You’ve selected the house: Now what?

You took your time and found the right Realtor to work with. Along with your Realtor, you shopped and looked and found the right home. A home that fits your family's needs, and a home that fits your family's budget.

As part of the home-shopping process, your Realtor told you that you needed to get "prequalified," so they gave you contact information from their preferred lender so you could get a "pre-qual letter." But now that your offer has been accepted, how do you go about choosing the right mortgage lender?

At this point, you might be saying to yourself, "I'll just use the lender who gave me the pre-qual letter, right?" Well, that all depends on how you answer this question: "Does it matter to you how much your loan costs?" If it does, then be wary. Because that one (seemingly) small assumption — to speak with only one lender — can turn out to be a costly decision for you in the end.

"Many times buyers don't realize that just as they shopped around to find the right home at the right price, they should be doing the same thing to make sure they get the right mortgage loan, too," reveals Rick Piette of Premier Mortgage Lending.

"Money is important to everyone today, and we all want to get the best deal possible. That's obviously even more important on big-ticket items like a home or a car because even a small percentage of price variance on a large purchase can mean savings (or overspending) of thousands of dollars," he said.

"Your mortgage loan is actually one of the easiest ways to save money because all you have to do is shop around. But buyers often don't realize that because not all mortgage lenders are regulated the same, they don't have to operate by the same rules. As a result, the differences in the actual costs and terms of your loan can vary tremendously.

"But in order to choose the right lender, you have to know what to look for and what questions to ask. That's why we created the first-of-its-kind mortgage shopping website called www.KnowBeforeYouOweNevada.com. It's designed to make it easy to learn how to compare loans, and to know which questions are important to ask that will affect your bottom line," Piette said.

"Buying a home is a huge process with many steps to follow, and people or companies to work with. It may sound 'easier' to just go with the flow and work with lenders, insurance companies, etc. that your real estate agent or seller suggest, just to 'get it all done.' But the bottom line is that all these people are spending your money, not their own. And once the keys are yours, you're the only one who is left to deal with the costs. So isn't it smarter to do a bit of shopping around first to make sure you're getting the best deal from each of them?

"The most important thing to remember in comparing mortgage loans is this: After your loan closes, all that matters is the interest rates, but before it closes, what matters is "How much did you pay in lender fees?" At Premier Mortgage, we encourage our clients to compare our numbers to at least one other lender before they decide. Why? Because it's important to us that our customers get the best product and the best service possible. And we love to see the look on their faces when they "get" just how much money they'll be saving with Premier," Piette said.

For additional information about the real costs of a mortgage loan, visit www.KnowBeforeYouOweNevada.com. Or call Premier Mortgage at 702-485-6600 to discuss the facts of the real "No Fee" mortgage loan.

Premier Mortgage Lending, NMLS No. 393282, is at 701 N Green Valley Parkway, No. 125 in Henderson. The full-service lender is a member of the Las Vegas and Boulder City chambers of commerces, Better Business Bureau and Southern Nevada Home Builders Association, as well as an affiliate member of the Greater Las Vegas Association of Realtors.