Many borrowers focus on clinching the best mortgage rates and are not aware of the possibility of obtaining credits to their closing costs, columnist Ken Harney reports.
Harney found that one borrower was recently offered a $3,500 credit by a mortgage brokerage, even though two banks quoting the same interest rate as the brokerage did not offer any credits at all.
What that borrower didn’t realize, Harney said, is that the two banks may have been willing to offer closing-cost credits themselves, if he’d asked.
The bottom line, Harney says, is that borrowers shouldn’t focus “solely on the interest rate. Ask about the possibility of credits toward closing costs.”