Totally plagiarized from Mark Miskiel.
Hey all,
If you have a transaction in the queue or a potential transaction that is ready to come together, you may wish to mention this to your clients to PROTECT YOUR TRANSACTION.
As black Friday approaches and the Christmas shopping season starts, caution your clients to resist the store promotions where you open a new credit account and get a big discount at the register for doing so.
While it may be tempting to take advantage of the in store promotion, opening that account could potentially harm their credit score enough to preventing closing their mortgage loan or making their pre-qualification null and void.
Opening “New Credit” accounts can impact a borrower’s credit score up to 85 points because the credit bureaus take the following into the consideration.
Number of recently opened accounts
Proportion of newly opened accounts to all open accounts
Number of recent credit inquiries
Amount of time since the recent inquiries
It’s no news that mortgage lenders have been increasing the minimum credit score to obtain a mortgage. Also, there is a new requirement for the lenders to pull a “soft” credit inquiry right up to the point of funding the loan to ensure the borrowers credit profile has not changed. While the in store promotions may look great, the borrowers may want to carefully consider if accepting such a promotion is worth the risk of no longer qualifying for a mortgage.
I am here to help if you have questions about this or other lending topics.
Happy Holidays!
Mark A. Miskiel - Residential Lending Specialist
The Lending Company – Verde Valley
Office: (928) 634-7987 (rings to cell when out of office)
e-Fax: (480)-371-1150
www.Lender4you.com
NMLS # 198563
Not all loan officers are required to be licensed.
I am proud to be a licensed loan officer!
Showing posts with label credit. Show all posts
Showing posts with label credit. Show all posts
Tuesday, November 23, 2010
Thursday, November 11, 2010
Four years into the housing crisis, myths about foreclosure still litter the minds of even the smartest of real estate consumers. When it comes to matters as high stakes as your home, confusion can cost you thousands - or even your home. Whether you’re a buyer looking at foreclosures, a homeowner struggling to keep your home or a seller concerned making sure your home can compete with the foreclosed homes on your block, these foreclosure myths are prime for the busting, with no further ado.
Myth #1: Foreclosure happens fast. With unemployment and underemployment still affecting nearly 1 in every 4 Americans, no one is immune from fears that a pink slip might quickly turn into a foreclosure notice. According to NeighborWorks America, nearly 60 percent of families seeking foreclosure counseling cited a lost job or cut wages as the reason they were facing foreclosure. While the Obama Administration's Home Affordable Programs haven't been nearly as effective as predicted in actually preventing foreclosures, they have had the effect of extending the foreclosure process for many families. Even though the legal process of foreclosure can happen in as few as 6 months in most states, it is currently taking much longer for the average foreclosure to get to completion. Recently, JP Morgan Chase revealed that their average borrower who loses a home to foreclosure has not made any payments in 14 months nationwide; 22 months in FLorida and 26 months in New York.To be sure, some see this as a good, others view it as unnecessarily dragging out the overall market's recovery. Many insiders will point out that these delays in foreclosure may be calculated to save the banks the costs of owning and maintaining foreclosed homes, not to help homeowners. In any event, the fact that foreclosure does not happen nearly as fast, in many cases, as expected does give families who are temporarily down on their luck some extra time to try to get back on their feet and save their homes.
