On web sites such as yahoo (realestate) you can put in your city and state and it will give you a list of lenders and their rates. There is a column for fees, these very from $400 to $4000 and I have seen them as high as $9000. There is also a column for points, so what are these fees? Are they something besides origination fees? The local newspaper used to run a similar list in the Sunday paper, and it included major national banks and it had a similar column (that also stated that the fees were included in the apr). They now have left out that column, but it always confused me. Different lenders would have the same rate with much different fees and show the same APR.

Any help would be much appreciated.

Thanks

Jim,

Lenders earn their profits through a combination of rates and fees.  Generally, the lower the rate, the higher the fees and vice versa.  DO NOT try to look at ads to shop for a mortgage. Rates are constantly changing and print and internet advertised rates are always old news. Pick up the phone and call a few brokers in your area nad see who can offer the best rate with the least fees.  Make all of your calls in a period of 2 hours or less to make sure you are comparing apples to apples.  Hope that helps. 

Alan is right. Not only are online and print advertisements old news but they are also typically the unicorn of loans (no one gets that deal). As of January 1st lenders are now required to provide good faith estimates that guarantee many of the fee's for the transaction and the rate (for a period of time). Just know that you need to shop your loan all on the same day so you know it's apples for apples. Even in some cases is you shop in the morning and end of day rates may have changed and you're no longer looking at an even comparison.

As for the fee's quoted in advertisements. They will vary from showing just lending to showing all fee's including escrows, title, attorney, insurance, taxes, etc. Since there is no standard for what gets quoted it is often better to no compare fee's in ads with the exception of Origination & Discount.

I hope that helps. You can also search the professionals on this site by using the "Directory" link in the upper right corner to find professionals who use the Mortgage News Daily news source and forums.