Home mortgage quote problems? The likely culprit is your Credit.

Posted by Nick Niesen on October 29th, 2010

Your credit has everything to do with home mortgage rates as lenders charge more points and higher interest charges to consumers with bad credit. Poor credit always implies greater risk, so lenders are entitled to be compensated for the risk they are taking.

If you are a borrower who enjoys good credit, however, you should at all cost avoid getting into deals where the rates and points are at par with those for bad credit. There are plenty of cases of borrowers with good credit being charged the same rates as those with bad credit. Enjoying good credit requires effort and sacrifice, so you have every right to be charged much better rates than consumers with bad credit. Even if it means having to look a little harder to find them, you should pay rates that you deserve.

Explaining Risk and Loan Points
Every point on a loan refers to the fee amount of one percent of the loan amount. Consumers with good credit may be charged no points at all while bad credit can earn as many as four points. However caution is necessary as unscrupulous lenders may charge up to ten points if they think they can get away with it. It is up to you to make sure that they don?t, in your case.

Nevertheless there are situations where the lenders have to take risks far greater than the average. In such cases it may be justified to be charging more than the normal rates. Brokers often claim that they charge higher points as they are taking the risk of lending to those no other lenders will lend to. More often than not, this may not be true. With sufficient effort and time, a consumer will be able to find a lender willing to lend him the loan. These lenders are much more likely to treat the consumer in all fairness.

Not giving due attention to points being charged can prove costly to a consumer. Different terms may be used for points with some examples like origination fees, broker fees, discount fees and yield spread premium.

Front and Band End Points
Despite these terms, there are two basic types of points. The first is the upfront fees that the consumer pays to the lender. It is a form of compensation paid to either the lender or the broker for making the loan transaction possible.

A back end point is the other type of points that the lender pays to the mortgage broker. Sometimes they act as extra incentive for a particular loan. But it is mostly for loans given at a higher rate of interest as a reward to the broker. The problem occurs when these points spur unscrupulous lenders to hike up the rates with the consumer being absolutely unaware of it.