About a week after I contacted Quicken by submitting their form from the icon located to the right on Best Pick Home Loans, I received a phone call from their representative. The representative came on very strong. He spent a good five minutes telling me that he is glad to be working for a Company that is reputable. He mentioned the affiliation with Quicken and Quickbooks as a source of pride within his Company. He told me that he doesn't make commissions on the loans. He also told me that they are the largest online lender. He also emphasized more than few times how Quicken Loans is a DIRECT LENDER. They are not a broker and therefore they can eliminate middlemen and avoid multiple fees.

I pretty much dismissed all this introductory talk as mere fodder and instead tried to focus in on the numbers. He started off by telling me that his rates were 5.875% for a 30 year loan and 5.25% for a 15 year loan. I did a double take because I knew from my previous inquiries that the best rates were 6.5% and 6.25%.

Of course their was a catch - I would need to pay $4,000 in points. I'm not exactly sure how commissions/payouts work, but he was almost pleading with me to take the points. I did ask him what the rates would be if I didn't want to pay any points. We offered 6.75% and 6.5% for the 30 year and 15 year options. Clearly these rates were above what I had with Bank of America.

I also then asked him what the other fees would cost. He came back with $5000. That was consiederably higher than the other companies. I asked the representative to breakdown these costs. Clearly I was among the very few who had asked this question as he was unable to do it. I had to ask him to transfer me to his supervisor. The supervisor did provide a breakout and it turned out that the costs were $2400. The other $2600 were for prepaid interest, property tax and insurance. These costs are not related to the loan and I did not include them in my other comparisons. This interaction confirmed my hypothesis that people in this business (both the orginators and their customers) think almost nothing of paying an extra $700 or $800. Personally I think that is a large amount - two iPhones for Christmas!!!

Of course, now I had another interesting problem to consider - should I pay points and buy down the interest rate.

Stay tuned for my analysis...