About Us
By: admin
FreeRateUpdate.com founder, senior editor and lead contributor, Ed Ferrara bio -
Edward James Ferrara III spent 8 years (2001-2008) brokering and banking home loans in Orange County, CA to the tune of some 500 million dollars in mortgages funded by May of 2008, when he founded the rate research website FreeRateUpdate.com. Ed is not only the founder of FreeRateUpdate.com, he is also a lead contributor to the site, whose 
roster includes over a dozen writers and of which receives over 50,000 page views per month.Ed’s passion for helping consumers to avoid falling victim to banks dishing out higher rates for bigger profits has helped FreeRateUpdate.com to become a unique authority on mortgage rates. Ed recently married Cheyne Aki Gantt and became a first time father to Edward James Ferrara IV, born August 31st 2009. Ed and FreeRateUpdate.com have recently been cited in numerous media outlets including the Los Angeles Times, Yahoo Finance, and Marketwatch. Email Ed or call him at (714) 694-5914.
In the main stream media-
03-04-10 – Mortgage rates remain near record lows for modern era – L.A. Times
02/19/10 – Why Choose an FHA Mortgage Loan? Informa Research Services Advises. – MarketWatch.com
02/18/10 – Mortgage rates down slightly, Freddie Mac says – L.A. Times
02/10/10 – Current Mortgage Rates and Why You Should Pay Attention to – Bloomberg.com
Why pay attention to FreeRateUpdate.com mortgage rates? What advantages do consumers have with our mortgage rates in hand?
Unfortunately, over the past few years mortgage lenders, brokers, and retail banks have taken advantage of trusting, and sometimes less savvy consumers. Despite reforms to prevent shady lending practices, lenders, banks and brokers often dish out rates much higher than what’s available to accepting consumers in order to make bigger profits. This is a fact.
Did you know the government recently considered making any mortgage rate that pays a “yield spread premium”, a higher rate which basically pays a kick back to the originator, illegal.
Fact is, partly in thanks to national averages reported by Freddie Mac, many consumers accept rates at least 1/4 percent higher than what they are well qualified for, adding to the originators already hefty profit.
You know who profits from these higher rates the most? If you answered mortgage behemoth Freddie Mac, you are correct. Wait, who reports national averages again?
To help stop this from happening by making the real mortgage rates available to the public, in May of 2008, FreeRateUpdate.com was established.
FreeRateUpdate.com researches over 2 dozen wholesale mortgage lenders’ rate sheets daily and reports mortgage rates associated with a standard .07 to 1 point origination. These rates are well known in the mortgage industry as “par rates”.
FreeRateUpdate.com’s mortgage rates are usually at least 1/4 percent below the national average reported by Freddie Mac. FreeRateUpdate.com’s mortgage rates, not national averages, are what consumers should shoot for.
How Does FreeRateUpdate.com Make Money by Researching and Reporting Mortgage Rates?
Primarily from google ads, that run across the top of our site, and also from the recently added “local rate search” tables powered by Informa Research Services, FreeRateUpdate.com makes money from click thoughs on ads. We are not paid by any lenders or brokers directly. We do not have partnerships with any lenders or brokers. We do not receive any type of commissions or receive any sort of fee for lenders to appear on our site, for loan applications, or for funding etc. We are only compensated for click throughs on the google ads and on the “local rate search” tables.
Our #1 priority is making it easy for our visitors to determine the day’s mortgage rates. That’s why the day’s rates are displayed in the middle of our home page with no need for any clicking whatsoever, and now on a ticker that scrolls across the top of our site. It should also be noted we also publish rates in our original articles which can be seen in google news under approved news source: freerateupdate.com. Those articles are viewable on our home page and other pages as well with no need for any clicking.