Just tell them you are uncomfortable with the idea of mixing business with pleasure.

Just blame your husband :0)! It is the truth after all, and people will 'get' it.

Having been in the exact same situation 18 months ago, i can assure you it won't go over very well, if you decline his "help"..We did just that,explaining we would be more comfortable not using a friend, particularly if things got ugly in the process. We were assured by him that it would all go smoothly, but we held our ground..He and his wife would ask us frequently about the process, and they ould critique EVERY issue that came up, saying it wouldn't have happened if we used him, :)
Glad we did what we did, and since moving,have heard ZERO from our "friends"..

Have to agree with those that say if you do not use them you could lose them as friends. We didn't use a realtor friend, I haven't gotten a response to any emails I've sent and the last time I saw her hubby in town, he looked like he turned his head :( It upsets me to think they don't understand about mixing friendship & business... long story short.. we were going to use her but she didn't reply to some emails which got me wondering if she didn't want to mix business & friendship.

Anyway; the friendship probably would have ended anyway had we used her. I doubt she's be able to put up with me as a seller.

I would also just tell them I was uncomfortable mixing business with a friendship as valuable to you as theirs (if it is). If they are real friends they will understand. If they actually are childish enough to let it affect a true friendship that is their issue, not yours.

This is a big step- a mortgage. You need to do everything you need to do to ensure that you are happy and comfortable with each step in the process.

I used to work at a store that needed the lot plowed each winter. A member of our local police force was doing this for us in his spare time. He must have had a lot of other accounts because he frequently didn't get to our lot until noon. Not good for parking.

One day another guy came to the store and offered to plow the lot for half the price, so we gave him a try. He would arrive before the store opened and would sometimes swing back around later in the day. He even did the sidewalks with his snow blower. No extra charge.

One day I was out driving and had forgot to put my new tag on my license plate. I was pulled over by the officer who used to plow our lot! I said "HI!", he said "What happened? Why aren't you using me to plow your lot anymore"?

Of course I didn't want a ticket, so I told him the owner had a relative who doing it for free in repayment for legal services (owner was a lawyer). The officer accepted this, didn't give me the ticket and was pleasant whenever I ran into him afterwards.

Sometimes a little white lie helps. Blood is thicker than water. Do you have a "relative" or friend who needs the business more than these other people?

Can you just say something like well we are going with the same person that we have used in the past. Assuming you have somebody or say your parents have a friend and you don't want to offend your parents/in-laws or something like that.

Though I really hate lying, but it sounds from other posters that being honest isn't a good approach which I find very sad.

I think I'll say we are putting things on hold and then when we do buy the house we'll send them a card thanking them for the offer to help along with an ivite to dinner.

The hard part is convincing my husband not to use them even for a pre-approval. It makes me uncomfortable. I'll just be insistant.

I guess with this being the information age, you cant just lie and say you paid cash. But mayb you can lie and say someone even closer to you (like a sibling) did the mortgage work for you.

I just love friends who have me do a CMA on their house, pump me for all kinds of information about RE and list or buy with another agent. NOT.

bernie, listing a home is a bit different then having a friend inside our financial world,wouldn't you agree? I used a relative to list, and had no problems...

"I just love friends who have me do a CMA on their house, pump me for all kinds of information about RE and list or buy with another agent. NOT."

I have a rule about that sort of thing. When I am in a social setting I will talk about my field for a moment or two. If someone persists past the point of my comfort I say something laughingly like "Yikes- this is just a little too much like work. Call me at work tomorrow or come into the office and we can discuss it further."

If you say it right 99% of them won't get offended, especially if you change the subject to something else they are interested in.
If your expertise is what you are selling you have to stand up and charge for it.

I didn't get the feeling of this type situation at all from the OP, though. Sounded like they just have mortgage broker friends who offered to help.

"bernie, listing a home is a bit different then having a friend inside our financial world,wouldn't you agree? I used a relative to list, and had no problems..."

I deal with people I respect and trust, friend or not.

I don't think I would be comfortable with a friend knowing all my personal financial information. Different to listing a house for a friend I think.

It's a tough position. Hopefully you know them well enough to know which approach is better; truth or white lie.

Good luck.

