My husband and I are first time home buyers and are in the middle of buying a house. We are very well qualified so we're putting down only 3% and our PMI on a 340k home loan is less than $100/mo with a conventional loan. We rate shopped and ended up using a 5.75% rate from Better Mortgage to get Waterstone to decrease their rate from 6.5 to 5.99. We know we're going to get way better service from Waterstone vs having to chase an online company every step of the way, so we were happy with the higher rate for better service.
But then I went to sign the disclosures paperwork and noticed that rate is locked only for 30 days, putting us at Feb 9th for expiration. That was never going to work because closing is scheduled for Feb 17th. General inspection has revealed that the sellers are going to need to fix a big area of mold and water damage in the laundry room before we can close, so it may even get pushed out further.
I raised my concerns last week with the LO via email and did not hear back from him. Someone from his team called me yesterday and let me know if we don't get the file moving we're in danger of missing our closing date. I explained the rate lock situation to her and what she said in response was both confusing and worrying to me. She essentially told me it costs something like $70/day to extend a rate lock and that my realtor is very good so I can negotiate to get the sellers to pay that extra $800-900 for me. I told her I didn't think the sellers would agree to pay it because why should they when the closing date was agreed to by both parties in the original contract and they haven't caused any delays or pushed it? So I asked what would happen if we let the lock expire, because it really makes it seem like it was completely pointless to rate shop if they're going to just give me a 30 day lock knowing full well it isn't enough time and then hit me with nearly $900 in fees on the back end. I felt taken advantage of and I told her that. She said something about needing to let the file sit for 40 days and then we could reopen it but essentially we'd miss our closing and lose the house. I asked her to explain further and she basically told me to just sign it so it can move forward and she promised she's going to get us taken care of with the lock desk.
We're only using this company because my mother in law works there in underwriting and recommended this specific team, so there is a degree of trust but I feel like I'm being had on this one. On the flip side, this is my first time dealing with rate locks (I bought a home about 6 years ago but didn't have to deal with any of this kind of thing) so it's possible we are being frustrating little shits to the LO's team and I just don't understand it.
Any insight from those more experienced than me would be much appreciated!
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source https://www.reddit.com/r/RealEstate/comments/10kz3ev/us_nm_buying_a_house_and_confused_about_rate_locks/
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