With mortgage rates at historic low levels, now may be a good time to buy or refinance a house, and the Internet has made it easier than ever to shop for a mortgage.
There’s no longer a need to pound the pavement going from one bank to another comparing rates or to spend hours on the phone supplying loan officers with information when you can get quotes from multiple lenders by filling out one application online.
But shopping online can sometimes mean providing your Social Security number to a website in order to get a mortgage rate — a process that disturbs some consumers and industry experts.
“There are probably eight to 10 criteria that are required to accurately price a mortgage, and a Social Security number is not one of them,” said Rick Allen, chief financial officer at Mortgage Marvel, a Milwaukee-based company that provides online quotes for mortgage rates and closing fees.
Not all mortgage websites ask applicants for Social Security numbers and other detailed personal and financial information.
Mortgage Marvel recently conducted a side-by-side comparison of the four leading mortgage lender websites — Bankrate, Zillow, Mortgage Marvel and Lending Tree — and found that Lending Tree is the only one that asked applicants to provide a Social Security number to receive a mortgage rate.
Read more at: http://www.chicagotribune.com/classified/realestate/buy/sc-cons-0809-online-mortgage-20120817,0,2781105.story
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