Archive for the ‘Buying a Home’ Category

Good News for Financial World

With all the negative press and cries of the sky falling, many times people miss the hidden gems of good news. National City just got a $7 Billion cash infusion. Even though National City has taken major hits and its stock has dropped dramatically, this is GREAT NEWS!

If the sky was falling, who in the world would be willing to offer $7 Billion to a company with major losses? Folks, you gotta see this… now is the best time to make investments! While companies are dealing with the losses and issues, smart investors are jumping in and taking BIG risks to help move things along. This is 7 billion reasons to believe that things are not as bad as everyone seems to say it is!

On a smaller scale, now is the best time to make an investment for yourself. If you have been considering purchasing a home, now is the best time in recent history to do so! Mortgage rates in Charlotte are still very low and homes for sale in Charlotte still offer great selection.

Typically in a buyer’s market, rates are higher. Yet today, Charlotte mortgage rates are super cheap and there are still tons of homes to buy! So if you are thinking of buying a home in Charlotte or the surrounding area, now is the time to move!

Vanilla Mortgages now 31 Flavors!

In the past, conforming and FHA mortgages have been considered “vanilla” mortgages. The reason for that label is that for many years these loans were very easy to do. Simply put the information into the computer and voiloa! you had your approval. My have things changed!

Over the past several months, lenders have changed guidelines and added “layers” to the risks involved with creating a mortgage. Used to be if you put 20% down, you pretty much could get approved. Now, even with 30% down, some people are having trouble. Why is that?

I would tend to think that the biggest reason so many lenders are getting turn downs is because they don’t know how to structure the deal properly from the beginning. Too many loan officers are just trying to keep up and have no way to keep up with the changes in the marketplace. So more and more loans are becoming turndowns. And once turned, too many loan officers have no idea what to do next and can’t give any advice on how to improve the chances of getting approved.

The Carolina Mortgage Connection works with all loan appliacants. We have great success with the Good, the Bad and the Ugly! The Good still require more work that we have seen in the past, and while almost any monkey can get someone with a 720 credit score approved, we specialize in structuring the deal to get it closed quickly and efficiently. The bad and the ugly require more work, but our success rate in getting approved and closed is high!

If you are in the market to buy a home in Charlotte or to refinance your Charlotte mortgage loan, let the mortgage loan experts in Charlotte get your mortgage application approved! Call us now at 877-411-9327.

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Going Beyond the Approval Limits

One of the goals of getting pre-approved for a mortgage loan is to help determine how much home you can qualify to buy. In the best situation your lender will go beyond a pre-approval and seek to provide you with an automated approval.

An automated approval uses the major underwriting systems in the mortgage industry to determine a yes or no for a mortgage application. If the system says yes, it will list the requirements needed to get the loan closed. This is great because the job of an underwriter is to simply check off the boxes. The yes or no has already been done. Now its a matter of making sure the lender is getting the required documentation in order to fulfill the approval.

If the automated system says no, then a mortgage application would need to be submitted for a “manual decision.” With a Manual Underwiting decision, the underwriter has to make the yes or no decision. And since the automated system said no, the manual underwriter will be more on guard. After all, there was a reason the loan was declined… so what is being submitted to prove that the automated system is wrong? Well, that is the job of your lender.

With all this being said, a common question is “can we get more?” In other words, a potential buyer is approved using the automated system up to a certain dollar amount, but wants to know if they can exceed that number when looking for a home. Maybe the approval limit is lower than they hoped. Or maybe there are a couple homes that are just a bit above the approval. Either way, the question is can they go bigger?

If your pre-approval is from the Carolina Mortgage Connection, and it was based on an automated approval, the answer is…. maybe, but proceed with caution! If I could not get an automated approval for the dollar amount you need, we can certainly seek a manual approval. but be aware that this can take a bit longer, there is a greater chance of being declined (and getting frustrated) and in some cases (such as FHA) you could be disqualified to apply again for up to 6 months. Personally, I advise against going for a manual approval when you have an automated one. Why make things more difficult? But if you just can’t find a suitable home within the approval limits and have truly exhausted all options, a manual submission may just work.

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Recent Mortgage Changes Catching Buyers by Surprise

I have been getting a lot of phone calls lately from Charlotte area real estate agents and salespeople. It seems that they have been seeing a lot of mortgage approvals getting denied! What in the world is going on?

One of the most common concerns has to do with big local banks, such as Bank of America and Wachovia. Because these are such big banks in Charlotte, many Realtors and sales people have just sent their clients to them. The problem is that large banks like Bank of America only offer Bank of America mortgage products. So when they make changes to their own mortgage loan products, it becomes a “yes or no” decision, not a “let’s move it to another program” decision.

Case in point… Joe was approved to buy his first home using a Charlotte FHA mortgage loan from one of these big banks. We’ll call them “Big Bank USA.” Joe didn’t have the best credit in the world, but it was enough to get approved to buy a home in Charlotte. When the approval came from Big Bank USA, Joe was excited to be able to buy his first home! But then, half way through the processing of his mortgage loan, something changed. Big Bank USA changed their underwriting criteria and implemented a credit score requirement that was above what Joe had. All of the sudden this approval was turned down.

Since Big Bank USA is only a bank, they had no other FHA mortgage programs to turn to. However, Joe’s loan is now with the Carolina Mortgage Connection. With the multiple lenders and programs available to us, we are working to place Joe’s loan with a viable lender and get it closed! If Joe had started his loan process with us, we would have been able to move things around a lot faster and easier.

The moral of the story is that big banks have far less flexibilty. The Carolina Mortgage Connection is part of Residential Mortgage Center in Charlotte, NC and operates under a Lender’s license in North Carolina. While we can make mortgage loan decisions using our own money, we still have the ability to broker and close mortgage loans with other wholesale lenders, giving us far greater flexibility and adaptability than your conventional banks. And with great low mortgage rates that rival Charlotte area banks, the Carolina Mortgage Connection will quickly become your most trusted source for mortgage loans in the Charlotte area.

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To All Local Charlotte Mortgage Companies,

Please accept my sincerest apologies. It has come to my attention that due to my articles and information I am sharing with the general public, you may be losing business. With all the misinformation that has been put online, all the deceptive ads that have been circulated and all the gimicks that you are trying to pass off, it appears you are trying very hard to get customers. Read the rest of this entry »

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Zillow Launches Mortgage Marketplace

That’s right! Zillow has launched their long awaited “Mortgage Marketplace.” This not-so-great idea is being billed as a place that consumers can get quotes from multiple lenders without having to provide any personal information.  Spencer Rascoff, Zillow’s chief financial officer and vice-president for marketing claims, “This is a huge step forward in terms of putting borrowers in control and giving them access to information.”

What’s wrong with this, you ask? Read on… Read the rest of this entry »