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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There are a flurry of new services out there attempting to upend the traditional real estate agent model. Offer Pad, Open Door and Zillow Offer, just to name a few. They are exploding our mail boxes and TV advertising with compelling offers. We will buy your house for cash, eliminate the Realtor and make a seamless move to your next house. Sounds fantastic on the surface. Problem is that they will never offer you close to what the true market ...
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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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And you know what that means: It’s time for my annual Real Estate & Mortgage Predictions! After researching my mortgage knowledge base for 2019, the following is my take:
–Interest Rates are not moving a whole lot – Between the trade wards, fears of an impending recession, and continued low inflation, we have a formula for rates staying steady.
-ARM’s will garner more market share – With fixed rates up around a percentage point higher, home ...
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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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Oddly enough, long-term interest rates started the year just slightly higher than they were one year ago. We had a few periods during the course of last year where rates were slightly above 5% for a 30 year fixed. With the recent volatility in the stock market and analysts starting to predict a recession in the next couple of years, interest rates have come down significantly since October, when they last peaked.
We now stand in the mid ...
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 Report & Scores – ...
• 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.
• Through an educational process, we can assist with ...
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