"It would be nice if a dozen different lenders were knocking on your door, offering you great locked-in interest rates on long-term home loans, but that's probably not the case. Still, if you're in the market for a home loan, you probably have at least a few different options on your plate. If not, do a little bit more shopping around and you'll soon find that you do have home loan choices. Even people who have bad credit often have more than one option when it comes to getting a home loan. Since that's the case, there are some important decisions to be made so that you can make sure you get the home loan that's right for you.

The first thing that you'll want to do in finding a home loan is to see what all of your options are. Talk to your own bank and talk to any mortgage lenders that you are considering using for the loan. See what interest rates are being offered and what the other terms of the loans are. You should broaden your search to include a range of different lenders so that you have a lot of home loans to pick from. After you have this list, you'll be ready to select one home loan.

To do this, you should list all of the agreement terms on a spreadsheet or some other organized method of information that will let you compare them side by side. This list will include your interest rate, monthly payments, total home loan cost, repayment plan details and any other numbers, dates or specific information that you've got for the plans. You might be able to select a home loan right away if there's one that stands out as particularly good. Likewise, you might be able to rule out one or more home loans on the list when you see them compared to the others.

If you still have several home loans to choose from and they are all very similar, you might want to see if you can get one of the lenders to agree to more favorable terms. Be honest in saying that you are thinking about going with Lender XYZ but you wanted to see what kind of deal this lender could offer you instead. Many times, a mortgage lender will want your business and will be able to work out rates that work for you. If so, you've simplified the process of selecting a home loan.

If that doesn't work and you still have a number of different home loans to choose from but their basic rate information is all the same, you'll want to start looking at the lenders instead of the loans. You already know the loan details so you should think about what you want from the lender and see which one has the most to offer. Consider the lender's reputation, whether or not someone referred them to you, and how long they've been established in the business. Look at whether they specialize in home loans or are a general lender. And finally, think about the experience you have had in working with them so far. If you like the lender and you get good terms, then you can select a home loan that will be easy to execute."