If not, here’s your chance.  Don recently filled in for Nick Reed on the Nick Reed radio show.  You can here Nick’s show Monday through Friday from 6am to 9am at 104.1 FM in the Springfield, MO area or you can hear it online at https://www.ksgf.com.

To hear Don’s show from his recent fill in for Nick click on the links below.

https://www.ksgf.com/episode/podcast-12-07-the-education-system-in-america/  – hour one just waking up – talking about driving

https://www.ksgf.com/episode/podcast-12-07-the-jericho-march/ – hour two – the Jericho March organizer interview

https://www.ksgf.com/episode/podcast-12-07-corona-losing-capitalism/  – hour three – losing our capitalism

Hope you enjoy!

The post Don On KSGF Radio appeared first on I Want A Great Home Loan.

Home loans are not like car or personal loans

One main thing that a lot of people don’t know about is that home loan requirements are more strict than a car loan, personal loan, and applying for a credit card. We need more documents, more explanations, and follow more regulations than other loans you can get. This leads us to our next topic.

Programs have different credit requirements

Different loan programs have different credit requirements. If you tell us that your credit score is a 680 then you can probably qualify for the typical USDA, FHA, Conventional and sometime VA if you’re also a Veteran. However, if you fail to mention that you had a foreclosure or some late payments on a mortgage or car loan, we may be giving you incorrect information on programs you qualify for with those items showing up.

Accuracy For Your Information

When you are thinking about buying a home what is more than likely your number one concern? A lot of people think about the monthly house payment. Without having an accurate credit score, we are not able to get an accurate estimate for your interest rate. Without that, your house payment can differ and you may end up getting into a house payment that you are not happy with and under contract to buy the property anyways. Would you rather have an extremely accurate quote or leave it to chance that maybe something popped up on your credit report that dipped the scores down and then when we do get credit pulled and its lower, we’re stuck.

Free Credit Report Scores Are Not Accurate

Another question that we get is why are my credit scores different than what’s showing on this other companies website or on my credit card bill? The main reason that those scores can differ either positively or negatively is that the free reporting agencies are not used for true financing purposes.

Hopefully that helps you understand a little bit more about the process and why it is important for lenders to pull your credit first.  If you have any questions, please contact us or if you would like to see how much home you can qualify for, please fill out our quick inquiry and someone from our team will be in touch with you shortly.

The post Why Do Lender’s Need To Pull My Credit First appeared first on I Want A Great Home Loan.

Here are 7 quick VA home loan benefits for those who have served our country.  Thank you for your service!

1. You can use your VA benefits multiple times!
2. NO expensive monthly mortgage insurance!
3. More flexible on debt to income ratios and credit scores!
4. NO down payment required!
5. Want to place a down payment anyways? Discounted VA funding fee depending on the amount down!
6. Seller can normally pay for all of your closing costs!
7. Normally lower rates when compared to a conventional loan of the same size and term!

VA home loans are some of the best loans that we are able to offer for our veterans and they deserve them! Do you know of someone that doesn’t know if they can use their benefits or not? Have them contact us and we’ll help them figure that out and hopefully get them into a great home loan!

If you have other questions in regards to a VA loan or just a home loan in general, please call Don at (417) 844-5370 or fill out our contact form!

The post 7 Quick VA Home Loan Benefits appeared first on I Want A Great Home Loan.

We’re excited to announce that IWantAGreatHomeLoan.com has a new mobile app!

It’s a mortgage calculator with taxes and insurance as an added option.  This is a great tool for estimating what your new house payment will be.

Our new mortgage calculator is now available on both Google Play and the Apple Store!

It’s packed with a bunch of useful features such as calculating your complete mortgage payment, looking at your options for refinancing, and being able to compare loan programs that you could possibly qualify for such as FHA, USDA, VA, and a regular conventional loan.

Not only does it compute mortgage calculations, it serves as a line of communication between you and our great team. If you have a specific question, Don’s phone number and email are both there so you can call, text, or email your questions directly to him without having to look up our contact information.  All this can be done from within the app!

Most of the mortgage calculators out there end up only computing what your principle and interest payment would be. Without adding in your taxes, insurance and possibly mortgage insurance, you will not get an accurate estimate for when you’re making your budget. This can lead to bad surprises once you have already found a house and put in a contract or when you’re thinking about refinancing.

