I am a former senior loan officer for a regional mortgage bank.  It made me sick to see how we took advantage of consumers for thousands of extra dollars.   Sometimes these were smart people who simply didn't know any better. 

For example, because you didn't actually write a check for the amount, how do you know if you weren't overcharged thousands of dollars on your last mortgage? 

So I developed this simple Mortgage Loan Comparison Worksheet.  If borrowers just used this easy tool when shopping around for a mortgage, predatory lending and the resulting foreclosures in this country could virtually be eradicated:

http://www.januspresentations.com/MortgageLoanComparisonWorksheet.pdf

Problem is, most borrowers only make a decision once every seven years, so how would they even know what to look for?   As a loan officer, my mission was not to educate, but to get a signature on the bottom line, at any cost.

As my "penance" I wrote a book entitled Kickback: Confessions of a Mortgage Salesman. 

In my book, I list the Top 10 Mistakes Mortgage Borrowers Make:

1. Not knowing which mortgage fees the borrower can -- and cannot -- negotiate.

2. Choosing and trusting the first loan officer the borrower interviews.

3. Using an interest-only or "payment option" adjustable-rate loan primarily to qualify for a more expensive house than the borrower could normally afford.

4. Thinking the interest rate is always the main thing.

5. Not comparing the final fees listed on the closing documents to the up-front estimates to avoid the lender "packing the loan" with added-on fees without the borrower's knowledge.

6. Not knowing if the mortgage has a pre-payment penalty - until it's too late.

7. Thinking that renting is always just throwing money away.

8. The borrower does not know if he or she is paying a back-end yield spread or Service Release Premium.

9. Paying for mortgage life insurance, credit insurance or other expensive lender add-ons to increase the amount of kickbacks the lender can receive from various vendors.

10. Paying hundreds of dollars to have a company set up a biweekly mortgage payment plan, something the borrower can generally do for herself or himself -- for free.