Source: Fannie Mae —
For potential homebuyers, obtaining multiple mortgage quotes may not be as exciting as searching for the physical home itself, but research has shown that “shopping around” with different lenders for the best possible mortgage terms can result in significant savings.1,2 Even so, Fannie Mae’s National Housing Survey® (NHS) results over the past eight years have consistently shown that one-third of recent homebuyers obtained only one mortgage quote. Would one-third of homebuyers only look at one home before buying it? Probably not. In fact, qualitative research has shown that homebuyers spend a substantial amount of time looking for a home and negotiating price and repairs, but much less time looking for a lender who can offer the best mortgage quote.3
Fannie Mae’s Economic & Strategic Research group used the Q1 2022 NHS to revisit several of the same questions that have been asked of recent homebuyers since 2014, and it showed that mortgage shopping behavior has remained consistent over that time period, indicating, again, that many consumers would benefit by devoting more time to researching mortgage costs and comparison shopping when buying a home.
Survey Results
According to our latest survey from Q1 2022, 36% of 2021 homebuyers received only one mortgage quote, consistent with survey findings from prior years, Q1 2014 and Q1 2019. Interestingly, first-time and repeat homebuyers do not show much difference in their mortgage shopping behavior; approximately one-third of both groups received only one quote across all years.
In Q1 2022, the top two reasons cited by recent homebuyers who only received one quote were the same top reasons cited in Q1 2019 and Q1 2014:
- Feeling most comfortable with the lender they received the quote from (39%)
- Satisfaction with the first quote they received (29%)
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