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First Rate Financial offers you the same service as the larger banks, but with less charge.

You will find a combination of rates and fees much lower than your local or national bank/lender. We want you to receive a great deal with great service so you’ll never need to call another mortgage company again. Our goal is to become your lender for life.

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Most Competitive Rate

I had a not-so-good experience with the company that financed my first house. Jason, at First Rate Financial, came highly recommended from a friend. He was able to get me pre-qualified in no time! He explained everything to me so that I clearly knew the process and had realistic expectations for each phase of the process. Finally, the day came when I found my house. I called Jason and he took the time to walk me through the next steps. When it came time to lock in my rate, Jason got me the most competitive rate at the best price. His work put me in the best possible position to purchase my new home.

Ty Scott

So Easy and Convenient

Thank you so much to Jason Turner for helping us with our refinance. We never dreamed this process could be so easy and convenient. We could not have been taken care of better!! He was incredibly accommodating even with all of our silly questions! It was a breath of fresh air to have someone take the time to truly explain each detail! Thank you again Jason.. we will be sending all our family and friends your way!

Britanny Hitt

Friendly and Knowledgeable

Jenny with First rate financial was amazing! I was given her name through a friend after a terrible experience with a large bank. Jenny was friendly and knowledgeable . She had a competitive quote in 2 hours after my initial call. We closed without any hiccups in 3 weeks. Closing was completed at my house and done in 20 minutes. I would highly recommend this company without any reservations and will be a repeat customer the next time I need any finance assistance.

Courtney Campbell

Incredible Diligence

Building a new home presented several challenges, but Chad Lemons at First Rate Financial made the financing aspect of it a cinch. Circumstances caused our loan scenario and needs to change after the pre-qualification stage and after construction had commenced, which gave us great concern. He worked with us diligently until we found the solution that worked best for us. His work ethic, attention to detail, and customer service set him apart from the rest during a process that can be very stressful and confusing to home buyers that have limited experience with it. And when it came to our closing, he had our paperwork done almost a week early and his diligence made the process go as smoothly as possible. In fact, our builder sent us an email commenting on how rare it was for a broker to be so easy to work with and to be so organized with everything. I hope to be in my new home for a while, but when it’s time to move, Chad will be the first person I call!

Blaine Banta

Fantastic Experience

Chad Lemons at First Rate Financial helped us refinance our house. The experience was fantastic. Every expectation was exceeded and everything he said would happen, did happen. We got a great rate with no hassle, and the process was much faster than we thought possible.

Tom Ziglar

Customer For Life

I was referred to First Rate Financial by a buddy that had a phenomenal experience. Chris Dixon was my loan officer. He and my real estate agent Dan make a great team. They are extremely knowledgeable, responsive and set the right expectations for their clients. Not to mention provide the lowest rates without you having to shop lenders. Keep up the great work, I’m your customer for good!

Jay Cooper

A True Blessing

Chad Lemons was a true blessing when he helped me refinance my mortgage. He was tireless, and even when it didn’t look like the loan would go through, he worked his miracles and not only got my loan approved in a timely manor but saved me several hundred dollars on my mortgage payment. I would highly recommend him to anyone. He is trustworthy, efficient and yes, even brilliant at tying up the loose ends to make a deal happen. In short, Chad Lemons is the man for the job!

Cindy Oates

Amazing to Work With

First Rate Financial was so amazing to work with! My husband and I just purchased our first home and they were there every step of the way! We worked with Chris Dixon and he made everything so easy. He told us everything we needed upfront and we were actually ready to close early if we wanted to because everything went so smooth. We so appreciate their help and expertise. We will definitely recommend them and use them in the future.

Morgan Villanueva

Completely Satisfied

My husband and I were completely satisfied with the efficient service we received from Chad. We had been working with another financial institution attempting to refinance our home for 4 months. We found out about Chad, and we had our refinance funded at a lower rate, with proceeds in hand, within 6 weeks!! We would recommend Chad to our friends, family and associates. Thanks so much Chad!

Karen and Mike Maguire

Excellent to Work With

First Rate Financial was excellent to work with. We received a recommendation from a friend after obtaining quotes from two other lenders. Chad Lemons and the team at First Rate Financial were able to get us a better interest rate and lower closing costs that either of the other two lenders – by a lot. At closing, the title company representative said that in all her years in the business, she’d never worked with a lender that was as good as Chad and First Rate Financial. Many thanks to Chad Lemons and the team at First Rate Financial.

Jeffrey Davis

Great Help Through the Whole Process

Tawna was great to work with. She explained the whole process very nicely in detail and was available to answer any questions any time. She always responded to queries very quickly and always suggested the best options available keeping the interest of the client in mind. She was a great help through the whole process and we highly recommend her.

