Article Sphere Logo

Getting Qualified in Today’s Mortgage Market

By Expert Author: Lee Keadle | View Article Summary
Word Count: 493 words | Views: 52 view(s)
Lee Keadle

Home mortgages have gotten a lot of attention in the news during the past few weeks. As home buyers keep hearing about how lenders are tightening the loans they give out, many people are wondering if they’ll now be able to get the home they could have easily bought months ago. I’ve included in this article one of the most common questions we’ve gotten from home buyers in the past few weeks: is it harder to qualify now than it was 3 months ago before the mortgage crunch?

The short answer to this question is that it’s gotten more difficult for lenders to qualify borrowers who have limited down payments. A borrower now needs a clean credit and a few months’ of reserves in the bank in order to get qualified. Borrowers also now have to make a minimum of a 3% down payment unless they are VA eligible.

In terms of qualifying, lenders are having to go back to old school methods of qualifying. All lenders (regardless of the company) will require a 2 year history of income, which is a larger time frame than what we were seeing even six months ago. And, lenders are having to be conservative in how they calculate a borrower’s income.

For example, some borrowers who work overtime count that overpay as their regular income. Even if a borrower can show that he has a history of regular overtime pay (say 6 months or so), the lender may not be able to technically count that overtime income anymore in the regular income. So across the board, you’ll find stricter guidelines for borrowers.

However, it’s important to note that even with these stricter guidelines, the changes should not affect most buyers. These guidelines are really only affecting borrowers with a damaged credit history. It’s gotten a lot harder for them to qualify in the past few months.

But, if you’ve a done good job of maintaining credit and have saved up some money, you should not have any more trouble qualifying now compared to several months ago. So, it completely depends on your current financial situation.

If you’re considering buying a home in the next few months, it’s a good idea to talk with a home loan consultant. Don’t think that several months out is too early to meet with a consultant. One of the biggest problems we see with buyers is that look at homes (either in person or on the internet) and don’t really know how much they can afford. There’s no point in getting your hopes up for a home or a price range of homes that you love but can’t afford. So, before you start visiting homes, it’s a good idea to talk with a lender about down payments and monthly mortgage payments so you can have a definite price range in mind.
About the Author/Author Bio

Let Lee Keadle be your Charleston real estate guide! From Mount Pleasant SC real estate to Summerville SC real estate, he’ll help you find the home you’re looking for!

Article Source: http://www.articlesphere.com/Article/Getting-Qualified-in-Today-s-Mortgage-Market/172060

Article Submitted: 2008-12-29 | This Article has been viewed 52 times.

Comments on this Article


More "Mortgages Refinance" Related Articles

 
 

Listed below are more articles related to the above article from the "Mortgages Refinance" article category.

People interested in the above article "Getting Qualified in Today’s Mortgage Market" are also interested in the related articles listed below:

 
If you had to resort to a home mortgage to purchase your property, and you are in an advanced stage of repayment, thinking about a home mortgage refinancing may give you extra money to count within your monthly budget. Many times, after a while living in a property, there are certain repairs that happen to be done. A broken roof or old plumb cannot stay that way forever, but we are always thinking about something else that has to be paid first and we leave our properties to loose bright and value with the pass of the years.
Being as it is, increasingly difficult to pay off mortgage installments, more and more people are resorting to long term mortgages in an intent to reduce the amount of the monthly payments. If there is no other option for purchasing your own property there is no much to discuss. However, if it is possible to afford a shorter term mortgage it is wise to analyze the advantages and disadvantages of closing on a long term mortgage deal with your home loan lender.
Although banks love the lawyers whose services they can buy, either as government legislators, regulators, or law firms who will lie to courts about foreclosure cases, these same lenders rarely enjoy talking to the legal representative of a homeowner.
This weekend on the radio, there was an interesting discussion among a handful of financial and mortgage experts about the banking industry's current fascination with loan modification programs. The participants in the discussion came up with some very good points about the modifications that lenders are currently offering to homeowners in foreclosure trying to lower their monthly bills and how banks use attorneys to pursue foreclosure but do not want to deal with a homeowner's legal representation.
A "Jumbo" mortgage is defined as a loan that is too large to be bought by Freddie Mac or Fannie Mae. Depending on the state, limits range from just under $420,000 to $730,000. When the credit crisis was at its peak, jumbo mortgages were hard to find. Lenders looked at them as an unecessary risk and these mortgages were down 70 per cent in 2008 from prior years. Now that the dust has cleared, some companies are considering the jumbo mortgage market a new opportunity. As mortgage rates continue to drop, so do rates for 30-year jumbo mortgages.
The government and the President have a new plan to help homeowners out of foreclosure. We refer to it as the "Obama Plan". Many homeowners are hoping and praying for the best, but if history has shown us anything, we know it's always best to have a back up plan.
Over $9 million was deposited into an account controlled by Bell. This complex scheme resulted in charges to 24 co-conspirators for bank and wire fraud, money laundering and corrupt racketeering activity. They had participants from real estate, title insurance, appraisal and notary public.
 
Article Directory Home All Categories Finance Mortgages Refinance
 

Can't find what you're looking for? Try Google Search!
 
 
Copyright © 2005 - by Larry Lim, Singapore - Article Search Engine Directory at ArticleSphere.com™
All Rights Reserved Worldwide. All Trademarks and Servicemarks are the property of the respective owners.
French Spanish Bulgarian Chinese (Simplified) Chinese (Traditional) Croation Czech Danish Dutch Finnish German Greek Italian Japanese Korean Norwegian Polish Portuguese Romanian Russian Serbian Slovak Swedish Arabic Hebrew Hungarian Thai Turkish English US