Specifically- How to shop for an FHA lender

[Matthew Hetrick]

BACKGROUND: My goal is to purchase a duplex with an FHA loan and occupy one unit for at least a year (i.e. house hack).

QUESTION(S): Everything I have read on getting the best FHA loan emphasizes the importance of 'shopping around' with multiple lenders, and that makes a lot of sense to me. However, I am extremely new to this and have not been able to find anything on what 'shopping around' looks like. Does this entail filling out a bunch of applications with prospective lenders? Does it make more sense to start off with a brief email that contains a snap shot of my qualifying info (i.e. credit score, annual gross income, monthly debt, etc.)? How many lenders should I look at? And are there any particularly good ones that I should narrow my search to?

Thank you for any and all guidance around this.

[John Warren]

@Matthew Hetrick the thing to keep in mind is that you aren't really shopping for anything special on the loan itself. Pretty much all lenders can do the same loans generally speaking with FHA. Instead, you are looking for a lender who knows investing and who understands all the ways to make your deal a winner. As a realtor, I have an amazing lender that I both use personally and who I refer to clients. I always cringe when the clients end up with some major bank because I know the lender on the other end making $20 an hour will have no idea how to get the deal done if it gets complicated.

One thing you can do is ask the lender about self sufficiency for 3 and 4 units. If their eyes glaze over then they don't know anything about house hacking with an FHA loan. Also, ask them if you can use a 5% down conventional to buy a 3 or 4 unit. This was possible last year, but is 99% impossible now due to recent changes but I still run into lenders who don't know about those changes.