If you’re buying a home or refinancing, you may ask yourself if you should get a 15-year or 30-year mortgage loan. Benefits to each exist and deciding on which one you should get depends on your personal finances.

The Benefits of a 15-Year Mortgage Loan

You save big on interest! Paying interest on a 15-year mortgage loan term is much less than paying it on 30 years, even if the mortgage rates are low.
If you’re planning on your current home to be your retirement one – a 15-year mortgage loan means you’ll pay it off faster and be mortgage free, which can be a great relief.
Your mortgage rate on a 15-year mortgage loan may be less than on a 30-year one.

The Benefits of a 30-Year Mortgage Loan

You’ll pay less in monthly mortgage payments.
You won’t pay as much interest if you end up selling the home since it’s spread out …

To get the lowest possible mortgage rate, you may want to consider doing a rapid rescore.

Understanding Rapid Rescore to Improve Your Credit Score

Rapid rescore is the process of taking out errors on your credit report. These errors decrease your credit score drastically and can inhibit your ability to receive the lowest possible mortgage rate available.

For example, if you have a balance on a credit card that you didn’t know about because of either an error on the creditor’s part or from identity theft, your credit score could be lowered by as much as 100 points. Once this error is corrected, you can have a rapid rescore done, which will increase your credit score and give you a better mortgage rate. The difference in mortgage rate from one credit score to another depends on how much it jumped after the credit rescore. With a 100 point jump however, …

As you’re searching for the lowest mortgage rate or setting up LendingTree’s new mortgage rate alert system, you may be interested in knowing that finding the lowest rate out there isn’t the only thing that you should concern yourself with when applying for a mortgage loan. It’s important to understand that even though a lender reports a low mortgage rate, it doesn’t mean you’ll end up with that rate. Many variables come into play when a lender considers your mortgage loan application that will affect the mortgage rate you receive.

How Your Credit Affects a Mortgage Rate

Usually, if you have a mediocre to low credit score, you will receive a higher mortgage rate compared to someone with excellent credit. The reasoning behind this is that lenders feel that if you have a low credit score, that you have defaulted on some loans in the past (they …