Register Real Estate Advisors

Effective TODAY (Dec 15, 11) the automated underwriting systems will be tightening up their parameters on VA Loans. If you are a borrower with a credit score under 680, this could affect you. If you have a pre-approval dated before December 15, 2011 for a VA Loan you will probably need to get pre-approved to make sure you will still be approved by the automated approval system after these changes take place. Remember that you will need your certificate of eligibility to apply for a VA Loan. If you would like to get a pre-approval for a VA Loan or any other loan, please call us today at 281.288.3500 and ask for our in house lender.

I get a lot of questions about refinaincing homes.  Many people will contemplate refinancing vs buying another home.  With interest rates remaining near historic lows it is a great time to purchase a home.  However, if you prefer to stay in your current home, it is only worth refinanancing, in my opinion, if your current rate is over 5% and you plan to stay in the home for atleast two years.  If you need to refinance your home or get a pre-approval to buy a home, our RREA inhouse lender can help.  You can apply for a mortgage online with RREA or call 281.288.3500 and ask for Terry Traylor. 

Looking for ways to increase your credit score? There are some tips you need to know that will help you increase your score. The first is, never cancel a credit card that is more than two years old. Having a “seasoned” account, one that is more than 2 years old is beneficial for you.
Second, increase your maximum allowable credit limit. If you have a credit card that is close to its maximum balance, call the credit card company and ask them to increase the credit limit. The credit bureaus don’t like to see “maxed out” credit. Ask them to do this without pulling your credit.
In addition, spread out your balances among your credit cards to keep the ratio between cards balanced and credit limits to 30% or less. Finally, be sure to pay your bills on time. The number one reason for a low credit score is late payments. Studies have show that 79% of all credit reports have errors on them so check your credit periodically to look for mistakes. Remember that lower scores mean higher interest rates for buyers. Keep in mind that the “free” on line credit reports DO NOT include your credit score. You have to pay extra for your FICO score. So if you are thinking about purchasing a home, please call RREA’s in house lender, Terry Traylor, to apply. If anything negative shows up on your credit, Terry can help you fix it over time.

The Price of Business airs on Houston’s 650 AM and is powered by CBS Radio. On this segment of the Price of Business, RREA Owner Shannon Register introduces Register Real Estate Advisor’s new in-house lender, Terry Traylor. Terry has been in the mortgage industry for years and joins Shannon in the RREA Studio in Spring, Texas to discuss his role in helping the Agents at RREA and helping the RREA Buyer’s get pre-approved for mortgages. At RREA, clients can use a Realtor and Lender that work out of the same office and communicate throughout the home buying process until the purchase is complete.

The decision to purchase a home can be an exciting but sometimes confusing undertaking. When beginning your search for the perfect home, there are a number of factors that you will want to consider. Whether you are a first time buyer or already own a home and want to move up, getting pre-approval for your mortgage is a necessary and time saving step. Here are some of the benefits of getting pre-approved!

Know Your Budget!

Getting pre-approved means that you will have a clear picture of the credit you have available to you to purchase your new home, as well as your price range. This will prevent you from spending time looking at homes that may be out of your budget and perhaps getting attached to a home that you cannot afford. It means that if you find the home that is right for you, it can more easily become yours!

Close Quickly

Getting pre-approved for your mortgage means that you can act more quickly once you find the home that is right for you. The process of getting the mortgage approved is generally the longest and most complicated process in any home purchase. It requires verification of your income and employment, an evaluation of your credit reports, and the completion of a loan application. Having this step completed can save weeks of time in the closing process. Pre-approval also means that you have an advantage should a bidding war begin. The seller can be confident that you can afford the bid you are making and that you can move quickly to finalize the sale.

Overall, there are a number of benefits to getting pre-approval for your mortgage before beginning the search for your new home. Most importantly, it can give you peace of mind in knowing that you are ready and able to make the commitment to homeownership, and that you are not wasting your time in looking at properties that you may not be able to afford.

