Jonathan Haddad
Appearances
NerdWallet's Smart Money Podcast
From Broker to Budget: How to Buy or Sell a Home in 2025
Our job is when you come in the door and you fill out your application, giving us all the necessary insights into your life, your income, your property, your assets, and your credit. Our job is to help find the best fit for you and your family. We take this information and we go into the market for you on your behalf and say, hey, we have this incredible client. Here's their profile.
NerdWallet's Smart Money Podcast
From Broker to Budget: How to Buy or Sell a Home in 2025
What can you do for them? We find the best lender and the best fit for our consumers to make sure they're getting into the home of their dreams with a price that they can afford at a cheaper than average market price by using a mortgage broker through the wholesale channel.
NerdWallet's Smart Money Podcast
From Broker to Budget: How to Buy or Sell a Home in 2025
And what we did is that they pulled all the data from Hemda. Hemda is where all the data is stored on every closed transaction that occurs in the United States. They went and looked at what mortgage brokers offer versus anyone in the retail space. I actually spent a little over six years on the retail side of things. Those are your larger banks, larger institutions.
NerdWallet's Smart Money Podcast
From Broker to Budget: How to Buy or Sell a Home in 2025
And on average, on the wholesale side, you can save on average over $10,000 in interest alone. just by leveraging a mortgage broker. And a lot of it has to do with where they're allocating and putting money. If you're working with a retail lender, you can only use their products. It's whatever they offer is all you can do.
NerdWallet's Smart Money Podcast
From Broker to Budget: How to Buy or Sell a Home in 2025
As a mortgage broker, I can find and use the different products of every lender out there. And that means they want to earn your business. And therefore, they're going to make their pricings slightly more competitive. And over the life of the loan, that $10,000
NerdWallet's Smart Money Podcast
From Broker to Budget: How to Buy or Sell a Home in 2025
you should be spending on your house, doing upgrades, putting it away, saving for retirement, saving for your children's school, whatever the case might be. Don't let that money go to waste. Let your house work for you. Don't work for your house. That's part of the advantage of working with a mortgage broker.
NerdWallet's Smart Money Podcast
From Broker to Budget: How to Buy or Sell a Home in 2025
So the $10,000 is a mixture of the interest rate you get up front and the closing costs you're paying on entering and getting the home that you want of your dreams. Those costs over that 30-year marker of $10,000 is antiquated towards that. This information, by the way, you can go Google it. You can look up and see the big study that was done very recently.
NerdWallet's Smart Money Podcast
From Broker to Budget: How to Buy or Sell a Home in 2025
And there's a study that comes out every single year. What's more interesting with that study for our homeowners out there is we actually see an increase in savings for minority borrowers and an increase in savings for borrowers that are veterans.
NerdWallet's Smart Money Podcast
From Broker to Budget: How to Buy or Sell a Home in 2025
There's so many things that are going to be thrown your way from every lender that you talk to, every loan officer that you talk to. And here's the reality of it, okay? If you really want to shop for a mortgage and you want to know what to ask, here's what you do. You have to make sure you're calling everybody on the same day. And the reason why is rates move with the stock market.
NerdWallet's Smart Money Podcast
From Broker to Budget: How to Buy or Sell a Home in 2025
So when the stock bell rings at 930 in the morning, I'm getting my interest rates at the same time. All the lenders are basically getting rates at the same time. So boil it down to your three or four lenders that you want. You're going to want to ask them about how long your loan is locked for. That's really important because you want to make sure it's locked all the way through your closing date.
NerdWallet's Smart Money Podcast
From Broker to Budget: How to Buy or Sell a Home in 2025
Number two, you want them to send you a locked loan estimate. So yes, ask for it to be locked so they can't change the numbers on you. And then legally, they have to send you a document called a loan estimate. This document will break down all the fees associated with your mortgage.
