Key info for borrowers is how lenders lock rates

Borrowers and lenders are locked in an eternal conflict: Borrowers want to save money by obtaining the lowest interest rate; lenders want to make money.

When a borrowers learns a loan rate, however, that often is not the rate ultimately received.

As Jack Guttentag has noted in Inman News, there are both justifiable and reprehensible reasons.

Among the justifiable reasons is that lenders cannot have a good idea what will be the cost of money at the time they offer a loan.  They won’t lock in a rate until they have a measure of certainty.