Our mortgage calculator with taxes and insurance gives you the option of putting in your insurance quote and taxes amount so you can have a more accurate estimate.

We have put together some screen shots or our new app for you to check out below.  We are excited to bring you this new mobile app and all that it has to offer.

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You may have heard recently a lot of people bringing up the word TRID. This is a new batch of regulations that are supposed to make the home loan process easier and better for home buyers and those looking to refinance their home. So you may be asking exactly what does TRID mean to me when looking to purchase a home or refinance? We’ll go over what exactly TRID stands for as well as how it will affect you when shopping for a new mortgage.

What does TRID stand for?

TRID stands for TILA/RESPA Integrated Disclosure. While there are a lot of acronyms in that sentence, what TRID is actually doing is taking out the Truth-in-Lending disclosure & Good Faith Estimate and replacing them with a “Loan Estimate” document that is supposed to be easier when comparing loans between other companies if you prefer to shop around for a lender.

What are the Main Changes?

1. Application- as soon as we receive six items of information from a borrower, disclosures must be sent within 3 business days. These six items are your name, income, social security number, property address, estimated value of the property, and the loan amount you are thinking of getting.
2. Time Constraints- the following documents must be sent and received within a certain time period or the closing may be delayed.
   1. Loan Estimate (LE) – the official “Loan Estimate” document must be sent no later than three business days after receiving the six items that make up a full application. Also, it must be sent no later than seven business days before the loan is closed.
   2. Closing Disclosure (CD) must be received by borrowers no later than three business days before the loan closes.
   3. Changes to either of these documents can affect your closing if they are done at the very end.
3. Fees- There is now a 0% tolerance on a lot of fees. So your lender must be accurate in estimating fees such as how much your title work will be, any extra Realtor fees that may not be disclosed on your contract, and any kind of funding fees or up front mortgage insurance. We always like to estimate all of our fees high so there are only good surprises at closing when we get the final figures.
4. Delivering the Closing Disclosure – Your loan company is now responsible for providing you the Closing Disclosure, including HUD-1 information. In the past it has been provided by the settlement agent.

How will all of this affect you?

At the end of the day you’re wondering how all of this will affect you. Unfortunately, it will affect you a little bit. The good news is that you hopefully picked a lender whose company has had training and implemented new ways to make the new TRID guidelines a simple process like we have at IWantAGreatHomeLoan.com. The main thing to take away from this is to be prepared to have more strict guidelines put in place on your mortgage.  From start to finish in the mortgage process it is very important that you stay in contact with your lender more closely than what you may have done in the past to ensure a smoother transaction.

If you would like to read all about TRID in detail you can visit the CFPB’s site on this topic.  Happy Reading! 🙂

The post What is TRID and How Does It Affect Me? appeared first on I Want A Great Home Loan.

You may be asking “Well why is that? Isn’t staying in debt a bad thing?” I’ll explain why staying in debt, within reason, can help you in your home buying purchase.

I want to say first off that you’re mostly correct in believing staying in debt is a bad thing. Growing up many of us were told to not use credit cards, or try and buy everything with cash if you can, because you don’t want to pay interest. While this is true from a budget standpoint, when you’re buying a house, you want to have an active history of being able to borrow money and responsibly pay it back.

So what does an active history mean?

When lenders go through your credit report, they like to see at least 3 active trade lines open on your account for at least 12 months. These could be items like student loans, credit cards, personal loans, car loans, current mortgages, or anything positive that has been reported for the past 12 months and still shows that it is open. These “active” trade lines show that you are able to pay back your debts that you have made, with a certain level of responsibility.

We’ve actually had some clients come in and say that they knew their credit was good and they didn’t need the accounts open any longer so they decided to close everything.

DO NOT DO THIS!

While this shows that you have been able to manage money in the past, it doesn’t say you are able to manage it currently. If lenders don’t see 3 active trade lines we usually have to ask for items of soft credit and this can prolong the loan process or even disqualify you from certain loan programs.

Here are four quick guidelines to go through before you think about paying off a loan or closing an account.