Would you like to know how much your mortgage payments will be?  I offer over 15 calculators for FREE on my website.  You can even email the printable results directly to your inbox or someone else to share.  To aid in your decision-making process when buying a home, you can use my handy calculators to calculate your monthly payment with PMI, insurance, and property taxes.  You can also “peek into the future” to see the remaining balance of your mortgage after several months or years of payments.  There’s a mortgage length calculator that allows homeowners to determine what their savings will be if they make larger monthly payments.  Ever wondered how much you will pay for every $1,000 of your mortgage loan?  I have a calculator for that!  I offer an affordability calculator so you can find out how much you can borrow from a lender.  You can calculate your tax savings after a home purchase.  The financial analysis inclues first year as well as total tax savings.  Is your old APR (Annual Percentage Rate) too high? Find out if you should refinance by estimating the benefits of refinancing using my calculator.  Learn how you can cut current monthly debt payments using money from your Home Equity Line Of Credit (HELOC.)  Do you need to know how much money you must earn to purchase the house of your dreams? I offer a calculator that will help you figure it out.  What is better: take a second loan or pay PMI?  Housing market moving up too fast? Figure out how much you can afford with an interest only mortgage loan.  Interest-Only loans can drastically cut your mortgage payments, but what if you want to pay something toward your principal? Figure all of this out using my calculators.  Can’t decide which loan offer is better? Input your numbers to lock-in the best offer.  You heard that bi-weekly payments can significantly decrease the time of mortgage payoff?  Ioffer a calculator for that, too.  Still renting an apartment and thinking about a home purchase? I have a calculator that can help you make the final decision.  All of my calculators are FREE and the results can be emailed directly to you so you can easily share or print out the information.  Click Here to get started.

Due to our current market conditions, many of my sellers are complaining about the lack of buyers viewing their properties each week. I understand this frustration and my marketing plan ensures that any buyers looking for a property in their area in their price range will see their property advertised. Still, some of my sellers do not feel it’s enough visitors and that more needs to be done to get visitors to their house. However, visitors to the house do not bring offers. What you really want is a qualified buyer. Just because you have an open house every weekend and have many people coming through to view the home, how many are really ready, willing, and able buyers? Don’t get me wrong, I feel Open Houses are beneficial, but I do not give them any more weight than an online viewing. What you really want are Realtors showing the property. Their buyers are qualified, ready, willing, and able buyers. A good Realtor is not going to waste their time nor gas to show a property to a buyer that is not ready to purchase. Because the current market is moving so slow, I have had sellers offer to do their own open houses every weekend. The fact is that unless the buyer who makes an offer on your home has the resources to qualify for a mortgage, you may not really have a sale. You always want to determine the buyer’s financial status before signing a contract with them. Otherwise, you could be removing the property from the market and have a contract that will not close.

There are several things that I look for when a buyer submits an offer on a property and they are things that sellers need to be looking for as well. First of all, any buyer submitting an offer on a property needs to have a pre-approval for a mortgage. That way they are ready to obtain a mortgage in the next 30-45 days, versus a buyer that is just starting the process and it might take longer to close on the property. Second, make sure the buyer has enough money to make a down payment and cover their own closing costs. With an FHA loan, 3.5% is due as a down payment at closing. With a conventional loan, 20% will be the down payment at closing. For buyer closing costs, the buyer will need 2-7% of the price of the home at closing. Sometimes the seller is asked to pay part of the buyer’s closing cost, but not usually all of these costs. Ideally, buyers should spend no more than 28% of their total income on their mortgage payment (principal, interest, taxes, and insurance.) The buyer’s income should be sufficient to afford the home. In order to qualify for the mortgage, they will be required to have good credit and not an excess of debt. If the buyer has great credit, good income, but owes a lot of debt on credit cards and other bills, they still may not qualify for a mortgage. So no matter how many people view your home, it only takes one qualified buyer to purchase it. I always prefer the quality over the quantity!

