Have you heard the term iBuyer? You’ve probably heard of these companies: Zillow, Offerpad, Opendoor, and Knock; all part of a growing segment of tech companies getting into real estate. I know you’ve heard the commercials: get an instant cash offer, sell your home for free, no repairs, no strangers trampling through your house, move hassle free in 7-10 days. Is it really that easy? Let me break down the pros and cons.
If you are considering purchasing a home and you have student loan debt, consider speaking with a mortgage professional as a starting point. There are all kinds of rules around how these are treated when it comes to qualifying for a mortgage. How your student loans are structured or in what stage of repayment they are in may dictate what type of loan program you will qualify for.
For example – most people incorrectly assume that if your loans ...
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Part of the mortgage qualification process includes what is called your debt to income ratio (DTI). This your gross monthly income divided by the lump sum total of your proposed housing payment and any other monthly obligations that show up on your credit report. This would include car payments, student loan payments (this links to our other post on these payments), and minimum payments on any revolving charge cards. These are typically a very small percentage of the ...
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If you are contemplating a move this year, you have picked the perfect time. Interest rates are very low again, and there is more inventory coming on the market than in years past. In the latest statistics from January, inventory levels are up 17% year-over-year. That is a good sign given that most buyers have not had a lot of choices over the past couple of years, relative to historical inventory levels. That said, demand is high and we ...
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We assist people with understanding and improving their credit scores with great regularity. One of the questions that comes up frequently is why credit scores go up and down so frequently? Credit Scores are made up of five main components.
The first is making your payments on time (35% of your score). If you make, even one late payment in the very recent past, your score will drop dramatically. The second component is called your utilization ratio ...
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Explore These Options to Finance.
Whether you are looking to freshen up or expand your existing home or a new home you are considering purchasing, the question always comes up about how to pay for this. The answer to this question depends somewhat on how much you are talking about financing and how long you believe it will take you to repay. Let’s take them one at a time. If you are trying to renovate the home you ...
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If you are thinking about purchasing a home in the next year, the sooner you start looking, the better. Why start so soon? There are a lot of moving parts to buying a home. Getting a plan in place is the key to success.
Let’s look at all the moving parts:
– Make the decision to purchase and set an ideal time to close on a home. For example, when does your lease expire?
– Look into a mortgage pre-approval. ...
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Rent Before You Buy – It is always a good idea to get a year or so under your belt as a tenant so you can understand some of the challenges that come with homeownership. Put yourself in the shoes of your landlord. Lenders like to see a track record of making housing payments prior to application and to get you used to making a house payment prior to owning.
Check Your Credit ...
1. Get a copy of your credit report through www.MyFico.com. This will give us your true mortgage scores without a hard inquiry on your credit. You can also get a free copy of your report through someone like www.freecreditreport.com but it won’t give you the scores we use. There are 48 different FICO scoring models but only one that mortgage lenders use. No surprise, that this model is more conservative than most.
2. Through an ...
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When you apply for a mortgage on a condominium there are a whole host of additional considerations the lender must analyze. I like to think of it as two separate approval processes, the approval of your own personal loan and a secondary approval for the condominium complex itself. They take place at the exact same time but go down to separate paths. Since the approval process for the loan itself is no different than that of ...
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