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« Trulia's Listing of the Week | Main | Forget short sales, forget foreclosure... instead trade away your problems to someone else... » June 27, 2008A Close Look at All Those Fees
BORROWERS lucky enough to secure a mortgage in the current lending environment have a good amount of leverage when negotiating fees with brokers, who are increasingly starved for business. The problem is, many people have little idea what constitutes normal closing costs for their loans. In fact, relatively few borrowers even know the important factors that determine their mortgage interest rates. A recent survey, done by the Center for Economic and Entrepreneurial Literacy, a Washington-based research center, asked 1,000 people in April to choose the four most relevant factors in obtaining a mortgage. Nearly 70 percent did not identify their credit score, which chiefly determines the borrower’s loan eligibility and interest rate. It is little wonder, then, that borrowers often cannot navigate the more complex world of closing costs, which involve paying an array of fees to the loan’s originator, appraisers and those who vouch for the legitimacy of the title, among others. “You’ll absolutely find that if people don’t have the economic education background they need, they’ll end up paying more for a mortgage,” said Tim Miller, a spokesman for the Center for Economic and Entrepreneurial Literacy. Another recent study put that notion into dollars and cents. That study, by the Urban Institute, also based in Washington, found that borrowers living in an area full of college-educated homeowners paid about $1,100 less in mortgage fees than those in areas where few people attended college. The study noted racial differences as well: on average, African-American borrowers paid $415 more for their loans than white counterparts did, while Latinos paid $365 more. click here for the complete story from the NY Times... Posted by Jeff Brooks on June 27, 2008 02:11 PM | Permalink TrackBackTrackBack URL for this entry: |