Shailendra Parolkar

Highly Recommend

My wife and I purchased our first home with the help of Jason Turner. With it being our first time going through the home-buying process, Jason was extremely helpful getting all of our questions answered, even if some of our questions were basic and obvious. Jason answered texts, emails and calls on Fridays and Saturdays and made sure everything was moving forward swiftly throughout the entire process.

I highly recommend First Rate Financial, and specifically Jason. He was incredibly knowledgeable and my wife and I were very impressed with how everything went.

Thanks, Jason (and the rest of the First Rate Financial team)! I’ll recommend these guys to future home buyers!

Eddie Moore

Quick and Professional

I can’t say enough about Sarah Miller & how grateful we are to have worked with her on our home loan! Sarah was so quick to get us pre-approved, and was INCREDIBLY helpful in explaining the process for our home loan. She helped us get our interest rate to the lowest available, which saved us so much money, & worked hard on our behalf. She was quick, professional, and we are so confident in her services as well as pleased with the process! We will recommend Sarah Miller with First Rate Financial, LLC to all of our family & friends!

Alexandra Joplin

Outstanding Job

Jenny Bray did an outstanding job with my refi! Saved me money with every opportunity and sent people to me to get everything signed and closed. No one likes driving across the metroplex to close on a loan and I got to do it in my office at work

Wesley Rogers

Professional and Dedicated

My wife and I worked with First Rate Financial to secure a mortgage in June under a very compressed time schedule. We were leaving on vacation overseas and we had to complete our application and all the required supporting documentation in less than 10 days. They were extremely helpful in guiding us through this process and working with both the lender and the title company to make sure we had the correct information in a timely fashion. With their help, we were able to complete the application on time before our trip and by the time we returned the loan was already approved. We are very grateful for their professionalism and dedication and we will certainly refer our friends

Sanaa and Said Azim

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Mortgage News

Two Ways to Look at Residential Construction Slowdown

19 November 2024

The most common interval for scheduled economic data is "monthly." That means that things like inflation, sentiment, job counts, unemployment, retail sales, and many other economic metrics are updated and released every month, even when nothing very interesting is happening. On that note, there are several regularly scheduled housing related reports. This month's installment of New Residential Construction is today's example and, as you may have guessed, nothing very interesting is happening. At a glance details: Housing Starts (1st phase of actual construction) 1.311 million annual pace vs 1.33m forecast, 1.353m previously Building Permits 1.416m vs 1.430m forecast, 1.425m previously Neither measurement stands out on a longer term chart. Both have dialed back from the long-term highs seen between late 2020 and early 2022, but both remain in strong territory relative to 2019. This is the first way to view the slowdown in construction. The other way to view the slowdown is to focus solely on the slowdown in greater detail and attempt to connect it to another variable. That ends up being fairly easy if we merely consider the massive rate spike that coincided with the rapid contraction in building permits. In not so many words, construction metrics have been bouncing around their current levels ever since mortgage rates spiked to the 6-8% range. This isn't to say that interest rates are the exclusive reason for the slowdown, but the rate spike coincides with other headwinds. Those include things like affordability, labor costs, machinery/material costs, and financing costs for Continue Reading

Like Many Housing Metrics, Builder Confidence is Just Waiting For Lower Rates

18 November 2024

Historically low interest rates may not have guaranteed historically high levels of housing activity, but exceptionally high rates have definitely muted activity in a measurable way. We've cataloged this incessantly when it comes to refinance activity, but there's a correlation with home sales as well. The Housing Market Index (HMI) from the National Association of Homebuilders is just another way to see it. A de facto measurement of builder confidence/sentiment, the HMI had been flying high (all time highs, actually) shortly after the initial covid lockdowns. At the time, rates were at all-time lows and pent-up buying demand was being unleashed. Notably, that level of confidence was achieved despite housing starts only being about 2/3rds of their 2005 peak. Just as notable, as seen in the chart above, housing starts merely fell back to levels there were still higher than most of 2019 (a time when builder confidence was fairly close to all-time highs). So why would builder confidence swoon so much more than the activity level in the homebuilding sector would suggest? If the title and intro wasn't a giveaway, we'll make it clear: RATES! We could review a chart of rates compared to builder confidence, but that would look like an ink blot test with each line moving in opposite directions. Instead, the chart below uses the price of mortgage-backed-securities (MBS)--the bonds that dictate mortgage rates. The convenience of MBS in this context is that they'll move exactly like mortgage rates, but in the inverse (thus allowing us Continue Reading