Myth #2: Buyers can’t get clear title or title insurance on foreclosed homes. When the foreclosure robo-signing scandal first hit, there was widespread concern that buyers would not be able to get clear title on foreclosed homes, because the former foreclosed owners might be able to come get their homes back when the improprieties in the bank's foreclosure documentation processes came fully to light. At the same time, several of the country's largest title insurance companies publicly balked at issuing policies on bank-owned homes until the issue was resolved. At this point, the banks claim they have revamped their processes, and all banks have stated that they have found not a single borrower whose home was repossessed without them having missed the requisite number of mortgage payments. Nevertheless, a number of governmental investigations are still in progress.The fact is, buyers of bank-owned properties in nearly every jurisdiction are protected from later title attacks by foreclosed homeowners by the bona fide purchaser rule, under which courts would prefer to simply award cash damages to be paid by the culpable bank to a wrongfully foreclosed-on homeowner, rather than reversing the sale or ownership to the new, innocent buyer. Additionally, the title insurers have now changed their tune and restarted issuing insurance policies on bank-owned homes which protect buyers' interests, after working with the banks for them to take responsibility in the event a former homeowner prevails in a wrongful foreclosure suit. While there are still many intricacies of title to be resolved for foreclosure buyers who purchase homes at trustee sales and auctions, or for cash buyers who often went without title insurance in the past, on the average, Trulia-listed, bank-owned property purchased with an average mortgage and title insurance, the chances a buyer's title will later be successfully challenged by the foreclosed homeowner on the basis of robo-signing? Exceedingly slim.
Myth #3: Buyers should wait for the shadow inventory to be released. Many a buyer, discouraged with the homes they see on the the form in their price range, has decided to sit still and wait for the banks to release for sale what is called their "shadow inventory" - rumored to be anywhere from 4 to nearly 6 million homes that have already been foreclosed, but not listed for sale, or will be foreclosed in the near future. The fact is, to the extent that the banks have acknowledged the existence of a pool of homes they own but are not selling, they have expressed that their reasoning for holding the homes off the market is to avoid flooding the market and driving home values down any further. For that reason, buyers should not expect to see a massive influx of these shadow homes onto the market anytime soon - if ever. The banks' current modus operandi is that as they sell a home, the replace it with another home in that market - if they sell 50 homes in a town that month, they'll put another 50 on the next. So, don't hold your breath waiting for a fabulous new flood of homes. Instead, set up a Trulia alert to notify you when homes that fit your search criteria come on the market, and be ready to call your agent and go visit any and every one that looks like it might be a good fit.
Myth #4: If you’re looking for a deal, you’re looking for a foreclosure. Despite what they may say, no buyer’s heart's fondest desire is to buy a foreclosure. But almost every buyer dreams of buying a great home - and getting a great deal on it. Many people think that to get a great value on their home on today's market, it means they must buy a foreclosure. As a result, the value and other advantages of buying an individually-owned home on today's market are frequently overlooked. Individual sellers with homes on the market right now are generally quite motivated, and understand that their homes are competing with discounted short sales and foreclosed homes. Many of these sellers are slashing prices in an effort to get them sold - the most recent Trulia Price Reduction Report revealed that 27 percent of homes on the market across the country have had at least one price reduction. Now that's what I call a sale!Further, individual owners are often much more negotiable on a wide range of contract terms than a bank which owns a foreclosed home. You can work with non-bank owners on things like repairs, closing dates, choice of escrow provider, closing costs and even included personal property much more flexibly than you can when the bank is on the other side of the bargaining table. On top of that, many individually-owned homes are in pristine, move-in condition; that is much rarer with foreclosures. So, don't underestimate the value of the deal you might be able to get on a non-foreclosed home. Just get clear on what you can afford and look at all the homes that are available in that price range, without discriminating against non-foreclosures.
Myth #5: Having a foreclosure on your credit history means it'll take years and years before you can buy again. One of the most Frequently Asked Questions in the Trulia Voices Community by homeowners who are facing or have just lost a home through foreclosure is how long it will take before they'll be able to buy again. Until recently, the standard wisdom was that 5 years, minimum, would have to have elapsed between the foreclosure and the new home purchase. Now, though, borrowers can obtain an FHA loan with the low, 3.5 minimum down payment requirement as soon as 3 years following a foreclosure. To do so, though, all your other ducks must be in a row. Post-foreclosure buyers need a credit score of 620-640 to qualify for an FHA loan; higher for a non-FHA loan - given that the foreclosure itself usually dings anywhere from 100-150 points off the credit score (not necessarily counting a full year or more of pre-foreclosure missed payments), former homeowners who want to buy again need to ensure they have no other late payments or credit dings after they lose thier home. You must have clean credit with no derogatory marks like late credit card payments following the foreclosure, and you may also be required to document 12 to 24 months straight of on-time rent payments after the foreclosure. Further, the bank may impose a lower debt-to-income ratio on post-foreclosure borrowers than on borrowers who have not had a foreclosure, in an effort to keep your mortgage payments low, keep you from overextending yourself and boost the chances you'll be a successful homeowner over the long-term this time around. The bank will also need to see 2 years of continuous employment history in the same field, and documentation that you meet other loan qualification requirements.
