Home buying with Sam, Part 1

Are your online mortgage loan tools actually helpful?

I’m already in my mid-30s, married, bought a new car, and have a toddler, so I thought I would complete my “ideal credit union member” bingo card by buying a house. In related news, this is going to be a shorter blog post because I’m in the process of buying a house. ARGH!

On another note, I’m planning a series of these posts to walk you through the house-buying process from the perspective of a young member. But let’s start where so many of your young members will start, your website and your online mortgage loan tools.

Getting started, and then quickly floundering

I remember being frustrated early-on in the process. I’d never done any of this before, and even though my whole job revolves around credit unions, I wasn’t 100% sure how to start. 

So there I was, trying mortgage calculator after mortgage calculator on a variety of different websites. NerdWallet said this and Zillow said that and none of them agreed. Why was I getting different results? Sometimes I’d use the mortgage payment calculator and then the “can I afford this?” calculator on the same site, and get conflicting information. 

For pete’s sake, half of the calculators I used defaulted to a 4.5% APR, which was super out of date. And let me remind you, a lot of my peers don’t even know what that means. So why not help them out by adding a link on the calculator page for today’s rates? While you’re at it, try to include explanations for everything in plain English.

In my experience, you have to know a lot about your own financial situation and the state of the market just to know whether you’re inputting the correct information into the calculator. If you don’t know these things then well, garbage in, garbage out. As a side note, these calculators were way more useful once I was pre-approved and had a better understanding of my own budget.

In the end, I just reminded myself that many folks are less fortunate than I am and already own houses, and started filling out my credit union’s online loan application.

Application Apprehension

There’s no way around it, filling out an application feels Official. It feels like A Big Deal, and that can be scary. It’s no wonder that so many people just leave them incomplete.

As it stood, I wasn’t able to complete the application right away. I had to, of course, get my spouse’s information and I had a bunch of questions. Which accounts do I list? Is there even a reason to list retirement accounts? It’s not like I’m going to take that money out. Do I need to disclose all of my recurring debt or will that be visible on the credit report?

Here’s what went right for me, and truly made all of the difference: My credit union called me. I got to ask questions and get answers from a real person. It was very helpful and incredibly reassuring. And if my mortgage loan officer hadn’t called me? Who knows when I would have come back to it.

I want to take this moment to reiterate: I am educated, financially literate and fortunate enough to even consider buying a home in today’s market. This process was not a cake walk for me, and thankfully my credit union made it easier to navigate.

What would have happened if I had slipped through the cracks? In my very relevant and professional opinion as a credit union website expert, my credit union has a pretty good website with useful online tools. 

But no matter how helpful an online tool may be, it’s often the real, actual human contact that makes a difference.

How do your online mortgage loan tools stack up? Did you find this entertaining or useful? Stay tuned for further adventures in home buying with Sam.

Sam Dicken
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