Indeed, every lender's methodology for deciding which rate to give any particular borrower is almost certainly a proprietary algorithm, a/k/a a trade secret.

While your mortgage broker might be able to say "if you can get rid of this bill, we can knock you down a half a percent" or "if you pay an extra point, we can knock you down a half a percent", the broker can only do that because the mortgage company would provide (assuming you asked for it) a menu of options.

Such a menu would likely say "x points at 6.5", "x-1 points at 6.625" and so on.

You, as borrower, would then have to decide whether paying those points, the potential tax benefits from them, and the cost of amortizing them made sense vis-a-vis the decrease in interest rate you'd get from taking them.

Frankly, the only borrower I've ever seen with a credit situation better than Obama's was a middle-aged immigrant professional who'd worked hard and long, saved religiously, spent sparingly, never took out credit cards, ate in, paid everything immediately, and had enough cash on hand as a result to buy the house without needing a mortgage.  It took about an hour and a wall chart of how mortgage interest would give her a huge tax break and of how by taking the mortgage, she'd have her savings and the house, too.  She seemed the type who took this "neither a borrower nor lender be" message about one step too far.

Pity, when we've grown so perverse that a prospective President's personal fiscal responsibility is to be turned into a negative.

To say that everyone who is credit worthy gets a rate deal like Obama's is ridiculous.  And this doesn't even go into the fact that his deal not only included the interest rate, but $300,000 off the asking price and special favors from Rezko's wife, who bought the side lot to his property for the full price of $665,000 on the same day, even though she was supposedly only making $37,000/year and her husband was already under investigation and claimed to have no money.  It also doesn't go into the fact that O bought a piece of that property back from her for $64,000 more than it was valued for a year later. Nor does it go into the fact that, shortly before the first purchase, Rezko got a huge amount of cash from Nadhmi Auchi, the London billionaire who was Saddam Husseins' moneyman and is an international criminal who would go to jail if he set foot in France or the U.S.

 Look, the article doesn't make any sense as  a news story if it isn't a hit piece.

 Subhead:

Campaign Defends Lower Rate as Lender Competition for Business

And in closing:

Obama's house purchase has been a source of controversy. In 2006, the Chicago Tribune reported that on the day of the closing, the wife of Obama's longtime friend and fundraiser Antoin "Tony" Rezko closed on an adjoining lot that had been the estate's side yard.

The Obamas bought the house for $300,000 less than the asking price of $1.95 million, while Rezko's wife, Rita, bought the neighboring lot for the full asking price of $625,000. Rita Rezko later sold a portion of the undeveloped lot to the Obamas, enlarging the senator's yard.

Tony Rezko already had been linked to a grand jury investigation involving public corruption. Last month, he was convicted of 16 counts in an influence-peddling scheme that reached the highest levels of Illinois state government.

 The insinuation is pretty clear.  "An air of corruption and unseemliness hovers over House Obama."  Hit piece.  There are no "sides" to this story, because there's no controversy.  No issue.  Nada.