Thanks to Tara-Nicholle Nelson
Myth #1: Foreclosure happens fast. With unemployment and underemployment still affecting nearly 1 in every 4 Americans, no one is immune from fears that a pink slip might quickly turn into a foreclosure notice. According to NeighborWorks America, nearly 60 percent of families seeking foreclosure counseling cited a lost job or cut wages as the reason they were facing foreclosure. While the Obama Administration's Home Affordable Programs haven't been nearly as effective as predicted in actually preventing foreclosures, they have had the effect of extending the foreclosure process for many families. Even though the legal process of foreclosure can happen in as few as 6 months in most states, it is currently taking much longer for the average foreclosure to get to completion. Recently, JP Morgan Chase revealed that their average borrower who loses a home to foreclosure has not made any payments in 14 months nationwide; 22 months in FLorida and 26 months in New York.To be sure, some see this as a good, others view it as unnecessarily dragging out the overall market's recovery. Many insiders will point out that these delays in foreclosure may be calculated to save the banks the costs of owning and maintaining foreclosed homes, not to help homeowners. In any event, the fact that foreclosure does not happen nearly as fast, in many cases, as expected does give families who are temporarily down on their luck some extra time to try to get back on their feet and save their homes.
Myth #2: Buyers can’t get clear title or title insurance on foreclosed homes. When the foreclosure robo-signing scandal first hit, there was widespread concern that buyers would not be able to get clear title on foreclosed homes, because the former foreclosed owners might be able to come get their homes back when the improprieties in the bank's foreclosure documentation processes came fully to light. At the same time, several of the country's largest title insurance companies publicly balked at issuing policies on bank-owned homes until the issue was resolved. At this point, the banks claim they have revamped their processes, and all banks have stated that they have found not a single borrower whose home was repossessed without them having missed the requisite number of mortgage payments. Nevertheless, a number of governmental investigations are still in progress.The fact is, buyers of bank-owned properties in nearly every jurisdiction are protected from later title attacks by foreclosed homeowners by the bona fide purchaser rule, under which courts would prefer to simply award cash damages to be paid by the culpable bank to a wrongfully foreclosed-on homeowner, rather than reversing the sale or ownership to the new, innocent buyer. Additionally, the title insurers have now changed their tune and restarted issuing insurance policies on bank-owned homes which protect buyers' interests, after working with the banks for them to take responsibility in the event a former homeowner prevails in a wrongful foreclosure suit. While there are still many intricacies of title to be resolved for foreclosure buyers who purchase homes at trustee sales and auctions, or for cash buyers who often went without title insurance in the past, on the average, Trulia-listed, bank-owned property purchased with an average mortgage and title insurance, the chances a buyer's title will later be successfully challenged by the foreclosed homeowner on the basis of robo-signing? Exceedingly slim.
Myth #3: Buyers should wait for the shadow inventory to be released. Many a buyer, discouraged with the homes they see on the the form in their price range, has decided to sit still and wait for the banks to release for sale what is called their "shadow inventory" - rumored to be anywhere from 4 to nearly 6 million homes that have already been foreclosed, but not listed for sale, or will be foreclosed in the near future. The fact is, to the extent that the banks have acknowledged the existence of a pool of homes they own but are not selling, they have expressed that their reasoning for holding the homes off the market is to avoid flooding the market and driving home values down any further. For that reason, buyers should not expect to see a massive influx of these shadow homes onto the market anytime soon - if ever. The banks' current modus operandi is that as they sell a home, the replace it with another home in that market - if they sell 50 homes in a town that month, they'll put another 50 on the next. So, don't hold your breath waiting for a fabulous new flood of homes. Instead, set up a Trulia alert to notify you when homes that fit your search criteria come on the market, and be ready to call your agent and go visit any and every one that looks like it might be a good fit.
