How do you shop for interest rates on small loans?

[Deanna S.]

Hello. We are getting ready to buy our first buy and hold property. We live in Alexandria, VA. We intend to buy in the Cleveland, Ohio area. Our brokers and lenders in our local market that we have worked with before don't do small loans. Our loan will be $80k or less. We are looking to buy a multifamily first (2-4 units). We have talked to one lender in CA that will work with us but need direction on how best to shop and compare rates for a small loan before we lock. In the past, I have started with Bankrate and then called the brokers we have worked with in the past. I have received about 3-4 quotes before I locked.

Thank you for pointing me in the right direction.  I am also a member of PenFed but they don't do these types of loans so they won't rate quote us.

[Chris Mason]

Google search "poorest zip code in Ohio," and find out who is doing those mortgages. Those are the people and institutions that will be interested in doing baby loans.

If you walk into PenFed (I broker to them, so I'm familiar -- great jumbo products!), or any other lender local to Northern Virginia (from what I know of NoVa), they are going to think of an $80k loan as an act of charity, and may only do it if you are a loyal repeat customer. That's probably why no one in NoVa is getting back to you -- rather than presenting yourself as a loyal repeat customer, you're doing the rate shopping thing. 

If you want to go that route, it will have to  be with lenders that don't consider $80k an act of charity. So, lenders in poor rural Ohio, where the property is.