TD Bank Mortgage Review: The Right Home Loan For You?
Updated: May 4
Affiliate Marketing Disclosure
Toronto Dominion Bank, most oftentimes known as TD Bank, is an American national bank and subsidiary of the international TD Bank Group. With a large presence on the United States' East Coast, TD has over 1,200 locations across the country.
Offering checking/savings accounts, wealth management services, and loans of all types, TD Bank is the country's 11th largest bank by total assets.
This article will review TD Bank's mortgage programs.
TD Bank mortgages: At a glance
​Loans offered | ​Conventional, FHA, VA, USDA, Construction, Jumbo, HELOCs, Physician |
​States available | ​CT, DE, FL, ME, MD, MA, NH, NJ, NY, NC, PA, RI, SC, VT, VA, DC |
​Minimum credit score | 620 (580 for FHA) |
The TD Bank mortgage program
TD Bank offers Conventional, FHA, VA, USDA, Construction, Jumbo, HELOCs, and Physician Mortgage programs. Their conventional fixed-rate loan carries a term of either 15 or 30 years, while their ARMs carry terms of 3/1, 5/1, 7/1, or 10/1. A term of 3/1 means that your interest rate will be fixed for three years, but then can change every year until your loan is paid off.
Typically you will need a credit score of at least 620 to be considered a worthy borrower.
At this time, TD Bank mortgages are available to those that live in the following states:
Connecticut
Delaware
Florida
Maine
Maryland
Massachusetts
New Hampshire
New Jersey
New York
North Carolina
Pennsylvania
Rhode Island
South Carolina
Vermont
Virginia
Washington DC
Down payment requirements
The percentage of your new home that you will be able to finance through a TD mortgage depends on the type of loan that you take. For instance:
Conventional - 3% down
FHA - 3.5%
VA/USDA - 0%
Physician - 0% to 10%
And while you may need to pay private mortgage insurance if you take a Conventional loan with under a 20% down payment, these are good options to get you into your dream home more quickly.
Interest rates and fees
Our TD Bank mortgage review would not be complete without discussing the interest rates offered and fees assessed. As is the case with any other mortgage lender in the market, the rates that you are able to secure will depend on a combination of prevailing market conditions and your creditworthiness as a borrower.
TD Bank does offer a "Personalized Home Loan Rate" calculator that can help you to see the rates in your area. Once you answer all of their questions, you'll be shown your options, which will look like this.
As far as TD Bank's average closing costs and associated fees, their loan origination fees are fairly standard, at about $950. You'll be able to find cheaper origination fees elsewhere, but this one is not outrageous.
TD Right Step and Home Access programs
In addition to Fannie Mae's HomeReady program, TD Bank also offers two of their own programs for qualifying borrowers to take advantage of:
TD Right Step
TD Home Access
The TD Right Step Mortgage provides qualifying home buyers the opportunity to buy a home with just a 3% down payment and no private mortgage insurance requirement. It is available to be used on home purchases of many types, including single-family homes, condos, co-ops, and manufactured housing.
And while you don't have to be a first-time home buyer, you will need to complete a home buyer education course. Saving up the 3% down payment is likely to be the hardest requirement to meet, but you can gift money or grant money if applicable.
Finally, this program may be subject to income limits depending on where you buy, but for those that buy in U.S. census tracts designated as low to moderate income, the requirement is waived.
Additionally, TD Bank offers the Home Access Mortgage program. This program is also available for many different property types and offers waived PMI, but it also comes with the potential to receive a $5,000 lender credit. The income requirements will vary across states, counties, and towns, but the calculation will take into account each county's Area Median Income (AMI), a statistic provided by The Department of Housing and Urban Development annually.
This program also calls for a home buyer education course.
TD Bank customer service reviews
As is likely to be the case with just about any national lender, TD Bank has both highly positive and negative reviews. They score a 3.2 on Credit Karma with positive comments most often pointing out:
The digital process was easy to complete
The professionalism and promptness in getting answers to questions
Satisfaction with the approval process
Those that were unsatisfied with the experience attributed it to:
A lack of follow-through by loan officers
Being asked for financial statements multiple times (needed to complete the underwriting process)
It seems to us that the determining factor in whether customers are satisfied or not has a lot to do with the loan officer you work with. But this is something that is seemingly true with every mortgage lender on the market.