Myth #4: If you’re looking for a deal, you’re looking for a foreclosure. Despite what they may say, no buyer’s heart's fondest desire is to buy a foreclosure. But almost every buyer dreams of buying a great home - and getting a great deal on it. Many people think that to get a great value on their home on today's market, it means they must buy a foreclosure. As a result, the value and other advantages of buying an individually-owned home on today's market are frequently overlooked. Individual sellers with homes on the market right now are generally quite motivated, and understand that their homes are competing with discounted short sales and foreclosed homes. Many of these sellers are slashing prices in an effort to get them sold - the most recent Trulia Price Reduction Report revealed that 27 percent of homes on the market across the country have had at least one price reduction. Now that's what I call a sale!Further, individual owners are often much more negotiable on a wide range of contract terms than a bank which owns a foreclosed home. You can work with non-bank owners on things like repairs, closing dates, choice of escrow provider, closing costs and even included personal property much more flexibly than you can when the bank is on the other side of the bargaining table. On top of that, many individually-owned homes are in pristine, move-in condition; that is much rarer with foreclosures. So, don't underestimate the value of the deal you might be able to get on a non-foreclosed home. Just get clear on what you can afford and look at all the homes that are available in that price range, without discriminating against non-foreclosures.
Myth #5: Having a foreclosure on your credit history means it'll take years and years before you can buy again. One of the most Frequently Asked Questions in the Trulia Voices Community by homeowners who are facing or have just lost a home through foreclosure is how long it will take before they'll be able to buy again. Until recently, the standard wisdom was that 5 years, minimum, would have to have elapsed between the foreclosure and the new home purchase. Now, though, borrowers can obtain an FHA loan with the low, 3.5 minimum down payment requirement as soon as 3 years following a foreclosure. To do so, though, all your other ducks must be in a row. Post-foreclosure buyers need a credit score of 620-640 to qualify for an FHA loan; higher for a non-FHA loan - given that the foreclosure itself usually dings anywhere from 100-150 points off the credit score (not necessarily counting a full year or more of pre-foreclosure missed payments), former homeowners who want to buy again need to ensure they have no other late payments or credit dings after they lose thier home. You must have clean credit with no derogatory marks like late credit card payments following the foreclosure, and you may also be required to document 12 to 24 months straight of on-time rent payments after the foreclosure. Further, the bank may impose a lower debt-to-income ratio on post-foreclosure borrowers than on borrowers who have not had a foreclosure, in an effort to keep your mortgage payments low, keep you from overextending yourself and boost the chances you'll be a successful homeowner over the long-term this time around. The bank will also need to see 2 years of continuous employment history in the same field, and documentation that you meet other loan qualification requirements.
Thanks to Tara-Nicholle Nelson
Monday, August 30, 2010
borrower heads up part 2
Lender panels re-cap, Part 2. Part one is further down the page.
Denise Dedrick of M & I Bank, 928.203.4484
Jim Hostler of Lender’s Direct, 928.225.7418
Mark Miskiel of The Lending Company, 928.634.7987
Shelly White-Collier of Northern Arizona Mortgage, 928.634.4251
Shelley Williams of People’s Mortgage, 928.821.0782 (Cell)
Let’s talk about credit, shall we? Our panels sure talked about it a lot, so we will, too.
“Credit is King.” That statement was repeated, well, repeatedly. Our panel members agreed that all of the other components of a loan don’t much matter if the borrowers have a remedial credit score. If it’s under 620 they’re going to have a problem.
Here are some of the very important points that were made about credit:
· It doesn’t matter how golden the Buyers are, it doesn’t matter if they have a credit score of over 800, it doesn’t matter that they have a big down payment, it doesn’t matter that their income to debt ratio is better then perfect – everybody gets put through the wringer. Everybody.
