We Broker Mortgage Loans for Northern,
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With conventional financing, what kind of down payment is required?
With conventional financing, we have 5% down available for single-family residences. For condominiums, 10% is the minimum, but 5% for single-family homes is the best we are seeing at this time.
We are hearing a lot of cases where 20% to 25% is required for a down payment.
That is the big myth and I think that has a lot to do with the fact that a lot of people are under the assumption that, unless you have 20% for a down payment, you are not going to qualify for a mortgage, which is not true. The big thing is that people often want to do is buy a lot more house than they can actually afford. The larger down payment will bring the loan amount to a payment that they can afford, but home values have come down low enough that it's actually a myth that you have to have 20% for a purchase loan.
Again, if you go over 80% on the mortgage to the value of the home, you will have to pay mortgage insurance, which is an extra monthly payment that will be included. That's usually with FHA and even with conventional, so what that does is raise your monthly payment, so essentially this will let you qualify for smaller loan amount.
Talk to your prospective customers right now. Somebody is thinking about calling you -- address your market directly. You want their business. What are you going to promise them?
The first thing we will promise is that you will get honesty from us. People in our industry have been known to make promises they can't keep, and tell people what they want to hear. A customer calls and says, "I want to buy a home and I want my interest rate to be -- whatever -- 5%." I will not guarantee an interest rate to anybody until I have all their information.
What I will do is ask them what their goal is with the house. I'll ask them about their income and debt situation and I will be honest with them. I will not promise a rate to anybody until we have locked in an interest rate and you have received a confirmation of that lock. We also do closing costs guarantee. We agree on a certain amount of closing costs and we will guarantee those closing costs. And they will not change throughout the loan.
Communication is big. Any changes we will proactively communicate with the client, any changes we foresee or any obstacles we foresee, but my big thing is being honest from the beginning. I might not tell the client what they want to hear, but I will tell them the reality.