Mortgage brokers, bankers and lenders should be outraged. The claims by home loan web sites are in large part preposterous. Sure, there are those that really do offer mortgage interest rates that could be considered "low" or"lower" or even "lowest". First I think it is important to know what those claims mean. What is a low interest rate? What is lower lower than? Lowest interest rates should be relatively simple to comprehend.
Guess what. None of these terms seem to have any relevance due to their misuse. There doesn't seem to be a standard. Borrowers beware. Roughly 40% of the sites that I visited via the keywords - low mortgage interest rates - had what most of us would consider full retail mortgage interest rates and loan costs.
We need a standard by which a borrower can truly discern what the term "low" actually means. It is up to us, the brokers, bankers, lenders and mortgage site operators. Our own truth in lending policed by ourselves.
I suggest as a standard 3/4 of 1% of the loan amount to be considered "low". This pretty well characterizes "lower" and, well, "lowest" is still somewhat relative, however it does have relevance.
By Andrew Kellerman
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661
Date Published :
Nov 6 2009