After they’re approved and gotten through the wringer DO NOT LET ANYTHING CHANGE! Advise your clients to wait until after close of escrow to buy the new furniture and washer/dryer. They should absolutely not spend any of the funds that were considered during the process, and they sure shouldn’t run up the credit cards. Bank balances could be checked at the last minute, a final credit check might be pulled. People have been denied because they got all excited and ran out and bought the materials for the new deck and now they’re denied.
Here’s a good one: There have been instances where that final last-minute credit check lowered the buyer’s credit score by the few points that it took to make them suddenly unable to qualify for the loan that they just got approved for. Doh! We can remind the lender to “refresh” the credit report as opposed to re-pulling it – a refresh doesn’t count as a hit.
The Buyer will be required to sign a 4506-T form, which authorizes the lender to get copies of their taxes straight from the IRS. The days are over when a Buyer could present the lender with “copies” of taxes that say exactly what the lender wants to see. After close, taxes may be pulled and re-pulled from the IRS and scrutinized and re-scrutinized. Why? So that the lender can see if maybe the borrower has amended the pack of lies that was actually filed with Uncle Sam in order to qualify for the loan. This happens a lot in the case of a default – the lender is looking for fraud so that they can make the originator buy back the loan.
If the Buyers want to shop around for a loan officer, that’s great. As they talk to Loan people, they should never authorize that their credit be run until they’ve settled on somebody. A bunch of inquiries hitting their credit could be enough to tip them out of an acceptable credit score and “Go buy a house!” into “Forget about it, Bub!”
If a disputed debt comes up on a buyer’s credit report it must be cleared up. “But it isn’t mine! That’s some other guy!” doesn’t cut it. The underwriter will insist that a dispute be cleaned up or removed because they want to know for sure that the Buyer won’t have to pay it, which would change the income-to-debt ratios.
Request that your lender pull a “soft” credit inquiry as opposed to a “hard” inquiry. Soft inquiries don’t impact credit – hard ones do. What’s the difference? I don’t know. That’s what they said – ask the lenders.
The initial credit check can be an alert to a borrower’s creditors, since they do keep track of inquiries. If they see a credit check from a mortgage company they sometime hurry up quick and report or re-report a bad debt that they might have actually given up on a long time ago. They figure that the debt has a good chance of getting paid off if somebody wants to buy a house.
We live in the information age. Encourage your Buyer to be absolutely up front and honest with their lender. If the lender knows about issues in the beginning they can figure out how to structure the deal and how to best advise everybody involved.
Believe that glitches and blips and cover-ups will be discovered. I trust our panel when they tell us that if there is fraud on the loan application or letters of explanation it will be caught, the loan denied and the Buyer possibly prosecuted. It’s just not worth it.
Some good questions came up at both of the meetings.
Q: Will the banks have to adjust their standards in the future to take into account what has happened to so many people lately, credit-wise?
A: They’re going to have to if they want to lend money. This is just common sense, but no concrete plans have been announced.
Q: Have Arizona’s non-recourse laws affected the number of foreclosures?
A: Non-recourse means that on the first mortgage on primary residences, the lender can take back the property in the case of default, but that’s about it – they can’t go after the borrower for any deficiency. Of course non-recourse has affected the thought processes of homeowners who are in trouble or upside-down. They’ve also put a big red flag on Arizona loan files.
Q: Are there really 3.75% 30-year fixed conventional loans available?
A: Yes, but to get that rate the borrower is going to have to pay some points. If they can live with 4% there are no points.
Q: Wow! Who is offering that?
A: We all have pretty much the same products available.