The lender must disclose a good faith estimate of all settlement costs. A check to cover your closing costs will probably have to be a cashier’s check. The title company or other entity conducting the closing will tell you the required amount for:

• Downpayment
• Loan origination fees
• Points, or loan discount fees, you pay to receive a lower interest rate
• Appraisal fee
• Credit report
• Private mortgage insurance premiums
• Insurance escrow for homeowners insurance, if being paid as part of the mortgage and insurance in escrow accounts as they are paid with the mortgage , then pay the insurance or taxes for you.
• Deed recording fees
• Title insurance policy premiums
• Survey
• Inspection fees – building inspection, termites, etc.
• Notary fees
• Prorations for your share of costs, such as utility bills and property taxes

A note about Prorations: Because such costs are usually paid on either a monthly or yearly basis, you might have to pay a bill for services used by the sellers before they moved out. Proration is a way for the sellers to pay you back or for you to pay them for bills they may have paid in advance. For example the gas company usually sends a bill each month for the gas used during the previous month. But assume you buy the home on the 6th of the month. You would owe the gas company for only the days from the 6th to the end of the month. The seller would owe for the first five days. The bill would be prorated for the number of days in the month, and then each person would be responsible for the days of his or her ownership.

Reprinted from REALTOR Magazine Online by permission of the National Association of Realtors, Copyriht 2005, All rights reserved.

If you intend to pay off your mortgage as quickly as possible, then you’re in the majority; a survey released in 2008 by the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation claims that more than 75 per cent of survey respondents who bought a home in the last year said being mortgage-free sooner was their goal.

Of course wanting to be mortgage-free sooner is easier said then done, but there are some tips that can help you along the way to reach your goal quicker.

Make the largest down payment you can afford.

Fact is, the more you put down the less you’ll have to pay back; not just in the principal but in interest too.

Make more mortgage payments.

There are two ways to go about doing this; both will save you some money along the way but one more so than the other.

Your first option is to pay twice a month (or whatever frequency works best for you) the total you would normally pay on a monthly payment plan. For example, if your monthly mortgage payment is $1,000 you can opt to make two payments a month of $500 each. You’re not paying any more than you have to each month, although you will save on interest by making part of your monthly total payment early.

Your second option is to pay weekly or bi-weekly payments in lieu of a monthly payment. Why does this save you money? Well, not only will you save money on interest like you would with the first option, but it’s also a way you might not notice that you actually are making a couple of extra payments each year. Let’s say for example, your monthly mortgage payment is $1,000 for a total of $12,000 per year. If instead you decide to pay $500 every two weeks, you’ll actually end up putting $13,000 a year against your mortgage.

Make pre-payments or anniversary payments.

Even if you have a closed mortgage, most mortgages allow you to make “extra” payments, once a year, for up to 20% of the mortgage owed. This money is applied to the principal, saving you money in annual interest costs.

When interest rates drop, keep your payments the same.

If interest rates decrease when it is time to renew your mortgage, consider keeping your payments the same; since less money will go towards paying interest, more will go to paying down the principal.

Choose a shorter length of time to repay your loan.

Look at all your amortization options to see how choosing a 15-year period versus a 20-year period versus a 25-year period will affect your payments and interest costs. Your mortgage payments will be higher, but you’ll pay far less interest over the course of the loan. Do this exercise at the end of each mortgage term as what may have worked for you 5 years ago, might not be the best option for you now.
This article is a guest post from http://www.kanetix.ca

In today’s market, it is increasingly more difficult to get financing for a home.  As a Realtor, I have built relationships with lenders in the community and there are some I highly recommend because of successes I have had with them and others I do not recommend.  Buying a home is an involved process and you do not want to get bogged down on the lending side.  If your lender is not finished with the loan by your closing date, you could lose the house that you want to purchase.  I can help you choose a lender that will work on your behalf to help you get into your next home.  Please call me for a referral of lenders that I have had proven success with.  Not only can I help you find a lender to work with, I can help walk you through the process so you can get the keys to your dream home. 

1. Apply for a Pre-Approval and work with your Realtor (me) to find your dream home
2. Make an offer to the Seller including your Pre-Approval from the lender to strengthen your offer
3. Loan Application must be completed and submitted to the lender
4. Lender orders appraisal, credit report, verification of your employment and assets
5. Lender evaluates application and support documents, approves loan and issues letter of committment
6. Closing is held, loan documents are signed, and the loan is funded
7. Lender disburses funds to the closing agent at the title company, seller is paid, and title to the home becomes yours
8. Required documents are recorded at the County office of records

It’s that easy.  Call me today to get a list of lenders that I trust to take care of my clients mortgage needs.