Part 1 (Excerpt)

Forget the doom and gloom, First Time Home Buyers can buy with FHA

Thanks to my very great friend Brett Fallon for taking the time to be here in studio today. Brett is one of America’s finest financial advisors. And of course the infamous Dan Havey. Now we all love Dan Havey because he was instrumental in getting me into the mortgage industry about 14 years ago. Most importantly, Dan was instrumental in helping us put together the loan modification hotline and he is the author of Real Estates Future.

So today we have a few things we want discussed in regard to the economy, what’s happened, were wrapping up the year. You may have heard about this in the media, of course the media’s job is to scare you. Well our job is to tell you the truth. So Brett you have some data and some information that you wanted to share

Some of the things you hear in the media, you cant escape, its pretty much doom and gloom, sky is falling, this is the next Great Depression. It’s over for all of us and we should all just pack up and go. That kind of stuff is pervasive out there and creates fear and a lot of anxiety amongst people who are either investors, people who are looking to buy a house, looking to refinance a mortgage.

People dont realize there are certain tools that exist that we will talk about during the course of the show today. They should understand that some of the things that we discussed prior to today’s broadcasts were interest rates. Interest rates are at historic lows. Money is cheaper right now than it has ever been. We know the Fed recently reduced the Fed Funds Rate and that is the rate that banks are lending money to one another at.

Right now that rate is zero. Historically, that’s never happened in the United States before. The Fed’s idea is to help to unfreeze this credit market and we keep hearing all this talk about how credit markets are still frozen, that the global recession is deepening, there is evidence to the contrary of that. Some of the moves that the FED is making are working. We’re starting to see, and you and I were talking recently about some clients that were helping in terms of refinancing existing mortgages. Well, if the credit markets are frozen how come we got those loans complete?

Well, that’s a good point, and you got a call I think it was last Monday or maybe the Monday before, someone called you and asked if there was any money to refinance. What can I do? Well the reality of it is there is plenty of money out there for refinances, in some cases there’s issues with property values. That’s why there are different options for those types of people

Well from a buyer’s perspective, todays property valuation is a good thing, if I’m a buyer. Thats a good point too. People are interested in buying and the huge opportunity today. This is an unprecedented opportunity in my opinion, both in terms of the dollar and the real estate market. And for those who understand those dynamics and are willing to entertain the deal, they will be handsomely rewarded. There is no doubt about it.

And as we spoke on the last show, home prices in November for Maricopa County show that the median home price is down as low as $160,000 already. And it reminds me a lot about when I got into the industry, way back in 1989 and the type of financing we had then was FHA and Fannie Mae. And were back to that again now. We’ve got sanity back into the market and home prices have come down. But right now, it’s a perfect time, especially for first-time homebuyers or a move up buyer who can buy under the Fannie Mae limit of $417,000. If you can get into that range, and as we spoke before that 78% of the homes in Maricopa County that sold last month sold for under $250,000. I think that right now is the time just to get out there and find a house to move your family and children into with an FHA loan.

Michael, you don’t have to have exactly perfect credit do you? You can have a couple of dings if need be, right? You’re exactly right, each case has its own merits, every FHA loan is underwritten individually. There are many cases where collections are okay, there needs to be a explanation. You dont have to have the 720 plus credit scores like you do for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to get the best rates…

Duration : 0:6:10

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Part 7 (Excerpt)

Attorney negotiated loan modification process Going thru the Legal Door

We have Dan Havey with us talking about loan modifications. This segment we want to talk about the specifics of the actual mechanics of, how does it actually work for the homeowner? Let me just start it off and if you would then explain the back end of how it works. Our job is to determine where you’re at now, be very specific about where you’re at with your mortgage now, what the rate is, what it’s done, those specifics. How much you make? We have to help the lender with one thing which is to establish a hardship which is crucial to this. You can’t be making half $1 million a year paying $5000 a month in a mortgage, they are not just going to lower your interest rate because you want it. There actually has to be some sort of change, financial change, hardship.

We determined that and then there is a significant amount of paperwork involved, Velocity Financial takes care of that for you. We fill out the paperwork along with your help, review all of the documentation, we then recommend be right loan modification, whether it be an interest rate reduction, or extending the term of your loan, waiving some of the balance that you owe which is very very rare. To make sure that once we’re done with this whole process you can sustain and live in that house and be happy forever.

So the process itself really is not that much different than what people went through when they got their loan in the first place. That is correct and it’s kind of funny, this has to be exactly the reverse. There is paperwork that we need to collect on your mortgages, we check the value of the property to see where you’re at and in most cases youre underwater with the value. We dont do an appraisal though, there is no credit analysis, we do review your finances, and these sorts of things but essentially it’s just like doing a loan. What we’re trying to determine is exactly what is sustainable for you.

