[Drow]

Originally Posted by franko

There's a difference between a non-bank, aka: monoline lender, and a private. Private is an industry standard term that refers to a B Lender doing non-prime business at high rates for people with poor credit and/or non-confirmable income.

Any of the major monolines are absolutely fine to deal with, have good customer service and tend to be agressive with rates and keeping customers happy in order to win market share.

If you're renewing it doesn't hurt to talk to a broker and rate compare. Your current lender may have the best rate, they may not. If someone else beats them you can always show your existing lender the rate and ask them to better it.

Also, if your mortgage doesn't secure a collateral charge (secured line of credit) many lenders offer a zero fee transfer (no legal costs), although your existing lender will charge you a discharge fee and document fees (Big 5 banks charge for mortgage payout statements just like almost all lenders, sometimes they even are "accidentally" slow issuing the payout statement to the new lender so the client misses their maturity date to transfer).

Additionally if you have or previously had a High Ratio mortgage where you as the client paid a mortgage insurance fee (even if you're loan to value is now below 80%, as long as you haven't refi'd since then) you can transfer it qualifying at contract rate (around low 2% right now), instead of the now federally mandated benchmark rate of 4.64% which opens up some options for some people that are at the limit for debt servicing.

To say you get what you pay for at a big 5 is a bit of a naieve statement as there are many monoline options, as well as non big 5 banks, that offer comparable or better service and products. Like anything in life it generally pays to shop around. Rates move around all the time, there isn't one lender that is always better.

Everyone gets clients who don't like their current lender, if you move around in the industry you'll find it's pretty much the same wherever you are (monolines fund their mortgages with Big 5 funds as investors anyway).

where do i sign up?