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Learn About Mortgage Quotes Online

Banks, non-bank institutions, brokers and lending affiliates all have online presence to provide you with fast and accurate mortgage quotes online. Getting a mortgage online quote require you to firstly have a generally idea of how much you are looking to borrow and what length of time you need to repay the mortgage. Other information required include lending ratios (% of the value of the home you can borrow against), whether you want fixed or variable repayments and whether you want the repayments to be interest only or interest plus principal repayments. Armed with this general mortgage product information, you can then head to the websites of online mortgage lenders and brokers to get mortgage quotes online. Usually, it is as simple as ticking boxes and filling basic information on the available online forms. Usually you will need to provide an email address to send the mortgage online quote to you or be prepared to wait a few minutes for the online quote to come through. If your online mortgage lender or broker asks for detailed personal information, BE CAREFUL! There is absolutely no need for you to divulge personal information to obtain mortgage quotes online. Many online mortgage lenders and brokers will have mortgage product comparison pages that highlight benefits and features of each mortgage product they offer so that you can compare apples to apples.

Online Mortgage Lenders and Brokers

Online mortgage lenders and brokers often provide free tools like repayment calculators and borrowing capacity calculators on their website to help with your decision making. A repayment calculator will instantaneously work out regular repayment commitments for a mortgage of x dollar amount. This can help to determine whether you can afford to borrow x amount of money. A borrowing capacity calculator can help you determine your maximum borrowing capacity by entering your current income details. This will give you an idea of how much you can afford to borrow. Take advantage of these free tools which will help your understand mortgage quotes online. Many online mortgage lenders and brokers will also have free information on their websites which will introduce mortgage products and explain different financial terms. These are very useful and should be a starting point for you to work out what type of online mortgage product you need.
When obtaining a mortgage online quote from lenders and brokers, be aware of the distinction between brokers and lenders. A mortgage lender is the institution that will actually provide you with the mortgage loan to buy a house. Typically a lender is either a bank or a non-bank institution (like a superannuation or insurance fund company). An online mortgage broker could represent several different lenders and they make money through commissions and bonuses from signing up customers to the lenders. Both lenders and brokers have online presence and you can go directly to most lenders and brokers alike to obtain a mortgage quote.

There are pitfalls to avoid when obtaining online mortgage quotes. These include;

  • 1. Privacy. Guard your personal details against intrusions and fraud by not providing things like name, social security details, address and contact numbers when asking for online mortgage quotes. You should not need to provide these private details to get a mortgage quote. Also beware when entering any private information to ensure that the online lender/broker does not on-sell your information to direct marketers and spammers.
  • 2. Research lender and broker history. All U.S. mortgage lenders and brokers should be licensed by government authorities. Make sure the online lenders and brokers you are using are properly licensed. You can also check up on their history with other consumers by reading online reviews, blogs and articles.
  • 3. Timeliness of information. Remember mortgage quotes are time dependent. In two weeks time official cash lending rates could vary therefore lenders could change their mortgage rates without notice. Mortgage lenders' online information and tools could also be outdated so always ask for clarification and confirmation and consider noting any mortgage quote reference numbers for future reference.
  • 4. Online mortgage quote not equal actual offer. There is often a difference between a preliminary online mortgage quote and the actual mortgage loan offer. A preliminary mortgage quote is useful for basic comparison between different mortgage products. When you proceed with a mortgage application and provide details such as income, credit history, current asset & liability levels and additional lending security, lenders will often vary their actual mortgage loan offer. Typically if your credit history is poor and income low and you do not have a lot of assets, you can expect to be offered a higher mortgage loan offer than you were quoted.
  • 5. Never proceed to application unless you read the fine print and are sure that you are ready to proceed. All lending applications are recorded against your credit file and doing too many loan applications in a short amount of time can really reduce your credit rating and make it harder for you to borrow money in the future. Always read the fine print on mortgage quotes and only proceed to application once you have done thorough research and comparison between different mortgage products.