With mortgage rates still falling to nearly historic lows, many people are buying homes, driving up demand.If you're satisfied with your current home, but want to take advantage of these incredibly low rates, you can refinance your mortgage. If you want to save even more money, you can buy points. Here's what you need to know.
When it comes time to refinancing, don't let these pitfalls set you back. Watch out for overly aggressive pricing and erroneous DTI evaluations. Is there a forbearance on your current loan? Once those obstacles have been taken care of, refinancing your home should be smooth sailing.
If you are serious about buying a house, getting pre-approved goes a long way to purchasing that dream home. A pre-approved loan tells the seller that you have financing to buy the home. If the seller has multiple offers, a buyer with a pre-approval looks better than a buyer who does not. Why waste time with a buyer who may or may not be approved?
If you’re a first time home buyer, you’ve probably heard the term closing costs, but you may have no idea what it actually means. For many homebuyers, closing costs is a vague term muddled among dozens of new legal details learned during the process.
When you are buying your first home, financing can be overwhelming. One point of confusion is whether you should get an FHA loan or a conventional loan. Understanding the differences can help you make an educated choice as to which will work best for your budget and situation.
Mortgage can be a very dry and mystified subject. If you have not done a ton of refinances or home purchase in your life, it can be a pretty intimidating process.
One of the best ways to do this is to improve your credit score. Start by pulling up a copy of all three of your credit reports. You can get 1 free credit report per year by going to www.annualcreditreport.com Look over each report and if there are errors, write dispute letters to the bureaus concerning them. Also, pull up your credit score. Here are additional ways to improve your credit score in 2020.
Only close family and relatives, such as aunts and uncles can “gift” you money for a down payment.
DID YOU KNOW:
The failure rate for a home purchase is 20% on average.
DID YOU KNOW:
Many lenders have NO PMI loans, even if you have a down payment of less than 20%.
DID YOU KNOW:
Veterans may qualify for a home purchase with no down payment using a VA Loan for purchase.
DID YOU KNOW:
Many condominiums are not FHA approved and therefore you will not be able to purchase the condo with an FHA Loan.
DID YOU KNOW:
FHA Loans give you greater flexibility with your debt to income ratio. In short, you can qualify for more loan with less income.
DID YOU KNOW:
Student loans can throw your debt to income ratio out of whack and disqualify you from approval due to excessive debt.
DID YOU KNOW:
Bankruptcy does not disqualify you from getting an FHA Loan as long as it has been 2 years since the recorded discharge date, or 4 years for a Conventional Loan.
DID YOU KNOW:
Many lenders will not accept documents, such as bank statements, that have any portion that has been blacked out or tampered with.
PRO TIP:
Be sure to understand exactly how much loan you can be approved for before you fall in love with a home and get into a contract!
PRO TIP:
Don’t move around assets during the processing of your home purchase loan, as it will trigger the underwriters to ask repeatedly for updated bank statements.
PRO TIP:
Not every Realtor can produce the same results, so be sure to check their credentials and experience.
PRO TIP:
Don’t just trust a pre-qualification from a licensed lending officer. Get pre-approved by an actual underwriter before you get into a home purchase contract.