So what we do at the modification hotline at Velocity Financial is to put together the entire package, just like we do for a loan package because we basically send this to a underwriter, theyre not known as an underwriter they’re known as a loan modification coordinator but at modification hotline we are the first set of eyes. We work with you directly, getting all the paperwork in, getting it put together because we know exactly what has to be in that file, how it has to be stacked, how it has to be presented, before it goes to the loan modification coordinator who works for the attorney.

Then once it is at the attorneys office with their modification coordinator, they take a look at it, they make sure that everything is in there, they make sure that it is a doable modification. This all happens before it is ever presented to an attorney.

There are a whole lot of steps and there is a lot of paperwork. The process like you said is very similar to a loan with the exception that there are no costs of the title company and all that other stuff. Those dont exist, we dont charge an upfront fee, and we do collect a retainer for the attorney. At some point during our process we make our recommendations and we turn it in. Then the attorney does their due diligence and thats where I really want you to explain what happens, what are these attorneys looking for?

Well this is where it completely goes off track, versus what a homeowner would do if they were doing their own modification, because they would do everything we just talked about, they would fill out the paperwork, get together tax returns, pay stubs, whatever the lender wanted and they would present all of it to the lender. Now they probably wouldn’t know exactly how to stack some of the paperwork, and how to calculate some of the things that we know how to calculate, but they would put all that they work together.

Where the difference comes in is once it gets to the attorney because the attorney ultimately wants to get you a loan modification but they can’t just call up the bank and say hey I want loan modification, because he is going to get the same result you did. So what he has to do is he has to go through the file, and he has to look for things like, I am going to use a bunch of acronyms here, he’s looking for things like TILA, RESPA, HOEPA, HUD violations, all these different guidelines that the lender was required to meet while giving you the loan.

Duration : 0:6:47

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Part 1 (Excerpt)

Seller paid closing costs the best deal going

Today were going to be talking about mortgage strategies, buying real estate, all the different things that you need to know from here on out through 2009, lots and lots of opportunities. We brought back once again one of the best financial planners in the entire country Mr. Brett Fallon.

We also have in the studio today a very good friend of mine Mr. Dan Havey. Dan has been in the real estate and mortgage industry for over 20 years, in fact he got me into the industry, he was instrumental, in fact the major hand behind putting together of the loan modification hotline.

Velocity Financial is a financial services firm, were primarily focused on doing mortgages for residential purchasing and refinances. One of the things that we have seen is that the purchasing market has picked up quite a bit and looks in my eyes like we very well may have hit the bottom on prices.

You can buy a 3000 square foot house for $150,000 these days, and one thing that we’ve recently found is most of the sellers are willing to pay closing costs on behalf of the buyer. Its a known fact that it’s a cold sellers market and sellers are happy to have an offer, whether it be a low offer or not.

Now I have a couple examples I want to share, it’s important to point out that I am not a realtor, I dont want to be a realtor, those people that take the time to get a license to be realtors they know what they’re doing and they do it very well, however you being the person that is going to buy a home, you need to protect every penny that you can. The example I have written down, and Brett feel free to chime in at any time if I should happen to miss something here.

I’ve put together a scenario of purchasing a $300,000 house, now if you buy a $300,000 house and you have to put 3% down as in my example that works out to be about $9000. Let’s just say that the closing costs associated with purchasing that house plus the prepaid interest, setting up an escrow account, paying a year’s worth of homeowners insurance, there is also property taxes that must be paid, home owners dues, all these different things, those can add up. They don’t need to be 3% they can be less, they can be more. This example is just making it simple so that you can understand it.

If you buy a house for $300,000 you put 3% down and 3% for closing costs, your out-of-pocket for this example is going to be about $17,500. Now if you were going to buy that home and have all of that prepaid escrow and closing costs deferred to the seller and actually paid $309,000 so that you actually roll the closing costs into the cost of the home, and only came out-of-pocket 3% you would be out-of-pocket about $8900. So the savings there is $9000. Your mortgage payment will go up, however with a payback of about 160 months. So in other words if you take the money out of your account today youre going to lose that and have a lower payment…

Duration : 0:6:0

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Duration : 0:6:25

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Part 6 (Excerpt)

Fannie Mae is proposing to give you a 50 year loan with an adjustable rate

The next one is that your loan to value on your house has to be at least 90% of the property value. So in other words everyone under 90% gets foreclosed on? Right, if you only owe 80% of what your home is worth, they can foreclose on you, take your house and they dont lose as much money.

