Refinancing through a mortgage broker.

Hi - mortgage brokers will generally broker your loan to a good company that offers you the best all around package.  Unfortunately, not too many of those initial investors actually service the loans so they get sold - sometimes multiple times.  While we can select the original investor, we have no say over who it gets sold to after that.  Good news is that no matter how many times it gets sold, the terms can't ever change.

If you ever receive a notice from a bank stating they've bought your loan and you are to now send your payments to them - best advice I can give is to put in a call to your original loan servicer to confirm they have indeed sold the loan and to whom they've sold it, and double check the dates that you are to begin making your payments to the new bank.  If any info doesn't match between the letter from the new bank, and the info given to you by your old bank - keep tracking the info until you are sure everything is correct. 

There have been some reports about scams out there where people have received letters telling them their loan has sold and giving the owners a new address to send their payments to and then these people are laundering the checks they receive.....then these home owners are getting notices telling them their loan is delinquent.  Pretty scary stuff.  Always Always double check!

As for assumable mortgage's, if you can get one, the benefit would be to a potential buyer of your home if the rate you have is less than the rate they can get today.  They still have to go through the qualification process with your loan investor to make sure they qualify.  It could save the buyer some money and help them qualify to buy your home by lowering their debt to income ratio by having a lessor payment.  The downside to this is that they would have to either have cash or additional financing to make up the difference between your existing loan amount and the purchase price.  That's not always easy to do.

Hope that helps!

Kelly Gebler
Loan Officer&Real Estate Broker
Sunset Mortgage Co. & Keller Williams Realty 

Your broker should be totally clear to you on who is funding your mortgage.

Your mortgage Note (like an IOU) is likely to be sold.

But the terms cannot change.  The mortgage note is a contract between two parties.  No one party can change it

Your loan can be sold regardless if you use a mortgage broker or go directly to a bank. They are both correct in that the terms do not change, just where you send your money and who provides the servicing.

fairylace,
Kelly makes a number of great points. It does not really matter if your mortgage is sold since the terms will never change.  Mortgage brokers don't technically sell your loan because they do own it.  They shop around and find a lender for you.  The mortgage broker will be able to tell you who is buying your mortgage when they lock your rate. However, that does not mean your loan can't be sold down the road.  A mortgage can always be sold at a later point no matter who you buy it from, but it should not matter to the borrower since the terms do not change.

You can read more about whether or not you should be concerned about a lender selling your mortgage in my blog post.
Thanks,
Nate

Your terms cannot change if the loan is sold so who cares who you make your payments to.  Do companies even offer assumable mortgages? There is no benefit.