Help with mortgage "shopping"

When shopping for a mortgage should I send all the pertinent paperwork to each possible lender?

(copies of W-2's, paystubs, bank statements, etc.) Or should I go by the Good Faith Estimate and pick one from there?

Do the closing costs vary greatly between lenders?

This is all so confusing...

Re: Help with mortgage "shopping"

We had requested pre-approvals via online and no one responded. We found showing up in person with all the paper work (W2's for two years, one month of stubs, three months of all bank accounts) was the best thing for us.

Re: Help with mortgage "shopping"

Thanks Jenn!

Anyone else have any tips?

Re: Help with mortgage "shopping"

We didn't send our info around to different lenders just because we didn't feel comfortable with so much specific info being out there.

We are using Bank of America for our mortgage and we didn't have to give the bank statements/W2'S/etc until after we locked in the mortgage rate. They started the process with other more basic info and once the contracts were signed and a rate was locked, we sent over the rest of the info. However, I'm not sure that this is how it works with everyone.

Good luck! We are in the process of buying and it really is confusing :)