15 Mortgage Questions To Ask Your Lender
15 Mortgage Questions To Ask Your Lender
By Karen Doyle Oct 28, 2021
Asking the right questions could save you money on a home.
Buying a house is exciting — but it’s also a big decision. Whether you’re looking for a new home or refinancing your current one, choosing the right mortgage is one of the most important aspects of the process, so it helps to be prepared. To ensure you get all the information you need as you’re making decisions when buying or refinancing a home, you need to know the right questions to ask.
Here are 15 questions to ask a mortgage lender, which will help you learn how you can save money when buying a home.
1. How Much House Can I Afford?
Before you can buy a house, you need a realistic idea of how much you can afford to spend on a house, as well as how big of a mortgage you can get. To do this, you should meet with mortgage lenders before real estate agents. You can get pre-qualified for a mortgage, meaning you’ll know exactly how much money you can borrow and therefore spend on a home.
By getting pre-qualified, you’ll be better prepared for the homebuying process and appear more appealing to sellers. Because this is one of the most important mortgage loan questions, make sure you ask it based on the amount of monthly payments you know you can handle. Before you go to a lender, analyze your budget and determine the amount you’re comfortable with, as well as how much money you’ll be able to put down.
A rule of thumb is to spend 25% or less of your net income on your mortgage. That means if you make $100,000 a year and you pay $20,000 in taxes, your net income is $80,000 and you should spend $20,000 on your mortgage annually. That amount works out to a monthly payment of $1,666.
2. What Kind of Loan Should I Get?
Among questions for mortgage lenders, this one is important. The two basic types of mortgages are fixed and variable rate. A fixed rate has the same interest rate for the term of the loan, which might be 15, 30 or even 40 years. With a fixed-rate mortgage, your payments remain the same for the life of the loan.
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