New-home buyers: Don’t forget that your builder can't require you to use their preferred lender. When a builder tries to persuade a buyer to use an affiliated mortgage lender by offering incentives or even threatening to withhold incentives, the right response for the buyer is to slow down and investigate carefully.
Federal real estate settlement rules require that these incentives be legitimate and not built into the price of the house or the cost of the loan.The Federal Trade Commission goes still further, saying, “The sale of one product on the condition that a customer purchase a second product, which the customer may not want or can buy elsewhere at a lower price, is a tie-in.
Requirements like these are illegal if they harm competition."So the bottom line is that builders can entice, wheedle and woo buyers with great deals, but they can’t threaten them, and if buyers do feel threatened, they should first stand their ground, then complain to the builder and to state and federal consumer affairs officials.
Source: Washington Post Writers Group, Kenneth R. Harney
No comments:
Post a Comment