It Actually Pays To Shop For Your Mortgage

Shopping and comparing mortgage rates helped this Virginia homebuyer receive the best possible deal from Value Mortgage

Thanks to technology, comparison shopping has become more common than ever. From browsing flights to comparing deals on a single pair of headphones, we no longer feel obligated to accept the first price or offer we come across.

You would think the standard would apply for literally the biggest, most important transaction of your life, wouldn’t you?

However, in many circumstances, it’s rare that people actually shop and compare their mortgage options. In fact, more than three out of every four Americans will apply for a mortgage with just a single lender, taking the very first mortgage offer they receive. And all else being equal, shaving a fraction of a percent from your mortgage interest rate can save you tens of thousands of dollars on your home. It literally pays to shop around for your mortgage.

So why aren’t more homebuyers comparison shopping for a better deal? Because shopping around for a mortgage has, historically, been difficult and time-consuming. 

At Value Mortgage, we’re working to change that. We’ve built a tech-driven, transparent platform that allows homebuyers to shop and compare rates across Value Mortgage’s network of lenders–all in one easy-to-use place.

Read how Amy, a homebuyer in Virginia, was able to receive what he calls “the best possible deal” by using Value Mortgage. 

What was sort of the biggest barrier or challenge you faced when you were shopping or your mortgage prior to Value Mortgage? 

I had a local banking mortgage relationship when I first started going through the pre-approval process. As it got closer to putting an offer in and going under contract on the house that we were buying, I was going through the estimate of what the closing would look like, and what the interest rates looked like. I just decided at that point to do a little bit of shopping on my own because I wanted to make sure that the deal that I was getting and the situation I was in was the best that it could possibly be. I actually just went online one night and got some results from five or six different companies–Value Mortgage showed up on there as the one with the lowest interest rate. 

That’s great! Did you continue to shop around after that? 

I talked to a few of the other [brokers I found], but after going through and actually having conversations with you know, those three or four [companies], Value Mortgage still came back to what ended up being by far the lowest interest rate and comparable, if not lowest cost on the lender side. From that standpoint, that’s sort of how I came across Value Mortgage and started working with you guys. I learned a lot throughout the process just in terms of researching what the different costs were and things like that. 

What was the process like of actually using our service?

You know we try in our business now—we try to do as much as we can electronically, and so that part of it felt very natural to me. Value Mortgage was very responsive throughout the process. I was very happy with the whole experience and extremely happy, quite frankly, with the financial deal that I feel that I got just by using Value Mortgage because I even talked to other local companies toward the end and throughout this process and nobody could match the rate that I was getting. 

Did you feel that the mortgage process was easier to navigate than you would’ve anticipated? 

I tell people I learned more in those couple weeks than I ever really cared to know about mortgage stuff. By no means an expert, but you know, I do feel more equipped today than I did 30 days ago to go through that process. 

Well, that’s actually huge. There’s a lack of transparency around the process and that’s obviously why most people don’t shop around for different rate options. 

That’s a good word, “transparency” because that’s how I felt. When I look around at other people I know who are sort of going through this process, my advice has been, “look around online.” Investigate. Because people are always going with just a local banking relationship that they have and I just don’t think that they’re getting good deals. Even the homeowner’s insurance–I had talked to a couple of local agents and the company that I already was with—with my homeowners and auto insurance. I by far got a better deal even on that using one of the companies that were referred to me by Value Mortgage. I won’t ever do business just with the brick & mortar local companies. I just think there are better deals to be had out there when you do some investigation and you work with companies that do everything electronically online now. 

Was there any sort of skepticism that you encountered not having a prior relationship with Value Mortgage compared to your local bank?

I looked into the company a bit and got to a comfort level and everything, but let me tell you–I  got a better deal than I could get anywhere else. And I shopped. What I was getting through the Value Mortgage relationship with both local companies and other online providers that came back through that [search] and could not find a better deal. At the end of the day, that overcame any skepticism that I encountered. When I looked at the ins and outs of your business, I [realized] I got a better financial deal than I could’ve than if I’d worked with Quicken directly.