Within three business days of your application, your lender must send a Loan Estimate — a standardized three-page form created under the TRID rules. Its whole purpose is to make quotes comparable across lenders. Learn to read it and you can shop with confidence. All figures discussed here are illustrative and subject to change; the Loan Estimate itself is not a commitment to lend.
Page 1: the headline numbers
The first page is the summary. At the top you will find your loan amount, interest rate, and monthly principal-and-interest payment, plus whether any of those can change. Below that is a "Projected Payments" table showing how your full payment — including estimated taxes, insurance, and any mortgage insurance — stacks up. The page ends with two boxes: "Estimated Closing Costs" and "Estimated Cash to Close." Those two numbers are where most of your comparison shopping actually happens.
Page 2: the cost breakdown
Page two itemizes the closing costs. Pay attention to how the services are grouped:
- · **Origination charges** — what the lender charges to make the loan, including any points.
- · **Services you cannot shop for** — third-party costs the lender selects, like the appraisal.
- · **Services you can shop for** — costs where you can choose your own provider, like title services.
- · **Taxes, government fees, and prepaids** — recording fees, prepaid interest, and your initial escrow deposit.
The "can shop for" category matters: those are dollars you may be able to reduce by choosing providers yourself.
Page 3: comparisons and APR
The third page is the most overlooked and the most useful. It shows the APR, which folds your fees into a single annualized rate, and the Total Interest Percentage. It also projects how much you will have paid in five years. Comparing page three across two Loan Estimates tells you the true cost story far better than the headline rate alone.
Tolerances
TRID groups fees into tolerance buckets. Some fees cannot increase at all from the Loan Estimate to closing, others can move within a 10% aggregate limit, and a few can change freely. If a fee jumps outside its allowed tolerance at closing, the lender generally owes you the difference. The Loan Estimate is your baseline to hold them to.
LE vs Closing Disclosure
The Loan Estimate is the start; the Closing Disclosure is the near-final version you receive at least three business days before closing. Lining them up side by side is one of the smartest things you can do.
The Alliance take
We will walk your Loan Estimate with you line by line — no skipping page three. Start an application and you will have a clear LE in hand within days.