In our past experience, TD Bank offers a more positive mortgage experience than their pedestrian 3.2 Credit Karma rating suggests.
Pros and cons to a TD Bank mortgage
Financing your new home purchase with a TD Bank loan comes with a lot of positives. Don't believe us? Check it out for yourself!
1. Huge variety of loan programs
TD Bank offers a bunch of different loan programs for borrowers to consider. Offering Conventional, FHA, VA, and USDA loans is quite good, but then supplementing this with their own programs and access to Fannie Mae HomeReady is another plus.
There is likely to be a loan for everybody here.
2. 3% down payments with no PMI
The bank offers multiple different loan options for those looking to buy homes without large down payments saved up. And while this flexibility is great, what is even better is that these options also come without having to make PMI payments.
3. Great online portal
The bank has a great online portal that can help you:
Get rate estimates
Apply for your mortgage or prequalification
Check the status of your application
Since TD Bank is such a large institution, they have had the resources to invest in a state of the art platform. And it does not disappoint.
We took a deep dive into their platform, and were impressed by what we saw. For example, you can track the status of your application every step of the way through underwriting, processing, and funding. We also thought the ability to prequalify online was really handy and could come in handy for those prospective homebuyers that need to move more quickly.
TD's branding as "America's most convenient bank" certainly appears to hold up.
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Now, let's explore a couple of the things that we think that TD Bank could improve on.
1. All rate offers involve hard credit inquiries
If you're looking to apply for a mortgage, keep in mind that a hard credit inquiry will be conducted. If you're considering multiple different lenders in an attempt to "rate shop," you'll want to keep in mind that this will complicate things.
If you start here, for example, it is possible that other lenders could pull a lower credit score if the hard inquiry hits your file first.
2. Only has a regional presence
Unfortunately, TD Bank does not offer home loans across the entire country. Only those on the U.S. East Coast, and more specifically the states we mentioned earlier, are eligible.
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In our opinion, none of these cons are significant detriments to working with the bank. It would be nice to be able to see your interest rate without a hard inquiry, but just talk to other lenders that you're considering to determine if there is an order in which you should follow so you don't adversely impact your credit score accidentally.
Our take on TD Bank mortgages
TD Bank is one of America's best mortgage lenders - and for good reason. This is our review, so we're going to say it how we see it. TD's Right Step Mortgage program is a game changer for those that use it. We believe that they've taken the best parts of the FHA program - low down payment and credit score requirements, and removed all the negatives (those absurdly high mortgage insurance premiums).
We did the math - consider this.
A low to moderate income family that uses Right Step to buy a modest $250,000 home can do so with just a 3% down payment - just $7,500, plus closing costs. Compare that to a Conventional mortgage loan that may require a 10% down payment of $25,000.
In general, though, outside of this program, TD offers fair rates, a ton of different loan types, and their online system is really easy to use! And while there are always things to nit-pick, about any lender, TD offers a good experience that will be right for thousands of Americans up and down the Eastern Seaboard.
Mortgage financing and homebuying tips
Through educating our readers and my own home purchase in May 2022, I've gained a lot of experience over the last couple years as it pertains to home financing. Along the way, I've learned a number of insider tips and tricks about home financing that can help you whether you decide to take a TD Bank mortgage or work with another lender:
Find a balance between short and long term liquidity: You know your future goals better than anybody else. And since mortgages can have terms as long as 30 years in length, it is important to remember these goals as you finance your home. If you're looking to start a family in the short to medium term, for instance, you'll need to run the cost-benefit analysis as to whether you are better off preserving capital now or making a larger down payment to open up cash flow in the future.
Decide early on whether you'll use a special program: As we've alluded to over the course of this article, there is no shortage of special federal and lender specific mortgage programs out there. Unfortunately, not every lender participates in every federal program, so if you're adamant on using an FHA loan, for instance, you'll want to make sure that they are offered by the lenders you consider. As a reminder, TD Bank offers FHA, VA, and USDA mortgages, along with their own low down payment solutions.
Grab our mortgage calculator
Knowing that TD Bank is a highly rated mortgage lender is a great start, but it still doesn't provide you much information as to what you can expect to pay on a monthly basis. Luckily, our mortgage calculator can change that for you.
See how different home purchase prices, down payment percentages, interest rates, and other factors will impact your monthly payments. We'll even factor in your annual property taxes and homeowners insurance if you decide to escrow them.
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