There is no right or wrong answer to this question.  There are three basic types of home loan lenders: mortgage brokers, banks, and mortgage bankers.
1 --Mortgage brokers are "middlepersons" between the borrower and lender.
Personally, I've had very good and very bad experiences with mortgage brokers. Some "bait and switch" mortgage brokers have promised me excellent loan terms to get my loan application, but then they couldn't deliver the quoted terms.  Of course, they blame the changed terms on the actual lender, such as a bank or mortgage banker.  Borrowers should be aware mortgage brokers are eager to get your loan
application so they can "shop" it among the dozens of lenders they represent.
Some mortgage brokers are notorious for adding last minute unnecessary "junk" or "garbage" fees, such as a processing fee, administration fee, management fee,
documentation fee, warehousing fee, etc.  If the fee wasn't disclosed up-front by the lender, but it suddenly appears on your closing statement, that's usually a junk fee which borrowers should protest.  Sometimes, these costly pure-profit fees are charged by the actual lender, other times they are added by the mortgage broker to raise their profits on each loan.
I've seen mortgage brokers perform home finance miracles, especially for borrowers with less than perfect credit or other borrowing problems.  As with any lender, be sure to get the quoted loan terms in writing up front so there is no misunderstanding.  All mortgage lenders are supposed to give borrowers a "good faith statement" of loan costs within three days after receiving a completed application.  However, there is no penalty to the lender for failure to deliver those quoted loan terms.  The form really should be titled "good faith guesstimate."
If a mortgage broker has been in business at least five years --10 or 15 years is better -- he or she is probably reputable or they wouldn't have survived that long.  The
mortgage lending business is very competitive and mortgage brokers depend on
referrals from past customers and real estate agents.  If borrowers are unhappy with a mortgage broker, he or she won't be getting many referrals.
A major benefit of mortgage brokers is they usually have contacts with out-of-area lenders who can approve a home loan on better terms than are available from local lenders.  Also, out-of-area lenders often specialize in specific types of properties, such as older commercial buildings, or borrowers with less than perfect credit.
EXAMPLE:  A few years ago, mortgage broker Don Douglass, co-owner of Servicentre Mortgage Co. in Belmont, Calif., arranged a purchase-money mortgage for my tenants Melvin and Denise who were exercising their lease-option to purchase.  Their credit wasn't good, but Don never gave up trying to find a lender for them.  He finally
arranged a mortgage from "Cub Financial."  I had never heard of that out-of-area lender, but Don really earned his fee on that one.  Then, just as the home purchase was ready to close, Melvin went out and bought a new car, obtaining an auto loan from his credit union.  Cub Financial rechecked the credit report a few days before the closing and the new car loan showed up!  Don had to convince Melvin to get rid of that car and its car loan.  I think Denise had something to do with making that car loan
disappear so she could become a happy homeowner!
2 --Banks are direct lenders of their own funds.  Included within the bank category are the few remaining S&Ls.  Most of these former savings and loan associations now call themselves banks.  The advantage of dealing direct with a bank is there is no
middleperson.  However, their so-called loan officers usually work on a minimal salary plus commission for making home loans.  In other words, they are commissioned salespersons.
For this reason, bank loan officers are often extremely eager to get loan applications, even if they don't have a loan to meet your needs.  A disadvantage is if the bank
doesn't have a loan program to fit your situation, the bank won't shop your loan
application among other lenders, as will a mortgage broker.  Banks and S&Ls used to have the home loan market virtually to themselves.  Today, they originate only about 40 percent of home loans.
Most banks will keep some of the loans they originate and sell the others in the
secondary mortgage market, usually to Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, and Ginnie Mae (which buys VA and FHA home loans).  If a bank keeps most of its loans and does not sell them, that lender is known as a "portfolio lender."  Portfolio lenders usually can be more flexible because they don't have to meet the sometimes rigid, inflexible loan rules of the secondary mortgage market lenders.
3 --Mortgage bankers loan their own funds but then sell most of their loans.  Do names like Countrywide, Home Side Lending, and Wells Fargo Mortgage mean anything to you?  They are mortgage bankers.  That means they loan their own funds to
homeowners, but then they usually sell off or securitize those mortgages in the
secondary mortgage market.
However, most homeowners will never know their loans have been sold because the originating mortgage bankers usually keep servicing the loans (and collecting a 1/4 percent fee from the loan's owner, such as Fannie Mac or Freddie Mac, for doing so). Incidentally, mortgage bankers Countrywide and Wells Fargo are among the nation's largest home loan lenders.