NerdWallet's Smart Money Podcast
From Broker to Budget: How to Buy or Sell a Home in 2025
Now, for consumers out there, the fees that are controlled the most by the lender is in the first box that you see on a loan estimate. This is letter A as an apple. Under here, you'll see things like points. You'll see things like underwriting fees. You'll see things like administrative fees. Whatever those fees are, just know line A is where the actual negotiations can occur.
NerdWallet's Smart Money Podcast
From Broker to Budget: How to Buy or Sell a Home in 2025
So when you're getting this information back from your lenders, take a look at that line, make sure your locked loan estimate is in front of you, and then compare apples to apples by just looking at line A. Everything else on that loan estimate There's either third party fees or government fees that must be paid regardless of you doing any transaction.
NerdWallet's Smart Money Podcast
From Broker to Budget: How to Buy or Sell a Home in 2025
So that's the best way for you to figure out how to shop and get the best mortgage for you and your family.
NerdWallet's Smart Money Podcast
From Broker to Budget: How to Buy or Sell a Home in 2025
Number one, communication up front is the biggest piece of it. Number two, I always love asking about their Google reviews. Mortgage brokers, what you will find, really pride themselves on their Google reviews because they really are local to your market. So ask them, how involved are they in the community? How do their Google reviews look alongside of the community?
NerdWallet's Smart Money Podcast
From Broker to Budget: How to Buy or Sell a Home in 2025
How long have they been in the industry for? How much do they know about it? How many lenders are they partnered with? Hey, are you just signed up with one or two lenders or do I have the opportunity to work with a plethora of the lenders that are out there and do you have access to them? The other piece of it is what does your weekend availability look like? It's important. We're in real estate.
NerdWallet's Smart Money Podcast
From Broker to Budget: How to Buy or Sell a Home in 2025
And at the end of the day, Murphy's Law is a very real thing. What can go wrong can pop up. Mortgage brokers availability is one of the biggest pieces that we offer to our consumers. Making sure that your mortgage broker is not just closed on the weekends, not just closing up shop at five o'clock and having the availability you need for you and your family to be comfortable going into that house.
NerdWallet's Smart Money Podcast
From Broker to Budget: How to Buy or Sell a Home in 2025
Those are just some of the areas where mortgage brokers can really help you. And those are some of the questions and things you can ask as a consumer to make sure you're working with the right mortgage broker.
NerdWallet's Smart Money Podcast
From Broker to Budget: How to Buy or Sell a Home in 2025
I'm actually going to start from with those that might not need a broker. If you're a consumer that has a lot of money in a specific institution, they'll allow you to borrow against your own assets. It's actually very similar to how a 401k would work, how a specific retirement plan would work.
NerdWallet's Smart Money Podcast
From Broker to Budget: How to Buy or Sell a Home in 2025
We've seen in many instances where your client looking for a very large home that has a lot of money, they might be a better fit looking with their local institution where they're putting a lot of their money. It does not hurt to check. There's opportunities for you where a Now, for a lot of clients, a mortgage broker will be the best path forward.
NerdWallet's Smart Money Podcast
From Broker to Budget: How to Buy or Sell a Home in 2025
If you're a veteran that have ever been denied and you put in your time and you got an honorable discharge, check in with a mortgage broker immediately if you've ever been denied. If you're a consumer in an underserved area that may have not be getting the guidance you're looking for that may have been denied, check in with a mortgage broker.
NerdWallet's Smart Money Podcast
From Broker to Budget: How to Buy or Sell a Home in 2025
There's many different programs that mortgage brokers have specific to your state, and you'd be surprised how many people we've been able to help that have been denied in the past. And any consumers, go on to Google and just check local mortgage broker near me. If you have a locked loan estimate from a retail lender, just reach out. Be honest with them. Be direct.
NerdWallet's Smart Money Podcast
From Broker to Budget: How to Buy or Sell a Home in 2025
Say, hey, I have a locked loan estimate. I'd like you to do a soft credit pull. It won't hurt your credit. Can you just see what you can do? Here's the deal that I have in front of me. It's locked. It's from retail. Those are three easy consumers that are listening today where you should easily check in with your local mortgage broker.