(Note from Carol Anne: I got emails from a lot of lenders who weren’t on the panel, saying that they do 203k rehab loans. Shelley Williams of People’s Mortgage does 203k rehabs, and Denise Dedrick of M&I says that they are getting set up to do them. This was cool because I thought that 203ks had gone the way of the dodo. Some lenders do FHA or Rural Housing or VA and others don’t. Jim Hostler does manufactured home loans and Mark Miskiel is all over USDA. It looks like what one guy won’t touch is the other one’s bread and butter. Ask your favorite lender – if they don’t deal with a program they know who does and they will be generous with that knowledge.)
Q: Are lenders bombarded with homeowners trying to take advantage of the low interest rates by refinancing?
A: No. You have to have equity to refinance and a lot of people don’t have the equity needed.
Q: What about these astonishing interest rates that I see advertised? Like, half a point?
A: That’s probably a “teaser” rate. It might go up after a certain amount of time, or costs are passed on to the borrower up front or it’s a bait-and-switch.
Q: I have an ARM (Adjustable Rate Mortgage) on my house that re-sets at the beginning of the year. When should I re-fi?
A: You might not want to. If it re-sets to 3.5% (which some of them are) your payment will go down.
Q: How hard is it to re-fi if I have enough equity?
A: The process is the same, whether for a new loan or a re-fi.
Q: What motivates you guys? It sounds like it’s as hard to be in the mortgage business as it is to be a REALTOR® right now.
A: We’re motivated by the same things that REALTORS® are - the satisfaction of doing a good job. We take these people personally, the same as REALTORS®. We care about the buyers and want to see them in a home. Denise Dedrick said, “The lenders do take it to heart when a deal falls apart. We work hard from pre-approval to processing to underwriting to closing to make it a smooth process for the REALTOR® and client. To say it stinks when a deal dies is an understatement.”
Q: Who is your favorite type of borrower? (I expected them all to say “Jumbos” but not one of them did.)
A: (in alphabetical order by last name)
· Denise Dedrick of M&I loves the challenge of a “different” loan.
· Jim Hostler of Lender’s Direct loves the self-employed and investors.
· Mark Miskiel of The Lending Company loves the coaching, helping people get ready to borrow.
· Shelly White-Collier of Northern Arizona Mortgage loves working with young couples.
· Shelley Williams of People’s Mortgage loves 1st time home buyers.
Q: What’s the secret? How do you guys get the loans approved after the internet lenders give up?
A: Online doesn’t have the human element. The guy dealing with borrowers that he’s never met just can’t care enough to be like a little terrier (That was Shelly White-Collier who said “We’re like little terriers.”) worrying at the details until it works. Our job is to make the buyers real to the underwriter. These borrowers have to be seen by the underwriter as Tom and Alice and their 2 kids and their dog, not file number such-and-such.
Q: How do you keep a borrower hanging in there while they jump through all of the hoops?
A: Keep reminding them that it will be worth it. Mark Miskiel said it well: “While loans are more difficult, we don’t want to scare off buyers. Prepare them for the increased paperwork and scrutiny but remind them that a buyer today is saving huge amounts of money both in the purchase price and historically low interest rates. Those savings are worth the extra work needed to purchase a home. If you broke it down to the amount of extra hours a buyer has to put into the transaction versus the savings that they’ll put in their pocket, it’s thousands of dollars an hour for the extra work. Not bad!”
Q: Is the market stabilizing?
A: Pretty much. There are still pockets where prices are going down, which forces the appraisers to label Arizona a “declining market.” This freaks out the Far Away lenders and underwriters.
Q: Are loan modifications working?
A: No. 60% of loan mods default, often because the so-called modification has a higher payment than the one that the borrowers couldn’t make in the first place. The result is that more home in the US are now owned by banks than by the public. Yikes!
And on that happy note, I wish y’all a good weekend. Holler if you have any questions!
Denise Dedrick of M & I Bank, 928.203.4484
Jim Hostler of Lender’s Direct, 928.225.7418
Mark Miskiel of The Lending Company, 928.634.7987
Shelly White-Collier of Northern Arizona Mortgage, 928.634.4251
Shelley Williams of People’s Mortgage, 928.821.0782 (Cell)
Let’s talk about credit, shall we? Our panels sure talked about it a lot, so we will, too.
