We are buying a home in Florida that hasn't been built yet. We submitted a loan app to DiVosta Mortgage which is affiliated with the builder. Our rate would be 5.9% and the APR would be 6.02%. My questions are 1) Do lenders that are affiliated with a builder tend to charge higher rates than mortgage companies with no affiliation? 2) The interest rate seems kind of high at 5.9%. The home we are buying is in Palm Beach County - no sure if that makes a difference. My median score is 677 and I have a paid judgement and a paid collection from 2000 that could be a ding, but fiance's credit is perfect. Although he does carry a high amount of debt because of two rental properties, a car loan and a personal loan his credit goes back almost 20 years and is flawless. Any feedback, especially from Florida mortgage gurus would be appreciated! Lisa
It might pay to shop around. When you get these affiliated lenders, you don't know if they're the best rate or just in good with the builders.
I went through this earlier this year. Problem is that the builder's lender may not have the most competitive rate, but they have other incentives that make is prohibitively more expensive to use an outside lender. For me, the builder's lender was pretty middle-of-the-road rate wise, but they were willing to do a super fast close and they paid for my title policy (TX) which was ~$1500 and using their lender made things happen a lot faster than they would have otherwise. I shopped around (and my CR is still recovering from all the inquiries), but after all was said and done I went with the builder's lender. In the end the cost was very close to the bargain-basement lender, but being able to close fast was a huge deal for me, and only through their lender could I make a 2-week close deadline.
