Even the team at Indigo Mortgage in Albuquerque gets mortgage offers in the mail—and some of them are borderline unethical. Here’s a recent example: our company owner, Ben Lucero received a letter in the mail from a lender he’d never heard of. They offered a 1.75% interest rate and the direct mail piece said he could take out as much as $50,000 in equity from his home.
Ben says, “Wow, that sounded great until I turned the flyer over and discovered that it came with a lot of qualifiers. First, it was for a 10-year term and if I wanted the term longer, the rate would be higher but I’d need to call to see what that rate would be. Second, the loan-to-value ratio could not be over 50%, and third, I had to have a credit score of 800. Finally, it said the loan would cost a minimum of 3 discount points to buy the rate down. In this case, those 3 discount points would cost an extra $9,000!”
All of those criteria would make it nearly impossible for any homeowner to qualify and have a reasonable outcome. The $9,000 in fees didn’t include the other title and escrow charges that are part of all home purchases.
“In this case, this loan would have cost me about $15,000 to borrow $50,000. And the payment on a 10-year mortgage would have been more than double than what I’m paying now,” says Ben. “Yet the national mortgage company would have scored a hefty fee. Offers like these are always in the lender’s favor, not the borrower’s.”
At Indigo Mortgage, we advise all borrowers not to believe those teaser ads on the internet, emails, or flyers that come in the mail. If you’re looking to purchase a home or refinance your mortgage, stay local and call a trusted local lender like Indigo Mortgage.