“Credit is King.” That statement was repeated, well, repeatedly. Our panel members agreed that all of the other components of a loan don’t much matter if the borrowers have a remedial credit score. If it’s under 620 they’re going to have a problem.
Here are some of the very important points that were made about credit:
· It doesn’t matter how golden the Buyers are, it doesn’t matter if they have a credit score of over 800, it doesn’t matter that they have a big down payment, it doesn’t matter that their income to debt ratio is better then perfect – everybody gets put through the wringer. Everybody.
After they’re approved and gotten through the wringer DO NOT LET ANYTHING CHANGE! Advise your clients to wait until after close of escrow to buy the new furniture and washer/dryer. They should absolutely not spend any of the funds that were considered during the process, and they sure shouldn’t run up the credit cards. Bank balances could be checked at the last minute, a final credit check might be pulled. People have been denied because they got all excited and ran out and bought the materials for the new deck and now they’re denied.
Here’s a good one: There have been instances where that final last-minute credit check lowered the buyer’s credit score by the few points that it took to make them suddenly unable to qualify for the loan that they just got approved for. Doh! We can remind the lender to “refresh” the credit report as opposed to re-pulling it – a refresh doesn’t count as a hit.
The Buyer will be required to sign a 4506-T form, which authorizes the lender to get copies of their taxes straight from the IRS. The days are over when a Buyer could present the lender with “copies” of taxes that say exactly what the lender wants to see. After close, taxes may be pulled and re-pulled from the IRS and scrutinized and re-scrutinized. Why? So that the lender can see if maybe the borrower has amended the pack of lies that was actually filed with Uncle Sam in order to qualify for the loan. This happens a lot in the case of a default – the lender is looking for fraud so that they can make the originator buy back the loan.
If the Buyers want to shop around for a loan officer, that’s great. As they talk to Loan people, they should never authorize that their credit be run until they’ve settled on somebody. A bunch of inquiries hitting their credit could be enough to tip them out of an acceptable credit score and “Go buy a house!” into “Forget about it, Bub!”
If a disputed debt comes up on a buyer’s credit report it must be cleared up. “But it isn’t mine! That’s some other guy!” doesn’t cut it. The underwriter will insist that a dispute be cleaned up or removed because they want to know for sure that the Buyer won’t have to pay it, which would change the income-to-debt ratios.
Request that your lender pull a “soft” credit inquiry as opposed to a “hard” inquiry. Soft inquiries don’t impact credit – hard ones do. What’s the difference? I don’t know. That’s what they said – ask the lenders.
The initial credit check can be an alert to a borrower’s creditors, since they do keep track of inquiries. If they see a credit check from a mortgage company they sometime hurry up quick and report or re-report a bad debt that they might have actually given up on a long time ago. They figure that the debt has a good chance of getting paid off if somebody wants to buy a house.
We live in the information age. Encourage your Buyer to be absolutely up front and honest with their lender. If the lender knows about issues in the beginning they can figure out how to structure the deal and how to best advise everybody involved.
Believe that glitches and blips and cover-ups will be discovered. I trust our panel when they tell us that if there is fraud on the loan application or letters of explanation it will be caught, the loan denied and the Buyer possibly prosecuted. It’s just not worth it.
Some good questions came up at both of the meetings.
Q: Will the banks have to adjust their standards in the future to take into account what has happened to so many people lately, credit-wise?
A: They’re going to have to if they want to lend money. This is just common sense, but no concrete plans have been announced.
Q: Have Arizona’s non-recourse laws affected the number of foreclosures?
A: Non-recourse means that on the first mortgage on primary residences, the lender can take back the property in the case of default, but that’s about it – they can’t go after the borrower for any deficiency. Of course non-recourse has affected the thought processes of homeowners who are in trouble or upside-down. They’ve also put a big red flag on Arizona loan files.
Q: Are there really 3.75% 30-year fixed conventional loans available?
A: Yes, but to get that rate the borrower is going to have to pay some points. If they can live with 4% there are no points.
