Questions, answered plainly

On most residential deals, nothing. The lender pays the broker a finder's fee when the mortgage funds, and that fee does not change the rate you are offered. Where a fee does apply, which is mainly private lending and some alternative deals, it is disclosed in writing before you commit to anything. If a broker will not put their compensation in writing, that tells you something.

You can, and sometimes the bank wins. The limitation is that a bank sells one lender's products: one rate sheet, one set of lending rules, one risk appetite. Nobody there is checking whether a credit union two blocks away would structure it better. A broker takes the same file to a panel of banks, credit unions and monoline lenders and compares what comes back. If your own bank does come back best, that is a perfectly good outcome and Chad will tell you so.

No. Chad pulls your credit once and uses that single report across the lender panel, so multiple lenders can look at your file on one enquiry. Beyond that, the scoring models treat multiple mortgage enquiries within a short window as a single event, because the system expects people to shop for a mortgage. The thing that hurts is scattered applications across many months, not a focused search.

A pre-approval can be turned around in a day or two once your documents are in. From an accepted offer to funding is usually two to four weeks, depending on the lender and how fast conditions get cleared. Rush closings are workable, but they leave no room when something needs fixing, and something usually does.

Five percent on the first $500,000, ten percent on the portion between $500,000 and $1.5 million, and twenty percent on anything above that. Below twenty percent, default insurance is required and the premium gets added to the mortgage rather than paid up front. Above a $1.5 million purchase price, insurance is not available at all, so twenty percent becomes the floor. The payment calculator works all of this out as you type.

You have to prove you could still afford the payment at a higher rate than the one you are being given: specifically the greater of your contract rate plus two percent, or 5.25 percent. It applies to insured mortgages and to most uninsured mortgages at federally regulated lenders. It is the single biggest reason the amount you qualify for is lower than the amount you feel you could comfortably pay.

Yes, from an immediate family member. The lender will want a signed gift letter confirming it is a genuine gift and not a loan, and they will want to see the money land in your account. What causes problems is a large unexplained deposit appearing shortly before closing, so tell your broker about gifted funds early rather than at the last minute.

More than most people expect. Lenders measure your housing costs against income, then all of your debt payments against income. A car payment of a few hundred dollars a month can reduce your mortgage ceiling by tens of thousands. Sometimes the highest-value thing you can do before applying is clear one small balance rather than save more.

It depends on how much rate movement you can absorb without losing sleep, and on how likely you are to break the term early. The part that gets skipped: variable penalties are almost always three months interest, while fixed penalties can be an interest rate differential, which is a far larger number. If there is any chance you sell, separate or refinance mid-term, that difference can outweigh the rate comparison entirely.

On a variable, usually three months interest. On a fixed, the greater of three months interest or an interest rate differential. The catch is that lenders calculate the differential differently, and some use posted rates rather than the rate you were actually given, which can multiply the charge. The penalty estimator gives you a range, but always get the exact figure from your lender in writing.

Almost never without checking. The rate on a renewal letter is an offer, not a fixed price, and lenders know most people sign it. You have the right to move the mortgage to another lender at renewal with no penalty, which is exactly the leverage that gets you a better number. Start looking about four months out.

No, and the gap shows up later. Some of the sharpest rates come on restricted products that cannot be ported if you move, cannot be broken without a heavy charge, or can only be refinanced with that same lender. If nothing changes for five years, you win. If life changes, the cheap mortgage becomes the expensive one. Compare the exit terms alongside the rate.

Yes, though the paperwork differs. Lenders generally want two years of filed returns, and for an incorporated owner the corporate financials too. Where write-offs have pushed reported income down, some lenders will add a portion of it back. Others work from bank deposits instead. Options are available; the work is matching the file to a lender that reads it properly rather than one that stops at line 15000.

Usually not. A decline tells you that one lender's rules did not fit your file and nothing more. Credit unions, monoline lenders and alternative lenders underwrite differently. The useful question is which specific thing caused it: the income documentation, the credit, the property, or the debt ratios. That answer determines where the file goes next, and sometimes it means waiting three months and fixing one thing first.

There is no single cutoff. Most insured A-lender programs want to see 680 or better, and below roughly 600 you are generally looking at alternative lenders. But score is only part of it: lenders also look at how long your accounts have been open, how close your balances are to their limits, and how recent any missed payments are. A 640 with clean recent history often places better than a 680 with a collection from last month.

Less time than most people assume. What lenders want to see is the discharge completed and then a period of re-established credit, typically two clean trade lines reporting for a couple of years. Some alternative lenders will look at a file sooner than that. The waiting period runs from discharge, not from filing, which is why getting the discharge finalised promptly matters.