Not So Impressed With Lending Tree

My father had good luck with Lending Tree when they bought their house in New Mexico.  Apparently, Lending Tree was everything it advertises itself to be for them.  It presented four competitive offers, etc.  My dad was so extremely impressed with the agent they eventually went with that he still speaks very highly of him today.

Now, I’ve tried using Lending Tree in the past.  Twice I’ve tried to use the website to do debt consolidation with less than satisfactory results.  Both times in the past, I got only one or two offers, usually for credit card companies and usually for loan amounts much lower than I needed to consolidate and was asking for and interest rates higher than I already had.

So, when my mother and father encouraged me to apply through Lending Tree yesterday to see what offers I might get if I were going to buy one of those two properties which are both priced about the same, I was hesitant, but I did it.  After all, they’re my parents.  I no longer have any standing debt.  I have some savings.  I have lots of retirement money.  I think I look better financially.

So, the way that Lending Tree supposedly works as I understand it is that they guarantee you 5 offers in 24 hours.

What they don’t tell you is that each offer from each agent is considered one of those offers.  In fact, offers from different agents at the same bank/lending organization are considered a different offer.  In fact, an email with just a link to a website where you can apply for a loan is considered an offer.  At least that’s what I have deduced from my experience in the last 24 hours.

I received three (3) emails from Amerisave agents. One of the emails had two rate offers in it, one for a fixed 15 year and one for a fixed 30 year.  The other two agents just provided links to the website.

So that counts as four offers.

The fifth offer was an email with a link to Lowe’s Mortgage.

So, needless to say, I’m not impressed with Lending Tree…again.

And here’s a website for house hunters to bookmark.  My dad is keeping an eye on this: BankRate.com.  According to that site today’s 30-year fixed rate is 5.92%.  An FHA loan, which I would need as a first-time home buyer, would add 0.5% for the mortgage insurance.  That should only bring a quoted rate up to 6.42% for me.

Of course, I have no idea what my credit report says about me.

tags: Lending Tree, mortgage loan

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