Want to be smarter than the average mortgage borrower? Here are five common mortgage myths and the truth behind them. Read on, and you may gain an advantage when deciding what direction to take with your home financing.
Continue reading 5 mortgage myths, busted
If you thought mortgages were just for people of modest means, think again. From the upper class to the uber affluent, the wealthy across American make big use of home loans. Even billionaires see a benefit to financing their homes.
Why do people with these kinds of resources want mortgages? It’s an important question, and the answer shows how a home loan can be an asset to almost anyone. Regardless of your wealth or income, here are the ways a mortgage may benefit you:
Getting into a home sooner
Even if you earn enough to save up to buy a home in cash, doing so may take years. A mortgage is often the quickest way to get into a new home and start enjoying the benefits.
Accessing “cheap money”
Mortgages typically have some of the lowest interest rates of any type of lending product. Therefore, borrowing on your home may be a cheap way to keep more of your money or avoid more expensive borrowing elsewhere.
Avoiding expensive withdrawals
Even if you’re wealthy enough to purchase a home outright, getting at that money can come at a price. Dipping into investments, accessing retirement funds or selling off property can result in fees, taxes or losses. Borrowing on your home can be an efficient way to avoid those expenses.
Making smarter investments
If your mortgage has a 4% interest rate (4.139% APR) and your investment accounts are returning 7%, where’s the best place to put your money? Investing comes with risks, but for many people, it makes the most sense to put their extra money where the expected payoff is highest.
Maintaining financial security
Unexpected expenses are a fact of life, and quickly accessible cash funds are often the most reliable safety net. Having a mortgage can enable you to set aside the cash you need to protect your financial security.
Conclusion
For these reasons, purchasing a home using a mortgage, making the standard payments and refinancing the loan when advantageous can be a wise financial strategy. It may even be beneficial to increase your mortgage balance at times by taking cash out to consolidate debt or put toward a home renovation, college tuition or another investment.
This doesn’t mean simply buying a home or getting a mortgage will guarantee you wealth. It does mean, however, that if you want to imitate the successful habits of the affluent, you can start by looking for opportunities in your home financing. Contact us for a free mortgage consultation for your specific situation.
Draper and Kramer Mortgage Corp. does not provide financial planning, investment, tax, accounting or legal advice. This material has been prepared for informational purposes only, and is not intended to provide, and should not be relied on for, financial planning, investment, tax, accounting or legal advice. You should consult your own financial planning, investment, tax, accounting or legal advisers before engaging in any transaction.
Borrowers often ask me if they should purchase title insurance when buying a home. I always recommend that they speak with their attorney so as to make an informed decision. I have always purchased title insurance on the properties I have purchased as I am a believer in insurance as a foundation to any solid financial plan. Why do buyers question purchasing title insurance when the risk of loss is so high? After all, no one seems to question the need for homeowners or rental insurance. I believe the reason is twofold: (1) buyers do not understand the benefits of purchasing it, and (2) title insurance is unlike other types of insurance in that it covers issues that have already happened.
Indeed, there is a long list of risks covered by title insurance, but basically what the buyer is hedging for are the unknown or hidden hazards that might jeopardize his or her ownership in the home. Hidden hazards may include:
While lenders mandate that owners purchase lender’s title insurance (which only protects the lender’s interest in the property), homeowner’s title insurance is completely optional. It is a one-time fee that covers the owner for life.
Why is there so much paperwork mandated by the lenders for a mortgage loan application when buying a home today? It seems that they need to know everything about you and requires three separate sources to validate each and every entry on the application form.
Many buyers are being told by friends and family that the process was a hundred times easier when they bought their home ten to twenty years ago.
There are two very good reasons that the loan process is much more onerous on today’s buyer than perhaps any time in history.
During the run-up to the housing crisis, many people ‘qualified’ for mortgages that they could never pay back. This led to millions of families losing their home. The government wants to make sure this can’t happen again.
Over the last seven years, banks were forced to take on the responsibility of liquidating millions of foreclosures and also negotiating another million plus short sales. Just like the government, they don’t want more foreclosures. For that reason, they need to double (maybe even triple) check everything on the application.
The housing crash that mandated that banks be extremely strict on paperwork requirements also allowed you to get a mortgage interest rate around 4%.
The friends and family who bought homes ten or twenty years ago experienced a simpler mortgage application process, but also paid a higher interest rate (the average 30-year fixed rate mortgage was 8.12% in the 1990s and 6.29% in the 2000s).
If you went to the bank and offered to pay 7% instead of around 4%, they would probably bend over backward to make the process much easier.
Instead of concentrating on the additional paperwork required, let’s be thankful that we are able to buy a home at historically low rates.
Mortgage interest rates, as reported by Freddie Mac, have increased over the last several weeks. Freddie Mac, along with Fannie Mae, the Mortgage Bankers Association and the National Association of Realtors, is calling for mortgage rates to continue to rise over the next four quarters.
This has caused some purchasers to lament the fact that they may no longer be able to get a rate below 3.5%. However, we must realize that current rates are still at historic lows.
Here is a chart showing the average mortgage interest rate over the last several decades:
Though you may have missed getting the lowest mortgage rate ever offered, you can still get a better interest rate than your older brother or sister did ten years ago, a lower rate than your parents did twenty years ago, and a better rate than your grandparents did forty years ago.
Knowing your credit score or getting a recent copy of your credit report is one of the first steps that you can take toward knowing how ready you are to start the home buying process.
