5 Questions to Ask Any Mortgage Broker.
Before you trust anyone with a $400,000 decision — these are the five questions that separate independent brokers from sales reps, and good loan officers from order-takers.
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Schedule a free consultationThe five questions
- How are you compensated, and who pays you? Compensation can introduce conflicts of interest. The answer should be transparent and consistent across lenders.
- How many wholesale lenders do you work with — and how do you choose? The whole reason to use a broker is access to many lenders. If they only use 2–3, you're not getting the comparison shopping the broker model is supposed to provide.
- If a competitor's program is better for me, will you tell me? This question reveals integrity. Listen to how they answer.
- Walk me through every cost on the Loan Estimate. A good broker can explain every line — what's negotiable, what's a third-party fee, what's a government fee.
- If something goes wrong — appraisal low, unusual underwriter requests, lock expires — what's your process? Mortgages don't always close cleanly. You want to know who you call when they don't.
Why this matters
A mortgage is the largest financial decision most people will ever make. The wrong loan can cost tens of thousands of dollars. The wrong broker can put you into the wrong loan because of how they're paid, not because it's right for you.
Yet most homebuyers spend more time researching a $30,000 car than the $400,000 mortgage they're about to sign for. This guide is the first step toward changing that.
How to use this guide
Ask any mortgage broker — including us — all five questions in your first conversation. The answers, and the way they answer them, will tell you what you need to know. If a broker can't or won't answer clearly, walk away. There are 1,000+ licensed mortgage loan originators in the Tampa Bay area alone.