By Marilyn Kennedy Melia
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When you’re sitting in front of a mortgage lender, anxiously hoping for approval, remember this: You’re not just a borrower, you’re a customer, too.
If you’re applying for a mortgage where you bank, you might see the institution’s gratitude for your loyalty expressed with a discount on your mortgage rate or a fee waived.
Just like supermarkets or department stores, financial institutions often offer rewards to retain customers.
This spring, a traditionally busy home buying season, perks for customers who combine their loan with other banking products aren’t uncommon.
Chase, for example, offers a .25 percent rate discount on a home equity line of credit. For a customer with a premium checking account, there’s a .5 percent rate discount, an annual fee waiver for the life of the loan and no origination fee.
At Bank of America, existing customers may be eligible to receive a discount of $200 to $600 on the lender fee, depending on their relationship with the bank.
Wells Fargo offers a credit card program that allows cardholders to arrange automatic recurring rewards redemptions to their home loan.
Fashioning your own mortgage-related perk by paying your mortgage bill with a rewards earning credit card might be possible, but few mortgage servicers accept payments by credit card, says Ali Ahmad of the Mortgage Bankers Association.
A locally owned financial institution may also tie loan perks to other banking products. “It depends on the bank,” says Ron Haynie, senior vice president of The Independent Community Bankers of America.
A benefit of borrowing locally, adds Haynie: a hometown institution may be more adept at establishing the value of a unique property with few price comparables.
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