Mortgage Applications Keep Kicking The Can

13 November 2024

It's not entirely clear if it's a can or the proverbial bucket. All we know is that mortgage applications have been kicking it. There's no great way to make the news interesting now that loan volume has done what anyone would have expected it to do, given the the rapid rise in rates over the past 6 weeks. Up until that point, there had been a noticeable uptick in refinance applications. That uptick has now been fully erased, although this week didn't decline nearly as much as the past several. In the bigger picture, that uptick wasn't anything special considering the starting point was as low as it's been in decades. To whatever extent refi apps have been historically muted, purchase applications have been reliably boring. Little changes on that front from week to week. The bigger picture is more interesting here, perhaps, as it shows the rapid shift from a longstanding trend of steady improvement to the new reality of exceptionally light purchase activity. Other highlights include: Refis accounted for 39.9% of the total, same as last week FHA accounted for 16.0%, up from 15.5% VA accounted for 13.3%, up from 12.5% Survey rates were up to 6.86 from 6.81 (30yr fixed) origination/points decreased to 0.6 from 0.68 FHA rates fell to 6.69 from 6.75 Jumbo rates rose to 7.00% from 6.98% Continue Reading

Mortgage Demand Regressing Amid Rapid Rate Spike

6 November 2024

In today's weekly mortgage application survey from the MBA, the average 30yr fixed mortgage rate only rose from 6.73 to 6.81%. Meanwhile, daily average rates are already back over 7%. Any way you slice it, rates have been rising quickly and the fallout is completely unsurprising when it comes to refinance applications. For context, here's how the past year fits in the bigger picture: Refinance applications wax and wane with interest rates. The present environment is particularly restrained by the fact that so many people refinanced to such low rates in 2020-2022. At the moment, the only group of borrowers with a rate-based refinance incentive are those who purchased or refinanced in late 2023 when rates were near 8%. Purchase applications are much more even-keeled, but also not loving the current rate/affordability environment. Other highlights from this week's survey: Refinances accounted for 39.9% of total applications, down from 43.1% last week Average loan size fell below $300k FHA loans were 15.5% of total vs 16.4% last week VA loans were 12.5% of total vs 14.6% last week Conventional rates were 6.81 up from 6.73 vs jumbo rates at 6.98 (up from 6.77... a much bigger jump) ARM rates fell from 6.20 to 6.05, but upfront costs increased from 0.59 to 0.84. Continue Reading

Existing Home Sales Update: Still Bad

23 October 2024

Housing was chugging right along in early 2020, then covid happened. Housing experienced lots of unexpected volatility with the most important development being a huge increase in demand and prices... at first. Once rates began skyrocketing (relatively) and the frenzy began to subside, home sales numbers tanked to the weakest levels since the Great Financial Crisis by the end of 2022. They've been drifting and bouncing around near those same levels ever since. Bigger picture for context: In other words, this data series isn't worth too much discussion until it exits this holding pattern. For those determined to pick out potentially interesting anecdotes, feel free to sort through the following: Prices rose 3.0% year over year. It's the 15th straight month of increases Inventory has been growing faster than sales have been falling First time buyers accounted for 26% of total, matching the all-time low, but not a crazy drop from 2023's average of 32% All cash sales accounted for 30%, up from 26% last month. Continue Reading

Mortgage Apps Aren't Crashing. They're Just Being Logical

23 October 2024

The Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA) keeps track of applications for purchase and refi mortgages every week. Purchase apps are slower moving, less responsive to rates, and generally bouncing along the lowest levels in more than 20 years since the end of 2023. As such, we'll forget about them and move on to refi applications which have been far more interesting. This week's index fell to 672.6 from 734.6 last week. That's a big drop and it follows several other big drops, largely undoing the surge seen after the recent rate rally. But everything is relative. The chart above leaves us with the impression of a big crash following a big surge. If either move looks big, it's only because the baseline of the past 2 years has been the lowest, flattest pace seen in refi apps since 1999-2000. In the bigger picture, it was a barely noticeable uptick that has fallen back to the muted trend. The small uptick was unsurprising given that a vast majority of loans still had rates substantially lower than the lowest lows of the past few months. The correction back to lower levels is unsurprising given that rates have quickly surged back to the late July highs. As such, don't be surprised to see another reasonably big downtick next week. [thirtyyearmortgagerates] Continue Reading

Current Rates

Type	Rate	APR
30 Year Fixed	6.82%	7.02%
15 Year Fixed	6.25%	6.45%
30 Year FHA	6.23%	6.43%
30 Year Jumbo	7.10%	7.3%
5/1 ARM	6.45%	6.65%
30 Year VA	6.26%	6.46%

4/04/2024@9AM CST

* Based on loan amounts of $200,000+

* Subject to credit and income requirements

* Restrictions apply

All conventional rates and APRs assume 80% financing on a $200,000 loan value with max loan of $484,00. Offers may terminate at any time without notice. Rate/APR calculated on a 365 day year with typical closing costs. Rates/APRs subject to change in closing costs and properties. All rates as of date posted on this website with 30 day lock period. Signed loan application required to lock rate. Rates may be higher for credit scores below 740 middle score. APR will change with loan amount and percentage of home being financed.

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