Is my mortgage offer good?

A mortgage offer is good when its rate and fees line up with what lenders actually charged borrowers with your scenario on the day your loan was priced. You cannot tell from the rate alone, and you cannot tell by comparing against a national average, because your scenario moves your price.

Read Is your locked rate competitive? and How much are lender fees on a mortgage? for the related details.

Here is what actually decides it, and how to check.

Why the advertised rates cannot tell you

The rates you see advertised assume a specific borrower: excellent credit, a large down payment, a single-family home the buyer will live in, and often discount points already baked in. If your credit score, down payment, property type, or occupancy differ, your price adjusts, sometimes by a lot. Comparing your quote to an advertised rate is comparing two different loans.

The three numbers that decide it

1. Your rate against the market on your pricing day. Look for the Rate Lock box near the top of page 1. If it says YES, your pricing is already set, and the fair comparison is the market on the day your Loan Estimate was issued. The date printed in that box is when the lock runs out, not the day you were priced. If it says NO, your estimate can still change, and the comparison is today's market instead. Daily lock indices exist for exactly this purpose.
2. Your lender fees (Section A, Origination Charges, on page 2). Section A lists what the lender itself charges, including any points you pay to lower the rate: origination, underwriting, processing. This is where offers differ most.
3. The points and credits trade. A low rate with heavy points is not a low price. Check what you are paying to hold the rate you were quoted.

How to check it yourself

All of the data is public:

• daily locked rate indices from Optimal Blue, available through FRED
• fee data for 3,787,575 real loans in the public HMDA record, published under the Home Mortgage Disclosure Act
• the pricing adjustment matrices Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac publish for every scenario

The honest catch: assembling it is the hard part. You would need to match your credit band, down payment, occupancy, property type, and program across each source, on the right day. It is a spreadsheet afternoon, and most people signing a six-figure loan never do it.

The fast way

That assembly is what the AI does. Upload your Loan Estimate and confirm your scenario. For $29, the AI explains every fee and grades your Section A total and your rate against those same public sources. LoanInspection does not sell loans, and no lender pays us anything at loaninspection.com. See a sample report to know exactly what you get.

When to check

The best time is before you sign your intent to proceed, when everything is still open. After that, your Loan Estimate is still worth reading line by line before closing.