the average rates in the area are. My wife and I are using a mortgage broker that our realestate agent suggested. It was the same company we have on our current house (different agent). Even so, once we got the contract, we compared his good faith estimate to the rates in post and what NPR said was the national average before deciding to go with him.

Also, the amount your agent is willing to work with you for a loan is important. For example, we haven't sold our house yet, but we were preapproved anyway allowing us to put offers out with contingency. Despite this, we still avoided PMI by going 80-15-5. The equity line for the 15 we'll pay off as soon as our other house sells. From talking with my firends, mortgage agents don't always want to work around individual needs, so finding one to taylor the structure of the loan to your needs is important. Finding one who will do so with out hitting you with a ton of fees helps too.