The Best Online Lenders for Home Loans

Reader Question: We are buying a home early next year, and we want to get mortgage quotes online to save time. Who are the best online lenders for home loans these days?

As you can tell by the yellow box on the side of this blog, I am partial to LendingTree as an online lender. I just like everything about their business model, and that's why I recommend them so strongly.

But let's go beyond that one company. Here are some things you need to consider when choosing a web-based lender in 2009.

1. Which ones are still around?

You ended your question with "these days," and that pretty much says it all. Two years ago, there were a lot more web-based lenders than there are today. Many of them collapsed during the mortgage / housing crisis that came to a head in 2008. In 2009, you will have fewer options when choosing the best online lender for your home loan. But this is good news as well as bad news. While you have fewer companies to choose from in 2009, you can rest assured that the ones still around are well-run and well-financed. They have, after all, survived the worst economic crisis of our lifetime.

2. Which lenders are on stable ground?

We just talked about the economic turmoil our country is going through. So when choosing an online lender for your mortgage loan, it's important to research the company behind the website. Start by running their name through Google's news search engine to see what comes up. Is it good news or bad? Are people predicting their collapse? The best lenders will not only survive in 2009, but rise to the top as well. So with a little homework, you can easily find out which lenders to avoid and which ones to consider for online quotes.

3. Which lenders have the best reputation?

Also during the course of your online research, keep an eye out for any "bad press." If you see a consistent pattern of complaints and other negative information about a particular online lender (or their parent company), it's probably best to steer clear of them. Of course, you always have to consider the source when doing this. Sometimes, even the best lenders have unhappy clients. So don't rule them out based on a single piece of bad news. Remember, you are looking for reputation patterns -- for better or for worse.

4. Which ones have the biggest network to leverage?

Some online lending sites only give you access to a single company. For example, if you visit the website of a company like Bank of America to get online mortgage quotes, you'll probably only get offers from BOA itself.

Other lending websites, however, give you access to a wider range of brokers or lenders. In other words, you submit a request for a mortgage quote through the website, and then you receive offers from multiple lenders. Without question, this is the best way to find a home loan online. So, by extension, the best online lenders in the U.S. are those that have access to the biggest networks.