A 1% difference in mortgage rate on a $350,000 loan costs or saves roughly $70,000 in total interest over 30 years. Get quotes from at least three lenders, including banks, credit unions, and mortgage brokers, before committing. Rates vary more than most buyers expect, and lenders are competing for your business.
Buyers will haggle for weeks to knock $5,000 off a listing price, then sign with the first lender who returns a phone call. That instinct gets the math backward.
The purchase price is paid once. The rate is charged on every dollar you still owe, every month, for up to 30 years. One percentage point on a $350,000 balance runs about $3,500 in interest the first year alone, and because the balance shrinks slowly in the early years, that extra cost keeps repeating.
Lenders also price the same borrower differently. Your quote depends on each lender’s overhead, risk appetite, and how much they want your loan that week. That spread is why three quotes on an identical application rarely match.
Gather your quotes within the same few days, since pricing changes daily. Ask each lender for a Loan Estimate, the standardized form they’re required to send. It puts the rate, points, and lender fees in the same place on every version, so you can compare line by line. Watch the points closely. Points are upfront fees that buy a lower rate, and a rate bought with thousands of dollars up front isn’t automatically the better deal.
Your credit can handle the shopping, too. Newer credit scoring models treat every mortgage inquiry inside a 45-day window as a single inquiry, and even older versions allow 14 days. When one lender comes in lowest, take that Loan Estimate to the lender you’d rather work with and ask them to beat it. They often will.
The seller sets the price of the house. The price of the money is yours to set, one competing quote at a time.
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