Back when I was working with Fannie Mae selling repos almost 20 years ago now, they always gave us the figure that they lost 20% of the homes value every time they had to foreclose. So they have plenty of room to sell your house if you only owe 80% on it. So if you owe, lets just throw out some numbers here, lets say your house is worth $100,000 and you owe $80,000 on it, well they are going to lose a little bit but they are going to make it back when they sell your house for $100,000.

Yes, they would just as soon kick you out and keep their money. Yes, exactly I am not necessarily going to say that Fannie Mae is going to kick you out of your house, however the reason why they have this guideline is very simple, they are not going to lose money on you if they have to foreclose on you when you are under 90%. They certainly are not going to lose very much money.

If you have subordinate loans it may be left outstanding and will not be considered in the LTV, so lets just give an example here, your house is worth $300,000 and you have a $300,000 1st mortgage and you happen to have a $50,000 second mortgage. They will re-modify your 1st mortgage but leave the 2nd mortgage in place. So people get to stay underwater, or upside down.

Well certainly you would be in that case and it just does not sit right. The best thing I certainly would like to see them do if nothing else in a situation like that is combine it all into one loan at a much lower interest rate. Because you know that 2nd mortgage is probably going to have a high interest rate. So it would just be so much better.

We need verification of income that makes sense. Here is one I dont get, 38% as far as your debt to income ratio. That seems kind of high to me. What do you think Michael?

Well I think that people who have gotten themselves into trouble and they need to do something like a loan modification then 38% is probably on the high side. People need relief, but they need relief that is going to last a long time. Even though this is essentially a trial-period loan modification this particular guideline of 38% really does not set well with me, I personally think it needs to be lower. People need a break; people need to be able to stay in their house.

Well what I was looking at is your average family; I always think probably pays about 30% of their gross income towards taxes, payroll, and things like that, so right off the bat Uncle Sammy takes 30%. Well now that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are owned by the government Uncle Sammy is going to get another 38% out of your paycheck which is a total of 68%, that doesnt leave a whole lot of money does it? Especially if you have a car payment, or you have kids to feed, maybe who go to daycare while you go off to work, assuming you still have a job. The unemployment rate is pretty high.

Well in order to qualify for this you do have to have income so you do have to have a job. So moving on to the next one because we are getting a little short on time, what they are going to do is take all of your back interest, escrow advances, costs, fees, everything they are going to add it to the loan amount and have you pay it back over as much as 50 years, if they need to stretch it out that long. Theyre going to give you a 50 year mortgage? I looked at that and thought, why dont you make it interest only because you are never going to pay the thing off anyway.

Lowest acceptable rate that they’ll have is 3%. The real kicker, if they get you a rate of 3% it will be an adjustable rate because it’s below today’s market rate. Your rate will actually increase starting five years from now at 1% per year until it gets up to the market rate. So not only are they getting a 50 year loan that you will never pay off, theyre giving you an adjustable-rate loan on top of it. If they give you 3% today it will begin to adjust up in the five years until it reaches today’s market rate. I think today’s market rate is about 6%, so you may get 3% for a couple years but eventually they go back up to 6%…

Duration : 0:6:35

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Part 4 (Excerpt)

80% of homes can be purchased with FHA Financing

You also talked about this graph you put together, it talks about the month of November was a 25% increase over the previous year. Obviously prices have gone down and it looks like it then has gone back up, and so once we finish selling off this inventory there is a good chance that were going to be finding or hitting the bottom.

I think just in that region of $150,000 to $200,000 region that prices have really stabilized at this point, they may go down a little bit more, but I think for the most part, because that is where the financing is right now, with the FHA and the conforming loan limits, anybody in that price range can still get a loan. If youre looking to buy something over $400,000 youre going to have a lot more trouble just because the financing is not available.

Well the financing is a lot more difficult over the $417.000 loan amount number. Luckily Velocity Financial still has some of the interim small jumbo financing available, still with decent rates and the larger jumbos there is still financing available but nothing like this median home price of $275,000 and below. Well and I think what that goes back to, specifically with the FHAs, because, what percentage of the closing costs can be contributed by a seller on an FHA loan? Its pretty high right?

FHA financing, the Federal Housing Administration has had a standing rule for quite some time that the seller can contribute up to 6% of the sales price towards the closing costs. Realistically on a $250,000 purchase price youre not going to need 6% towards closing costs, so you would want to use that money to lower the price or buy down the interest rate, or any number of different things. So in a situation like that you could have the seller come in, pay all of your closing costs for you, you can keep that money in the bank, you could use it to fix up the house, you can do whatever, and all you would be responsible for is a small down payment.