Q: Wow! Who is offering that?
A: We all have pretty much the same products available.
(Note from Carol Anne: I got emails from a lot of lenders who weren’t on the panel, saying that they do 203k rehab loans. Shelley Williams of People’s Mortgage does 203k rehabs, and Denise Dedrick of M&I says that they are getting set up to do them. This was cool because I thought that 203ks had gone the way of the dodo. Some lenders do FHA or Rural Housing or VA and others don’t. Jim Hostler does manufactured home loans and Mark Miskiel is all over USDA. It looks like what one guy won’t touch is the other one’s bread and butter. Ask your favorite lender – if they don’t deal with a program they know who does and they will be generous with that knowledge.)
Q: Are lenders bombarded with homeowners trying to take advantage of the low interest rates by refinancing?
A: No. You have to have equity to refinance and a lot of people don’t have the equity needed.
Q: What about these astonishing interest rates that I see advertised? Like, half a point?
A: That’s probably a “teaser” rate. It might go up after a certain amount of time, or costs are passed on to the borrower up front or it’s a bait-and-switch.
Q: I have an ARM (Adjustable Rate Mortgage) on my house that re-sets at the beginning of the year. When should I re-fi?
A: You might not want to. If it re-sets to 3.5% (which some of them are) your payment will go down.
Q: How hard is it to re-fi if I have enough equity?
A: The process is the same, whether for a new loan or a re-fi.
Q: What motivates you guys? It sounds like it’s as hard to be in the mortgage business as it is to be a REALTOR® right now.
A: We’re motivated by the same things that REALTORS® are - the satisfaction of doing a good job. We take these people personally, the same as REALTORS®. We care about the buyers and want to see them in a home. Denise Dedrick said, “The lenders do take it to heart when a deal falls apart. We work hard from pre-approval to processing to underwriting to closing to make it a smooth process for the REALTOR® and client. To say it stinks when a deal dies is an understatement.”
Q: Who is your favorite type of borrower? (I expected them all to say “Jumbos” but not one of them did.)
A: (in alphabetical order by last name)
· Denise Dedrick of M&I loves the challenge of a “different” loan.
· Jim Hostler of Lender’s Direct loves the self-employed and investors.
· Mark Miskiel of The Lending Company loves the coaching, helping people get ready to borrow.
· Shelly White-Collier of Northern Arizona Mortgage loves working with young couples.
· Shelley Williams of People’s Mortgage loves 1st time home buyers.
Q: What’s the secret? How do you guys get the loans approved after the internet lenders give up?
A: Online doesn’t have the human element. The guy dealing with borrowers that he’s never met just can’t care enough to be like a little terrier (That was Shelly White-Collier who said “We’re like little terriers.”) worrying at the details until it works. Our job is to make the buyers real to the underwriter. These borrowers have to be seen by the underwriter as Tom and Alice and their 2 kids and their dog, not file number such-and-such.
Q: How do you keep a borrower hanging in there while they jump through all of the hoops?
A: Keep reminding them that it will be worth it. Mark Miskiel said it well: “While loans are more difficult, we don’t want to scare off buyers. Prepare them for the increased paperwork and scrutiny but remind them that a buyer today is saving huge amounts of money both in the purchase price and historically low interest rates. Those savings are worth the extra work needed to purchase a home. If you broke it down to the amount of extra hours a buyer has to put into the transaction versus the savings that they’ll put in their pocket, it’s thousands of dollars an hour for the extra work. Not bad!”
Q: Is the market stabilizing?
A: Pretty much. There are still pockets where prices are going down, which forces the appraisers to label Arizona a “declining market.” This freaks out the Far Away lenders and underwriters.
Q: Are loan modifications working?
A: No. 60% of loan mods default, often because the so-called modification has a higher payment than the one that the borrowers couldn’t make in the first place. The result is that more home in the US are now owned by banks than by the public. Yikes!
And on that happy note, I wish y’all a good weekend. Holler if you have any questions!
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