Are you stashing money under the mattress, in a home safe, or even in a security deposit box? And are you a person who customarily uses cash for expenses? If so, there is great news for you when it comes to buying a home. Through the Fannie Mae HomeReady program cash-on-hand is an acceptable source of funds for a borrower’s down payment, funds for closing costs, and prepaid items like insurance and property taxes. This means you can use that rainy day fund to buy a home without the illuminati knocking on your door. Of course, you won’t have any money left over for the apocalypse but if that happens we’ll be back to trading furs and bullets anyway. This could especially be good for those first-time home buyers with minimal funds available for down payment. Some other great features of this loan program include: Up to 95% financing with non-occupant co-borrower Up to 105% financing w/o non-occupant co-borrower Not required to be a first-time home buyer Gift funds, grants, and down payment assistance programs are all eligible sources of funds. There are even more enhancements to this program that could benefit you so to find out more click here to contact me and reference “Cash-on-hand” in the subject line. By David Hughson Mortgage Planner david@greenmeansgrow.com 858-863-
If a monthly student loan payment ( >$0) is provided on the credit report, you may use that amount for qualifying purposes. If the credit report does not provide a monthly payment for the student loan, or if the credit report shows $0 as the monthly payment, the lender must determine the qualifying monthly payment using one of the options below. If the borrower is on an income-driven payment plan, the lender may obtain student loan documentation to verify the actual monthly payment is $0. The lender may then qualify the borrower with a $0 payment. File must contain documentation that the payment is an Income driven payment plan (also known as IBR or Income Based Repayment) For deferred loans or loans in forbearance, the lender may calculate (a) a payment equal to 1% of the outstanding student loan balance (even if this amount is lower than the actual fully amortizing payment), or (b) fully amortizing payment using the documented loan repayment terms. This applies to both purchase and refinance loans so call me to discuss more options on qualifying for a home loan when you have student loans! For more great content on how your purchase power is affected by student loans click here. By David Hughson Broker | Mortgage Planner 858-863-
Do you have a family member in need and want to help them buy a house? If you have a disabled adult child or an elderly parent who can’t qualify for a mortgage on their own you have options! With the Family Opportunity Mortgage, your can purchase another home without the conventional investment property requirements! Here are some program highlights: Purchase a home for your family member as if you were purchasing an owner occupied home. This allows you to take advantage of the much more lenient owner occupied guidelines and avoid the much more strict investment property guidelines. 620 minimum credit score Can be used for a purchase or refinance To find out if you qualify click here and type FOM in the subject line. By David Hughson Mortgage Broker 858-863-
There are more and more housing reports telling us that most markets around the country have recovered from the last housing crash of 2007-2009. With values back in the black many homeowners will look to cash out their home’s equity to make improvements to their home, pay off other high interest debt, or send a child to college. So what is the best way to harvest a portion of your home’s equity? When looking around for favorable “cash out” refinance loan terms people often discover that banks hit them hard on the interest rate and they end up paying a premium which means the higher loan amount and higher interest rate yields a higher monthly payment. Now you may be saying that it makes sense they would be facing a higher payment because they are borrowing more money. In some cases that is true depending on their current interest rate. You may also be saying that if someone currently has a low interest rate they should leave their existing first mortgage where it is and go get a fixed second mortgage or home equity line for the cash out portion. This is also true depending on the interest rate they currently have and the value of their home. Often times it’s harder to go get a fixed second mortgage or home equity line behind an existing first mortgage. We now
LendEDU published a financial report back in October of this year showing the national average credit score is 682. This is a solid score in the mortgage lending world but generally considered a “fair” credit score by the credit bureaus. It also means the average American might have a tough time qualifying for a decent mortgage rate. With 50% of people below a 680 credit score it means there are many who don’t qualify for conventional financing and the government loan options, which are typically only for owner occupied homes, can’t help them. These people typically fall into three categories. They are someone who has experienced a derogatory credit event like a bankruptcy or foreclosure, a self employed borrower that has too many write offs thereby killing their qualifying income, or they are a real estate investor and/or foreign national unable to purchase their next property due to conventional ownership limits. If you happen to fall into the middle ground between conventional and hard money lending it can feel like you have very few options. The good news is that there are many new lenders who recognize this need and specialize in helping just this type of borrower through offering Non-Qualified mortgage loans. To find out more about how this may help you find just the right type of financing for your next purchase click here and send me a message
