These days there is very little that you can’t do on the internet. Many people are beginning to use the internet for financial transactions that have traditionally only been conducted in person. You can open a checking account online, invest in stocks online, apply for credit cards online, and even get approved for an auto loan online. A question does arise though: How safe is it to apply for an online mortgage? Can you trust an online mortgage company to give you hundreds of thousands of dollars in the form of a loan to purchase your home? Applying for an online mortgage seems like a fast, easy way to find out if you are approved for a home loan. There are no loan officers to deal with. If you are denied for an online mortgage, you can deal with the disappointment in your own home rather than having to do it in front of several people at a time. Granted, there are many reasons that a person might want to apply for an online mortgage. However, it isn’t the safest or most trustworthy way of obtaining a mortgage. When you apply for an online mortgage, in most cases, you are not applying for a mortgage at all. Instead, you are entering your personal information into a database for a company that promises to give you approval for an online mortgage but instead sells your information to other companies. Soon after applying for the so-called online mortgage, you’ll begin receiving floods of calls and emails from these loan officers wanting to help you get a loan. You may even receive solicitations from home improvement companies, credit repair companies, home insurance companies, and the like. Not all companies that promise online mortgage approval are bad. In fact, there are many companies that are legitimate mortgage lenders. The hard part is sifting through all the offers for online mortgages to find the companies that are genuine. One of the ways you can tell if an online mortgage lender is truly a lender is through the name. Many of the larger national mortgage lenders provide online mortgage approval through their websites. Name recognition is one of the easiest ways to tell if the company is legitimate. Make sure any company that you plan to do business with has a business license. The company’s website should have a “contact us” number listed. Use this number to call and ask if the company has the proper licensing to lend money. Knowing how to recognize a scam is often easier than trying to tell if a company is good. Don’t apply for any online mortgage that promises you approval regardless of your credit. It is very unlikely that you will be extended a mortgage, even an online mortgage, if you have bad credit or no credit history. Avoid responding to unsolicited emails offering an online mortgage. In nearly all cases, these emails are fraudulent. While an online mortgage might seem convenient, the best way to apply is in person. This way you can negotiate a lower price for the mortgage than you would be able to do through the internet.

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