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Articles Tagged With: FHA Loan Application

FHA mortgage

Buying Your First Home

What kinds of questions should you ask before you make an offer to buy your first home? There are many areas to think about when getting ready to make a big financial commitment like a mortgage. Is Your Financial House In Order? Can you realistically afford the home you are buying? The answer to this question goes further than whether you have enough money after your other monthly expenses to pay your mortgage. For example, having the ability to save for your upfront expenses (down payment and closing costs) is important. But what happens AFTER those fees and expenses are taken care of? It is a good idea to include saving some cash reserves above and beyond your cash to close–having some extra funds to help out in case times | more...

 
FHA loans

FHA Loan Limits: Fact and Fiction

When it’s time to commit to buying a home, you’ll need to know what the conforming loan limit for the county where you want to buy the home is for the current year. FHA loan limits in 2021 are determined annually and occasionally there is an update posted during the year when circumstances warrant. That’s one reason to investigate the loan limits early in the new year after they change–you don’t really know if they have changed or not until you check or are told by a lender or other authority what the going loan limits are. Fact: FHA Loan Limits Vary Depending On The Market Some counties are located in high-cost areas and have subsequently higher FHA loan limits than typical-cost or low-cost areas. Some housing markets have loan | more...

 
First time home buyer FHA loan

FHA Loans: Credit Score Tips

What is a good FHA loan credit score? In general, the obvious advice is that you should try to come to the home loan process with as high a FICO score as you can for best results. But not everyone has the advantage of an Excellent credit rating. What do future homeowners need to know about FHA loan requirements and their credit score? To start, you should know that no two lenders are exactly alike and it is a bad idea to assume you will get the same results from all of them. Don’t assume you can’t qualify for a loan–have a loan officer help you determine what kind of mortgage is right for you. FHA Credit Score Tip: Shop Around Why do we say “shop around” when it comes | more...

 
FHA Home Loans For Manufactured Housing

Why Get Pre-Approved For An FHA Home Loan?

Why get pre-approved for an FHA mortgage? This is a question some first-time home buyers ask, and the answers can make a big difference in how you approach your home loan. FHA Home Loan Pre-Approval Does Not Commit You To A Mortgage When you fill out the forms to be pre-approved for a home loan, you are not committing to the transaction in the sense that you would be financially obligated to buy. The borrower is not legally committed to a purchase when getting pre-approved. Home loan pre-approval actually works to help you be taken seriously as a buyer when you do find a home you’re ready to commit to. The buyer takes a pre-approved borrower more seriously and you may find that a pre-approval letter (depending on the housing | more...

 
FHA loans

Documents You’ll Need To Apply For A Home Loan

Do you know the paperwork and documentation you’ll need to complete a home loan application? There are plenty of things you’ll need to gather–what follows is a list of items that are easy to overlook when you’re thinking about filling out an online loan application. This list is not exhaustive–you should ask your loan officer for a complete list of that financial institution’s requirements–they aren’t always the same. Authorization The first thing to know about some home loan documentation requirements? Some of them are fairly non-negotiable. For example, your lender must get copies of your credit report to complete your mortgage application. This requires all borrowers named on the mortgage application to give permission to the lender to do so and you cannot supply your own credit data to the | more...

 
Buying A Home with an FHA Loan

Reasons You Might Be Denied A Mortgage

There are many reasons why a mortgage underwriter might deny your home loan application. There are some very obvious, Mortgage 101 reasons that you’ll read about in most finance blogs or mortgage loan blogs.  Among the most obvious answers? Low credit scores, a borrower with a history of late or missed payments for housing obligations, and homes that do not pass the appraisal process. But what about the not-so-obvious ones? Red Flags For The Lender: Recent Career Changes Could you be denied a home loan if you have recently changed jobs and the switch resulted in you earning less money or moving downward (career-wise) rather than upward?  It’s possible, depending on a variety of factors. It’s also possible to be turned down for a mortgage loan if you have recently | more...

 
Construction Loans For First-Time Home Buyers

Home Loan Approval: Documents You Need To Get There

What’s the most important thing you can do in the planning stages of a new home loan? It really does not matter whether you might be contemplating buying a home with an FHA mortgage or building one on your own lot using an FHA Construction Loan known as the One-Time Close mortgage; there are some documents you will need to gather in the planning stages to help you get closer to loan approval. Some of these documents are no surprise–your most recent pay information is a good example. Your lender will want to see verification of your current income. What is not so obvious? The reality that your loan officer might ask you to provide details about a salary or other income information from your previous employer, especially if you | more...

 
Getting Ready For Your Home Loan

FHA Home Loan Approval And Your Finances

Do you need to buy a home with an FHA mortgage? Or refinance your existing loan? There are some financial issues to be mindful of going into a new loan application–don’t let a lack of information derail your mortgage loan process. Mortgages and refinance loans don’t have one-size-fits-all solutions; in the same way you have many housing choices there are also many different kinds of mortgage loan circumstances. When your loan application comes in, the lender has to make sure the loan will be a good credit risk. To be approved, your application requires your tax returns, bank statements, and other financial data. The lender reviews these ahead of loan approval. And some issues can create more problems for the lender than others at first. For example, what happens if | more...

 
Refinance loans: is it time to commit?

On Buying Real Estate Sight Unseen With An FHA Mortgage

Would you buy a house without having personally walked through it? In the era of COVID-19, there are increased numbers of transactions where the buyer and seller negotiate the sale of a home and close the deal without the buyer ever having physically set foot on the property.  This practice is known as buying a house, “sight unseen” and the housing market website Redfin.com reports that for the year 2020, almost two thirds of those who bought real estate in 2020 had not seen the property in person. What does Redfin make of “the highest share since at least 2015″, according to a Redfin-commissioned survey in November and December”. That survey consisted of more than 1,900 homebuyers across 32 major markets, “up from 32% a year earlier, and 45% in | more...

 
FHA Rehab Loans

Why You Should Consider A Limited 203(k) Rehab Loan

Do you want to buy or refinance a fixer-upper home? The FHA 203(k) Rehabilitation loan and the FHA 203(k) Rehabilitation Refinance loan can help if you would rather buy a fixer-upper or renovate an existing home you’re living in as your primary residence. You don’t have to buy a property to use the FHA 203(k) rehab loan; you can use it to refinance your current home and get money to accomplish FHA and lender-approved improvements or other projects associated with remodeling or renovation. That said, not every borrower needs to fully refinance a home to repair or improve it. Are you thinking of smaller projects that don’t require a huge sum of money? The Limited 203(k) Rehab loan lets you accomplish smaller projects without committing to a full refinance or | more...