A few lenders are willing to negotiate interest rates and points on loan but this is usually not the case with established lenders. What determines y our interest rate is your credit and income. Different lenders have varying policies and requirements so our interest rate will also change depending on which lender you or your loan officer goes to and when you guys.

Private mortgage insurance (PMI) is insurance that protects your lender from losing money when you default on a loan. Most loans with less than a 20 percent down payment require the purchase of this insurance. The insurance is usually a small fee added to each monthly payment totaling to a percentage of the loan amount. One possible way of minimizing this expense is to get two loans. One loan to make sure you have enough for the 20% down payment, another loan for the other 80%. This makes it so that you won’t have to pay as much in terms of private mortgage insurance because the loan amount you have to pay it for is smaller.

An impound account is a special bank account held by a lender to collect monthly payments from the borrower to pay for various expenses such as property and different types of insurance. Lenders set up these accounts to make sure that all expenses will be paid for on time.