Remember when you bought your first used car? Chances are you were young and used a fair bit of negotiation to get the price to where you thought you were getting a good deal. The years may have went by and you are a bit older now, but now that you are working on buying a home and taking on a sizable mortgage you should sharpen up your negotiation skills to put them to work to help you save thousands of dollars on your mortgage!
Let’s start out with talking about fees – all the processes and paperwork that mortgage lenders like to charge you for. Document preparation fees, research fees – talking about fees fee. Each and every one of those fees is negotiable. After all, it’s not like they are using a scribe to write out your mortgage documents — $300 to prepare a standard mortgage contract is a bit much. Question every fee and work to negotiate them down. Let the lender know that you know they aren’t the only game in town and make them earn your business. Even if you knock only $100 off that is $100 more in your pocket for just a few minutes worth of negotiation. But remember to spend the majority of your time negotiating on...