Matt Madlang

If you have great credit and a minimal down payment, you can get access to some of the lowest interest rates we've seen in a long time. On a conventional mortgage, with 10% down and a 720 score: 4.875%! APR of 5.128%! The same goes for FHA loans. Rates for good credit are in the low 5% range. Just letting everyone know that hasn't already heard it elsewhere.

If you are outside of Utah and looking for the best mortgage lenders, try finding lowest interest rates at BeatMyBroker.com

We'd like to know how many realtors closely track interest rates. We understand it is the mortgage professionals duty to handle the loan side, but is the interest rate your client is receiving important to you? Would you rather not know what your client's interest rate is? Why or why not?

BeatMyBroker.com has made their own determination on what a fair mortgage really is. To judge the "fairness" of a mortgage, the only real characteristic of the transaction that can be addressed is the cost. By cost, we mean upfront fees and costs that a borrowers pays in their interest rate.

For those of you in the industry, loan officers, brokers, and agents, etc., you're probably quite familiar with the fees involved in a mortgage transaction. The only fees we are going to address right now are up front points, or origination points, and yield spread premiums (ysp). The amount of origination and yield spread premium represents a large portion of the costs associated with our definition of a fair mortgage. We have determined that a fair mortgage is a maximum 1.25% of the loan amount. Actually, 1.25% of the loan amount is THE maximum any of our mortgage partners can earn on a single loan transaction - we hope they limit themselves to 1% of the loan amount. So, what is the result of this commission cap?

The commission caps we have implemented for BeatMyBroker.com brokers and loan officers place accomplishes several things. From a mortgage broker's standpoint, it limits what they make. It also forces them to price VERY competively which in the long run will get you more business. . .from more referrals assuming you serviced your client well. From a borrower's view (and the most important one), they get only competitive quotes and aren't exposed to any types of mortgage "price gouging." We hate to call it price gouging and know that several loan professionals might feel that they are worth more than 1.25% max on a loan transaction, but for now we won't address any justifications for charging borrowers more money. For real estate agents, it means your clients are getting a very competitive loan and helping to solidify their all around great experience purchasing a home.

To sum it up, we believe a fair mortgage is one where the broker or loan officer was compensated fairly for their time and professional efforts, and the borrower was able to obtain low interest rates and pay low fees. We don't believe in working with loan officers that like to make 2% on a loan, 3%, or even 4% - and those 4% loans happen everyday.