Post-Closing Items

Congratulations on closing your loan with Carlson Mortgage! We greatly appreciate your business and we will be there for you for all of your future mortgage needs. Here are a few items to keep in mind after your closing.

First Mortgage Payment

The due date of your first payment should have been discussed with you at closing. You also have a copy of the First Payment Letter that you signed at the title company. It will have your first payment due date listed on it, as well as lender’s customer service phone number and your loan number. If you do not receive your first payment instructions seven business days before the due date – please contact us and we would be happy to assist.

Refinancing

Depending on your lender, once you make your first 5-6 payments on your new mortgage – you are going to be eligible for a free refinance as long as the loan is originated through us. We (Carlson Mortgage) cover all closing costs for repeat clients and – if you have 20% or more equity – you may get an appraisal waiver. Please note that, after your closing, your mortgage information gets recorded with the city/county and becomes public. You may receive a number of mostly bait-and-switch refinance offers in the mail from online and out-of-state lenders for the first few months. Please ignore them! The moment when your loan is actually able to benefit from a refinance – our system would alert us right away and we would be the first people contacting you to go over your no-closing-cost refinance savings. Also, once you’ve seen on the news that the Fed has lowered the rates are least 2-3 months in a row – you could check in with your loan officer to see whether you are able to benefit from refinancing.

Reviews

Shortly after your closing, you may get an email from your loan officer asking you to write a brief review of your experience with us and to post it on several websites (Google, Zillow, Yelp, etc). This review would be the greatest compliment that we can receive and would help us tremendously in today’s highly-competitive mortgage environment. Some of our competitors are just a few reviews away, so each review makes a huge difference.

Future Mortgages (including Refinances)

If you are going to need a mortgage in the future, whether for another purchase or for a refinance of your existing mortgage, the chances of your current lender having the best interest rates at that time is very low. We highly advise you to never work directly with your lender or your servicer, since you are unlikely to get the best deal. We subscribe to a pricing engine that provides up-to-the-second pricing for pretty much every wholesale lender in the US. We would always be able to find a lender offering a special pricing incentive for your mortgage scenario. If you end up working directly with your current lender or servicer, you are highly likely to be connected to a retail loan officer, with no access to wholesale/broker pricing, resulting in a higher interest rate and in significant lender underwriting and processing fees.

Referrals

We are a small company and almost 100% of our business comes from referrals. If your experience with us merits a referral of your friend, family or a colleague, we would be greatly appreciative. Here are the most common ways that we can help.

Purchase Mortgages:

First-time home buyers
Repeat buyers, e.g. those who now have kids and need a bigger home
People downsizing to smaller homes and condos
People relocating to St. Louis from other states
People who are building their dream homes
Veterans (Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines) who would like to get a home with no money down and no PMI

Refinance mortgages:

Refinancing to lower an interest rate when rates fall
Refinancing to pull out equity for things like: home improvement projects, money to pay for kids’ colleges, funds to pay off high-interest credit card debt
Refinancing from 30-year mortgages to 20/15/10-year mortgages to lower the rate and to save tens or sometimes hundreds of thousands of dollars in lifetime interest payments
Mandatory refinances due to divorces: we do these transactions quickly and charge no closing costs

Keep in touch

If you have any questions at any point in time, need a referral to a contractor or just want to say ‘hi’ – please do not hesitate to call or email your loan officer. We wish you the best of luck and thank you again for the business that you’ve given us.