Hi all, so I am wondering for those with experience buying homes-- any advice on finding a good lender/ mortgage broker and real estate agent
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My advice would be to start by talking to the loan officers at the local credit unions. You particularly want to find someone who deals with FHA loans, as those have some major advantages at the moment (or at least they did when we bought our place a year ago). If none of the credit unions deal with them, ask if there's a broker they'd be willing to recommend. If you were in our area, I'd recommend the broker we dealt with. We found them because we started by trying to get one from a credit union, but when things fell through there, their loan officer recommended someone to us. In general, I recommend credit unions over banks for everything - they tend to be more friendly and inclined to help, in my experience. You'll have to join the credit union if they do give you a loan, of course, but that's not usually a major issue.
Oh, and as for what you should have, as I recall, we needed copies of our last two years' tax returns, the last six months' worth of pay stubs (not sure what you'd use for being self-employed, possibly just the tax returns), and recent bank statements from everywhere we had bank accounts.
Credit unions can be great ( I used to work for one, even.) I'm a member of Patelco, but since they have fewer branches I don't use them much. I should give them a call. Thanks for your help!
I have a FABULOUS mortgage broker. She took the time to break down all of my options, all of the payments, what difference a 1/2 percent would make and so on. We talked it all over and decided what my real upper limit was, rather than guessing in the middle of a bidding war. I adore her: Sandy Bennett at Preferred Mortgage Loans, 408.998.4343.
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