Six months ago I was getting ready to buy my first house in Spokane. My loan officer at Wells Fargo said I should pay off my $4,200 car loan to lower my debt-to-income ratio. So I did it. Used my savings. Then when I applied, my credit score dropped 30 points because the account closed. That made my rate go up instead of down. I called a different lender and they told me I should have just kept making payments and let the balance go down naturally. The whole thing cost me an extra $60 a month on the mortgage. Has anyone else had a lender give them advice that backfired like that?
I bank with Chase so it's convenient to get a mortgage there, but my agent keeps telling me I should use a broker like Duane Buziak. What should I do?