Who's your favorite traditional lender in Cleveland?

[Account Closed]

Closing on a triplex in Ohio City and my current lender is trying to charge me 1% origination and 5.375% fixed on a 30 year loan.    Purchase price of the deal is over $300k and my lender claims it's the best rate I'm going to find.  It's a semi-large bank and working with a local credit union seems more appealing (plus the added benefit of proving him completely wrong).  Let me know your thoughts!

[Don Petrasek]

Shray a few things to consider:

With conventional lending, there are add-ons (points/rate) for non-owner occupied and additional units.  So you can’t compare an investor rate on a 3-family to an owner occupied single family rate - two different things.

I think local credit unions for the most part are going to be limited to working with people who live/work in the area.  Credit unions have to have some sort of membership requirement as part of their charter, e g firefighters and their families who work in X area, residents of X county, etc.  Many sell their loans so are going to offer you the going rate. 

The smaller local banks that I have talked to are reluctant to work with out of state investors, probably due to the added legal cost of tracking them down if something goes wrong.   

The local banks will be aggressive when it comes to terms, not necessarily rate. I talked to a few local banks the last time I refi'd as I wanted to keep the property in my LLC. They were willing to lend that way but at a commercial rate = 5.25% adjustable with a 5 yr balloon. Their conventional rates were about the same as the bigger guys.

If your loan is approved and the numbers work, I wouldn’t start shopping around now.  5.375% may not be the absolute best rate you’re going to find, but it isn’t worth jeopardizing a good deal over an 1/8 or even 1/4% difference in interest rate. 

BTW my last refi was with First Fed of Lakewood.