FHA Loan Interest Rate Seems High

[Ian Whiteman]

Im in the process of securing a 30 fixed rate FHA loan on a duplex. Credit score on my personal Experian site shows as 818. The lender says it is 771. Not sure why there is a discrepancy. Today I received the loan docs and my issue is that the rate was locked for me at 4.875% which seems high. We are putting about 6% down on a 470k loan since it was over the maximum allowable for FHA on a duplex.

I questioned the lender, who is a close friend of my business partners, and he said he cut his commission to get us down to 4.875% and it should have been 5%. Am I mistaken in feeling it is high based on todays rates? 

[Russell Brazil]

Regarding credit scores. There are literally dozens of different credit score algorithims for FICO scores. Your scores for a mortgage company will be different from an auto loan company which will be different from a credit card company etc.

Consumers who are not familiar with the different algorithms are always surprised that their mortgage fico scores are lower than the scores they get from other sources.  Myfico.com will show you about a dozen or so of the different algorithms.