1. If you plan on paying an installment loan off completely, contact your lender first! You may save a little bit of interest by paying it off now, but you may find out you cannot qualify for a home loan or buy your dream house.
2. If you are paying off a credit card, make sure not to close it. You can always leave it at a zero balance and close it AFTER you have gone through the whole process and closed on your new house. Also, you may need the cash to get the loan.
3. If you do happen to have a lot of different loans and credit card accounts showing a 12 month or more history on your credit report you may close some of them but contact your lender first to guide you what is best to get you the best loan.
4. Always contact your lender and explain your current situation and what you plan on doing. A good lender will help develop a plan on what you need to do in order to get a great home loan!

Hopefully this article has answered some of your questions about paying off all of your debt before buying a home. If you have a unique situation or want to discuss your scenario, please don’t hesitate to call us or fill out our quick inquiry here. We would love to help you get a great home loan!

The post Should I Pay Off All Of My Debts Before I Buy A Home? appeared first on I Want A Great Home Loan.

Here is the list of changes:

Credit

• Hud now lists acceptable credit history to manually approve files now (4000.1 II A 5 a iii) with maximum number of lates
• Charge-offs must be addressed and explained
• Timeshare foreclosure is not a foreclosure –its considered installment
• Defined derogatory event date to the assigment of the FHA Case number

Gifts

• Donor bank statements are now required on all gift transactions along with copy of check
• Government/non-profit entities must provide a gift letter

Manual downgrade required for:

• Business income decline of 20% or more and income must be documented as stable
• Only the non-occupying co-borrower(s) have credit score(s)
• Undisclosed mortgage debt not on credit report

Mixed Use

• Minimum 51% of the entire building square footage must be residential

Debt

• Omitted debt must be less than 10 payments and all cumulative omitted payments must be less than 5% of borrowers gross monthly income in order to exclude from qualifying ratios
• Borrower may not pay down to 10 months in order to exclude debt
• If the borrower has child support/alimony payments, 28 days of consecutive paystubs must be obtained in order to verify no garnishments
• Deferred student loans must utilize an actual payment(if payment is zero or deferred – then must utilize 2% of the balance in the debt ratio) (4000.1 II A 5 f iv)
• Authorized user accounts must be included in debt ratio unless it is documented that the primary obligor has been making the payments for the previous 12 months
• 30 Day accounts: verify borrower has funds to pay off balance on credit report and if there are any lates on the account in prior 12 months, 5% of the balance must be utilized in the DTI

Rate and Term LTV

• A max LTV of 85% if borrower has not occupied as primary for last 12 months

Employment/Income

• If a borrower has changed jobs 3 or more times in the last 12 months additional guides apply
• Two years part-time employment required
• Nontaxable income can only be grossed up 15% unless the borrowers tax bracket is documented as higher
• Rental income used to qualify not filed on a return requires verification the rented property has at least 25% equity
• Rental income from vacating property can only be used if borrower is relocating more than 100 miles from the property
• Voluntary child support allowed with proof of payment and cancelled checks

Miscellaneous

• Earnest money must be verified if 1% or greater of the sale price
• Military on active duty are now eligible if you document they will occupy when discharged and are based over 100 miles away

The post FHA Mortgage Changes 2015 appeared first on I Want A Great Home Loan.

Experian

When you place a security freeze on your file, you will be provided a personal identification number or password to use if you choose to remove the security freeze from your file or authorize the temporary release of your credit report for a specific person or period after the security freeze is in place. To do this you must contact the Experian and provide all of the following:

1. Enough information to verify your identity.
2. Your personal identification number or password provided by the credit reporting agency.
3. A statement that you choose to remove the security freeze from your file or that you authorize the reporting agency to temporarily release your consumer report. If you authorize the temporary release of your consumer report, you must name the person who is to receive your consumer report or the period for which your consumer report must be available.
4. Then you select the state you need to file in from the drop down box.
5. There are some fees involved for some states in order to place or remove the freeze so be aware of this.
6. As soon as you pay the fee then the bureau places the freeze on the account.

Equifax

Now Equifax appears to be a little more finicky about how they want the actual freeze submitted. Equifax states that they would prefer to have the credit freeze submitted by mail and the requirements to mail them out are listed here. They will give you a PIN just like Experian did and require you to verify your identity and there are fees that apply for each state just like Experian as well. If you’re worried about the integrity of your credit I would suggest following the procedures immediately.