Want to know if you can put no money down to buy your home? While also learning a few fun facts about San Diego? Of course you do! When you think of San Diego, what comes to mind? Beaches and sunny 75 degrees all year round. While that is true, San Diego county also has 6,687 farms, more than any other county in the United States. 68% of those are between 1-9 acres and though the median size farm is just 4 acres, our county’s farmers rank number one in both California and the nation in the production value of nursery, floriculture and avocados. We are also rank as the second highest county with women who are the principal operator of the farm and number 3 in producing honey! Agriculture here covers 303,889 acres and is a key contributor to San Diego’s economy, along with defense, manufacturing, tourism and biotechnology. Our varied topography creates a wide fluctuation of microclimates that allows for nearly 30 different types of vegetation communities. This diversity allows for San Diego to grow over 200 different agricultural commodities from strawberries along the coast, apples in the mountain areas, to palm trees in the desert. *This information was made available by the County of San Diego, Department of Weights and Measures in their 2016 Annual Crop Report. With all that space we have in San Diego there are a
Reality check #1: For most of us the road to home ownership starts with a personal budget and is followed by a conversation about what home loan options are available. That conversation will determine a buyer’s purchase power which means to look at homes for sale before digging into the numbers is the very definition of putting the cart before the horse. While this advice is nothing new and most people do go about it in the right order what they find when they are ready to start looking at the available inventory is Reality check #2: There aren’t many homes for sale in their price range and the competition for what is available is fierce. If you are a first-time homebuyer with a low down payment this can seem like a mountain too high to climb and leads many to assume it’s not possible. The good news is that you are not alone and there are some great strategies that I see working every day to get our clients’ offers accepted. Here are a few of the basics every homebuyer should consider. Getting your loan pre-approval is very important and a prerequisite at this point. Meaning, any serious seller will not even consider an offer from a buyer who hasn’t done their due diligence to get their financial ducks in a row. Buyers can also increase their ernest money
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There is a significant, Looming Threat Posed by Air Conditioning Units to home buyers, home sellers and any homeowner that owns an older central A/C unit. And this threat can mean a BIG hit to your pocketbook! For more information, please call or email me, I am happy to help: Craig Sutliff, Real Estate Consultant & Mortgage Planner The GreenHouse Group Cell: 619-857-4954 Email: Craig@GreenMeansGrow.com BRE Lic# 01735288 NMLS ID
Why 2 loans can be better than 1: As housing prices continue to rise, so do loan amounts. You may know that each county has something called a County Loan Limit (You can click here to see them). But did you know once you go over those limits your loan is considered to be Non-Conforming, or “Jumbo”? So what? Well, once you’re in that category many things can change. Here are just a few: Higher Credit requirements Larger down payment requirements Property restricitons Borrower restrictions Higher Rates So you can see that it would be valuable to avoid these issues. Let’s talk about How to Beat the Jumbo Loan. One of the most effective ways to do this is with a 2-loan combo. To do this, we do a first loan up to the highest amount possible, while maintaining the best parameters. That might mean considering things like loan amount, Loan-To-Value ratio, etc. Then we add a 2nd loan that makes up for the difference. For example: Purchase Price = 850k 1st loan of 600k 2nd loan of 165k This gives us the best rates and terms on the first loan, and as a bonus, allows us only 10% down payment! Using this method could save you hundreds of dollars a month, and 10’s of thousands over the life of the loan. So why doesn’t everyone do this? Good questions
The GreenHouse Group INC is a full service Real Estate & Mortgage Planning Firm located @ 3111 Camino Del Rio North, Suite 400, San Diego, CA 92108. We'd love for you to drop by and say "hello" to us here at our beautiful offices in Mission Valley. Or, if you'd prefer to drop us a line you can call us anytime @ (858) 863-0261. We look forward to meeting you!