NerdWallet's Smart Money Podcast
From Broker to Budget: How to Buy or Sell a Home in 2025
There's 5,000 lenders. And the reality is you don't want to be checking with 4,999 of these lenders. So whenever you're speaking to your mortgage broker, Ask them what is the most important thing to them. And in turn, they should be asking you, what's the most important for you and your family? Is it price? Is it closing on time? Is it value? Is it availability?
NerdWallet's Smart Money Podcast
From Broker to Budget: How to Buy or Sell a Home in 2025
Whatever the case is, really make sure that they understand what is important. From there, have them put together at least three to five options for you that's laid out, breaking down the interest rate and the potential costs associated with the interest rate. Ask about any of the cons with the associated lenders that the mortgage broker might be picking for you.
NerdWallet's Smart Money Podcast
From Broker to Budget: How to Buy or Sell a Home in 2025
And just know a majority of these lenders are all going to be within an eighth of each other. That's one eighth of interest rate. So you have to go in with a little bit of that trust, but it's really important you ask a tremendous amount of questions just to make sure you feel good about the individual that you might be working with.
NerdWallet's Smart Money Podcast
From Broker to Budget: How to Buy or Sell a Home in 2025
The perfect profile. And when I say perfect profile, all I'm saying is when an investor looks at this, they look at your loan and say, okay, this is the least amount of risk possible. And I want you to think about it as if you were lending out your own money and you were to look at somebody's profile and ask yourself, okay, does this look like a valuable thing for me to invest in?
NerdWallet's Smart Money Podcast
From Broker to Budget: How to Buy or Sell a Home in 2025
The top of the line for the best price, the best everything for a conventional loan is a 760 credit score with you putting 40% down. That is the absolute best rate you can get. Now, let me be clear. That is not for a majority of people that come in the door, myself included. On my first several homes, I was not putting that much money down.
NerdWallet's Smart Money Podcast
From Broker to Budget: How to Buy or Sell a Home in 2025
I was putting roughly 3.5% down, maybe 5% earlier on in my career. For a majority of clients coming in the door, understand that there's opportunities such as down payment assistance products and different ways to help you get into the home of your dreams. So your credit score will have a big factor on the rate that you get. Your down payment will have another factor.
NerdWallet's Smart Money Podcast
From Broker to Budget: How to Buy or Sell a Home in 2025
on the interest rate that you get. And those are going to be the two biggest areas. And last but not least, potentially your payment history. Have you made payments on time? Even if you've never owned a home before, what does your credit card payment history look like? What does your auto payment history look like? All of that will be assessed to help give you the best interest rate.
NerdWallet's Smart Money Podcast
From Broker to Budget: How to Buy or Sell a Home in 2025
The thing I love about what you mentioned there too, you know, from my side, I'm first generation Middle Eastern American. So my parents were born both in the Middle East. I grew up here. I'm the first one growing up here. A lot of what is taught to a lot of families is that you need to put 20% down and you need to have perfect credit. That was taught in my household growing up.
NerdWallet's Smart Money Podcast
From Broker to Budget: How to Buy or Sell a Home in 2025
And the reality is most people cannot put themselves in that position. So I really want to help break that stigma of needing 20, 30, 40% down to be a homeowner. So don't be afraid of someone saying you have to put 20% down. Don't let it scare you.
NerdWallet's Smart Money Podcast
From Broker to Budget: How to Buy or Sell a Home in 2025
Open the door, go to Google, look up a local mortgage broker, and at least have a conversation because it is important for you and your family long-term.
NerdWallet's Smart Money Podcast
From Broker to Budget: How to Buy or Sell a Home in 2025
Thank you, team, very much. I appreciate your time.
NerdWallet's Smart Money Podcast
From Broker to Budget: How to Buy or Sell a Home in 2025
Mortgage brokers fit into the process as that in-between person to help find the best opportunity for you and your family. It's really quite simple. Over the last decade, mortgage brokers have increased the market share to over 25%, which means one out of four homeowners are now using a mortgage broker.