Normally, I would trust my friends to be professional enough to be private with my information and so on, but in the case of a friend who EXPECTS me to use them, they are Already Being Unprofessional. Thus, I wouldn't use them.

I just love friends who have me do a CMA on their house, pump me for all kinds of information about RE and list or buy with another agent. NOT.

I wouldn't do this.

I used to cut hair. I was pretty popular when someone needed a haircut. People would tell me to bring my scissors if I was going to their house. It got old quick.

When our daughter owned her beauty shop years ago and I and my wife got our haircuts from her, we paid/tipped extra. (maybe that's why she could afford the Corvette?)
We take great pride in seeing our families and friends succeed.

We had a brother-in-law that was a mortgager when we bought our house, and of course used him because we didn't want to hurt his feelings. He's a really nice guy, but in the long run we would have been much better off not using him.

You'd think they have your best interests at heart, but our experience was that we got stuck with mediocre rates at best, with no explanation of how the mortgages were chosen or how they worked or what other options were available to us.

Our credit union we bank with almost certainly would have had lower rates and would have been easier to deal with. (We have since switched our mortgages to them, and refinanced with much better rates, with no closing costs on the 2nd mortgage.)

He didn't explain the paperwork well, didn't communicate with our realtor, and when she mentioned to us the week before closing that something seemed odd on the paperwork, and he told us to our faces that he had checked it over and it was all fine, you'd think he would want to live up to that reputation.

Turned out, he showed up a half hour late for our closing because he got lost, he HAD filled out the paperwork wrong, with the result that we were nearly $3000 short at the closing, and he acted dumb about the whole thing. (We came up with the extra for closing out of savings, but it was an extremely high-tension ordeal involving multiple people on multiple phone calls for over an hour trying to get it all figured out, the BIL not included.)

He's never mentioned anything to us about it, but we have never recommended him to others, and I think we would have been more well-informed, gotten a better deal, and been more willing to ask questions if we hadn't gone with a family member.

Just our experience.

I know how they opperate with respect to making commitments and blowing them off or being late and disorganized. Now that I think about, it the way they live their life is fine for them, but I don't want a habitually late and disorganized person having anything to do with my buying a house.

I think because my husband doesn't know them as well he isn't as aware that they aren't real reliable in any other area. While I can tolerate it as a casual relationship I don't think I can as a profesional one.

That is really the issue. I knew I didn't want to use them but instead of it being the friendship, as I type, I realize it is more that I know them and I can't overlook these flaws when it comes to relying on them for a mortgage.

Ahh! how reflective we can be sometimes whne we relly think about things. This is better than therapy.

My wife used to have a friend who was consistently late for appointments. She's not a friend anymore.
No one should stay in an abusive relationship, even if it's just a casual one, much less a professional.

I have an idea: Tell them the truth.

We learned the hard way that business and friends/relatives do not mix. We loaned a whole 50.00 to a friend, and it took us 6 months to get it back and we lost a friend until HE needed us again and the answer was NO. Yes it could have paid us so much each week, had money for beer etc That was many years ago but it taught us a good lesson. Yes we needed the money or else we would have just charged it off.

If they are really friends they should understand, with grace. If not, and if in fact they've been hanging around waiting for 'customers', or if they choose not to understand, I don't think you'll have lost a lot (friendwise) in the end. I recently found out - was told outright when I asked - that people who'd been 'friends' for many, many years, had been trying to get us to join their church all that time, even though they knew unconditionally that we had no intention of it. Now, even though we still talk, I mistrust everything that has gone before, not knowing if we were just other recruits on a list, or what?

mariend wrote: "We loaned a whole 50.00 to a friend, and it took us 6 months to get it back and we lost a friend until HE needed us again and the answer was NO."

I had a friend who used to constantly ask me for favors, but was always busy when I needed something. One time I loaned her a small amount of money with the understanding that she would pay me back when she got her next check. I haven't heard from her since!

Moral-if you don't want to hear from someone, just loan them money!
Sometimes its worth it!

That is why I NEVER do any financial or legal business within the small town I recently moved to. I received this advise from other transplants such as myself. That confidentiality statement that banks send out (as an example) means nothing. You make a large deposit and the whole town knows it. Keep all conversations light.