TransUnion

TransUnion didn’t seem to have a lot of step by step instructions on how to place a freeze on your account but they did offer that you can file for it online here. You have to create a login and password if you haven’t already made one when you pulled your free credit report. Then you follow along with their questions and submit the info they need. Again, there is a small fee to place and remove the credit freeze on your account with TransUnion.

You Are In Control

The main reasons that you need to know how to do this is so that you stay in control of your financial health. Many individuals don’t realize how often identity theft happens and this can definitely help prevent that from happening. Now you know why it’s important to freeze your credit as well as the procedure in order to place them on your accounts.

The post Why Is It Important To Know How To Freeze My Credit? appeared first on I Want A Great Home Loan.

Medical Collections

The good news about medical collections is that if you have under $2,000 of collections we don’t require these to be paid off in order to proceed forward with many loans. Normally if there are collections showing on your credit report, such as for a credit card or possibly your cable provider, then we would require these to be paid off before we could go any further.

There are also some changes coming along in regards to how long medical debts will be recorded. The new changes say that medical debts will not be reported until after a 180-day waiting period. This allows your insurance plenty of time to send the company the payment. You can find out some of the other changes happening in regards to credit reporting in this US News article.

Student Loans

With the rising costs of college tuition, more individuals need to take out loans in order to pay for their education. The way that we analyze your student debt is to look at your monthly payment amount that you would have to originally pay if it’s in deferment. Usually its 1% of the loan amount that you have remaining to pay off. This payment is counted in your debt-to-income ratio (DTI).

For example, if you make $2,500 a month and you took out $50,000 for college and the payment was $500, then your debt-to-income ratio (DTI) would be $500/$2500 or 20%. Underwriters like to see your total DTI, including your new house payment you’re wanting, no higher than about 41-43% depending on what loan program you’re trying to use.

One thing we see with these clients is they get out of school and instantly buy a new car and then have a high car payment. So along with the car payment and student loan payment, the DTI’s end up being too high in order for the underwriters to accept. So a little bit of advice is if you’re considering buying a home and a fancy new car, buy the house first so that car payment doesn’t get in the way.

To summarize, medical collections and student loans won’t ruin your mortgage chances every single time. If you need help in deciding if you can go through with the loan process with these certain situations contact us and we’ll try and help you out with your specific scenario!

The post Will Medical Collections and Student Loans Ruin My Mortgage Chances? appeared first on I Want A Great Home Loan.

We usually come across some individuals in the office that end up having everything in order but either don’t have a credit score or don’t have enough “trade lines” open. So when we go to pull their credit report they do not have a credit score or little to no trade lines.  In our line of work these people are considered a “ghost”.  Most companies like to see at least three accounts open for 12 months or more in order to make sure there is some stability in your ability to manage debt.

With a lot of people not wanting to have credit cards or loans of any kind so they stay out of debt; some banks could possibly turn these individuals away for not having those “trade lines” open. Fortunately for us we have the ability to look for forms of “soft” credit and count those as some trade lines.

So what is “soft credit”?  Soft credit is your bills that you pay monthly that do not show up on your credit report that can be used to show how well you manage debt.  With a clean 12 month history of paying your bills we can use that in place of having a credit score or reported credit trade lines.

Here are some forms of soft credit that we have used in the past in order to help clients obtain financing for the houses they are looking at.

Forms of Soft Credit

• TV provider (cable or satellite)
• Phone bill
• Internet bill
• Car insurance bill
• Utility bill
• Trash bill
• Netflix bill
• Any bill you receive on a monthly basis…

One thing to keep in mind is that these forms of soft credit need to have a perfect 12 month history in order to use them. So if you accidentally paid your phone bill a week late and on your next bill it says there was a past due amount, you’ll have to wait until that disappears from your 12 month history before you can use it again. Hopefully with your knowledge of this you can continue to keep your dreams alive of owning your own home! Keep a lookout for our next post about medical collections and student loans!

The post What Is Soft Credit And Why You Need It When You Have No Credit Score appeared first on I Want A Great Home Loan.