Make sure all the information listed on your report is accurate and work to correct any mistakes. The higher your credit score, the more likely you will be to receive a better interest rate for your mortgage, which will translate into more ‘home for your money.’
Many potential buyers believe that they need a 750 FICO® Score or higher to be able to purchase a home. The truth is that according to Ellie Mae’s Origination Report, over 53% of loans were approved with a FICO® score under 750 last month!
Once you know your score, your next step will be finding a lender and getting pre-approved for a mortgage. Doing this will ensure that you know your budget before you start looking for your dream home.
A report released by Down Payment Resource shows that 61% of first-time homebuyers purchased their homes with a down payment of 6% or less.
The trend continued among all buyers with a mortgage, as 73% made a down payment of less than 20%.
An article by Chase points to a new wave of millennial homebuyers:
“We teamed up with Google to help us better understand what customers are searching for and how the home buying landscape is evolving. We found that millennials and first-time homebuyers are making a big splash in the market, and affordability remains top of mind.”
Among millennials who purchased homes, David Norris, Loan Depot’s Head of Retail Lending, said:
“It’s clear from the survey results that Millennials have a lot of anxiety built up about the home buying process.
There is good news, however, as there’s more flexibility than most Millennials think regarding how to qualify for a loan and what’s needed for a down payment.”
If you are one of the many millennials who is debating a home purchase this year, let’s get together to help you understand your options and set you on the path to preapproval.
Home values have risen dramatically over the last twelve months. The latest Existing Home Sales Report from the National Association of Realtors puts the annual increase in the median existing-home price at 5.6%. CoreLogic, in their most recent Home Price Index Report, revealed that national home prices have increased by 6.7% year-over-year.
CoreLogic broke appreciation down ever further into four price ranges which gives a more detailed view than simply looking at the year-over-year increases of the national median home price.
The chart below shows the four tiers and each one’s growth from July 2016 to July 2017 (the latest data available).
It is important to pay attention to how prices are changing in your local market. The location of your home is not the only factor in determining how much it has appreciated over the course of the last year. Lower priced homes have appreciated at greater rates than homes at the upper ends of the spectrum, due to demand from first-time home buyers and baby boomers looking to downsize.
If you are planning on listing your home for sale in today’s market, let’s get together to go over exactly what’s going on in your area and your price range.
The results of countless studies have shown that potential home buyers, and even current homeowners, have an inflated view of what is really required to qualify for a mortgage in today’s market.
One such study by the Wharton School of Business at the University of Pennsylvania revealed that many millennials have not yet considered purchasing homes simply because they don’t believe they can qualify for a mortgage.
A recent article about millennials by Realtor.com explained that:
“About 72% of aspiring millennial buyers said they’re waiting because they can’t afford to buy…”
The article also explained that 29% of millennials believe their credit scores are too low to buy.The problem here is the fact that they think they will be denied a mortgage is keeping them from even attempting to apply.
Ellie Mae’s Vice President Jonas Moe encouraged buyers to know their options before assuming that they won’t qualify for a mortgage:
“Many potential home buyers are ‘disqualifying’ themselves. You don’t need a 750 FICO® Score and a 20% down payment to buy.”
Below is a breakdown of the FICO® Score distribution of all closed (approved) loans in July from Ellie Mae’s latest Origination Report.
Over 52% of all approved loans had a FICO® Score under 750. Many potential home buyers believe that they need a score over 780 to qualify.
If owning a home of your own has always been your dream and you are ready and willing to buy, or if you are a homeowner who wants to move up, find out if you are able to! Let’s get together to determine if your dreams can become a reality sooner than you thought!
There are many benefits to homeownership. One of the top benefits is being able to protect yourself from rising rents by locking in your housing cost for the life of your mortgage.
A recent article by ConsumerAffairs addressed the continuous rise in rents, stating:
“The cost of putting a roof over your head continues to go up. Not only are home prices still rising, but the cost of rent rose 0.5% in June.”
Additionally, in the Joint Center for Housing Studies at Harvard University’s 2017 State of the Nation’s Housing Report, it was revealed that,
“Despite a slight improvement from 2014, fully one-third of US households paid more than 30 percent of their incomes for housing in 2015. Renters continue to be more likely to face cost burdens…the number of cost-burdened renters (21 million) considerably outstrips the number of cost-burdened owners (18 million) even though nearly two-thirds of US households own their homes.”
These households struggle to save for a rainy day and pay other bills, including groceries and healthcare.
As we have previously mentioned, the results of the latest Rent vs. Buy Report from Trulia shows that homeownership remains cheaper than renting with a traditional 30-year fixed rate mortgage in the 100 largest metro areas in the United States.
The updated numbers show that the range is an average of 3.5% less expensive in San Jose (CA), all the way up to 50.1% less expensive in Baton Rouge (LA), and 33.1% nationwide!
Perhaps you have already saved enough to buy your first home. A nationwide survey of about 24,000 renters found that 80% of millennial renters plan to eventually buy a house, but 72% cite affordability as their primary obstacle. Aside from affordability, one in three millennial renters have concerns about their credit scores, and another 53% said that a down payment is an obstacle.
Many first-time homebuyers who believe that they need a large down payment may be holding themselves back from their dream homes. As we have reported before, in many areas of the country, a first-time home buyer can save for a 3% down payment in less than two years. You may have already saved enough!
Don’t get caught in the trap that so many renters are currently in. If you are ready and willing to buy a home, find out if you are able. Let’s get together to determine if you can qualify for a mortgage now!
