Should I use a mortgage broker or a bank?

When you sit down with a bank’s loan officer, you get that bank’s rates, that bank’s programs, and that bank’s rules. If you fit, great. If you don’t, you get a no, or a worse deal than you could have gotten somewhere else, and you’d never know the difference.

A lot of the people who ask me this already have an offer from their bank or another lender. That’s a good place to start.

What a bank offers

A bank is a lender. It makes the loan with its own money and sets its own rules. Its loan officer works for that one company, so the menu is that company’s menu.

Those rules go past the basic guidelines from Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, FHA, or VA. Many lenders add their own extra requirements on top, things like a higher minimum credit score or more months of bank statements. The industry calls these overlays. Two lenders can look at the same file and give two different answers because of them.

None of that makes a bank wrong. It makes it one option.

What I do instead

I work as a broker. I shop your file across a network of over 100 lenders instead of handing you one company’s rate.

Those lenders price loans for brokers through their wholesale side, so they compete for your file.

I start by learning your full picture: your income, how you’re paid, your credit, what you have saved, and what you want the payment to feel like. Then I go find the lender that wants a loan like yours. One lender is easier on self-employed income. Another is more flexible on credit. Another moves faster when you’re up against a closing date.

Source: CFPB, reviewed December 2024, checked November 2026.

I can’t promise a lender will say yes, and I can’t promise a rate. What I can do is ask more than one place, and tell you plainly what I find.

How I get paid

On most of my loans, the lender pays me, not you. You don’t write me a separate check.

That doesn’t make the loan free. Every loan has costs, and the lender has to show them on your Loan Estimate. Federal rules also put limits on how I’m paid. My pay can’t change based on your rate or your loan’s terms, and on any one loan I can be paid by the lender or by you, never both. The CFPB explains it in plain words on its page about how loan officers and brokers get paid.

Who checks your file

A pre-approval is only as good as the work behind it. My team has over 20 years of underwriting experience, and before I call you pre-approved, we go through your documents the same way an underwriter would.

That’s where the small problems show up early: a deposit that needs a letter, a gap in income, a document that’s missing a page. It’s a lot easier to fix those before you’re under contract than three days before closing.

When a bank wins

Sometimes a bank is the right call. It may give relationship pricing if you keep large deposits there. It may keep a loan in its own portfolio that no outside lender will match. A credit union may have a member program worth a look.

If one of those fits you better than anything I can find, I’ll tell you. The goal is the right loan, not my loan.

Same-day second look

Some people come to me first, get pre-approved, and we go from there. Others are already shopping. If that’s you, and your offer gets accepted and the lender you’re working with sends a Loan Estimate, send it to me.

We’ll get you an answer the same day. More often than not, we can beat it, either the same rate with lower costs or a lower rate for the same cost. Not every time. When the offer you have is the better one, I’ll tell you to keep it.

Shop it before you sign.

Sources: CFPB, What is the difference between a mortgage lender and a mortgage broker? (reviewed December 2024); CFPB, How does a mortgage loan officer or broker get paid? (reviewed January 2025); 12 CFR 1026.36, Regulation Z; NMLS Consumer Access. All checked November 2026. This is general information, not a rate quote or a promise of approval.