Thats correct, 3% of the sale price down, you can have the seller pay the property taxes up to a year in advance, the home owners insurance, the home owners association fees, they are called prepaid or escrows. They can pay all of that. What is the loan limit right now for FHA? Currently the FHA loan limit is $346,250, its kind of an odd number, that does go away at the end of this month, December. However if youre lucky enough to have a home picked out in that price range, you want to try to get it done by the end of the year, so long as were able to get it underwritten in house, our firm will still be able to close on that with a higher loan limit after the first of the year.

The new limits probably going to be your next question, so as of January 1 in Maricopa County its $271,000. Even at 271, with the scenario I was talking about before, in Maricopa County, 70-80% of the home sales still would have fit within that 271 limit. Yes, one thing that I do want to point out is that when the Housing and Recovery Act of 2008 expires that huge loan limit of 346 expires, that was the deal, they are going to try to get it extended but we cant plan on that necessarily, but only 10% of the properties in Maricopa County fit into that 271 to 346 range.

Now I know the answer to this but you dont happen to be qualified to do FHA loans are you? Yes Velocity Financial is FHA approved, were one of less than 15% of the lending institutions in Arizona that can do FHA financing, not only for purchases but for refinancing as well. Which I think is some of the stuff we want to talk about as well because some of the old rules for refinancing simply dont apply anymore.

Brett did you have anything to add? Yes, two things stood out to me in that discussion and one of the things was the bigger picture concept in my mind thats the way it works. Its how I am wired, I start with that then I narrow my way down to the specific scenario given a clients circumstance.

What that big picture represented to me and one of the things that you pointed out with your charting Dan and the work that you have done, is the year over year home sales is shrinking the inventory that exists in Maricopa County, and when that inventory shrinks, we all know that new homes and building had pretty much dried up, so allowing that inventory to shrink is a very positive thing in terms of stabilizing, or placing a bottom, or putting the housing market back on a path of growth long-term, and so that was one of the things that stood out to me.

Duration : 0:6:32

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Part 3 (Excerpt)

$8,000 tax credit the government is paying you to buy a home with a very low down payment

We have back in the studio today Mr. Dan Havey. Dan and I have worked together in the mortgage industry for about 14 years and we are happy to have him back. He has seen a lot of changes in the market and thanks again for being here.

Michael, here is a question I wanted to ask you, there is so much misconception in the marketplace today as far as what is still available for financing. I think a lot of people have this idea that it is impossible to finance a loan or get a mortgage or that you have to be able to put 20% down or have a 720 FICO score. Can you let people know whats really going on out there?

Well you know a lot of things have gone away. There are a lot of those old loan programs that were fancy ways to sell money and finance real property and a lot of thats gone. The reality of it is, if a person has a minimal amount of money down, there is absolutely financing through the Federal Housing Administration with 3.5% down. You can buy up to about $358,000 with only 3.5% down. Now with Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, we actually do have a few investors that will allow us to only put 5% down with those and that loan amount maximum is $417,000. So there is still plenty of financing for primary residences.

Now in regard to looking at investment properties believe it or not there are actually still some stated income loans out there, but the stated income loan is for a non owner occupied property, the interest rates are very high and you know what, if you can put 20 to 25% down and prove your income you are better off using conventional financing, it is absolutely still available.

Now if you are a first time home buyer living in an apartment and you are getting kind of tired of it, you are looking at low interest rates, you are looking at the property values have come down over 50%, FHA is generally going to be the direction that person is going to want to go, right?

Absolutely and you know Dan with the $8000 first time home buyer tax credit you know that is a check that the government sends you for up to 10% of the sales price of the home up to $80,000. Its capped at 10%, you are not going to get more than $8,000 back and you may get less if you buy for less than $80,000, but whats really interesting about this is you can, if you have already filed your 2008 tax return, you can file a 1040X and get that credit sooner. You dont have to wait until April 15th of 2010 to get your tax credit. You put the money down today, close on the mortgage, move in, file your 1040x, there is a form that is called the 5405 but thats not all that important, and you can have that money back in your pocket right away.

So I know that was part of the plan that came out today and just to make it a little bit clearer for peoplelets just take an example. Lets say you buy yourself a $150,000 house and you buy it as an FHA, it doesnt really matter how much money down or how you buy the house but if you buy a $150,000 house, you are going to get an automatic $8,000 tax credit that you can take off of the taxes that you owe the government. So lets take an example where you are a W-2d employee and you pretty much break even at the end of the year, you dont owe the government any money and they dont owe you any money the government will actually write you a check for $8,000 for that tax credit and if you buy it this year you can amend your tax return for 2008 and get a check from the government for $8,000.

And thats not including the other tax write offs that you get for writing off the taxes on the house writing off the interest on the house, so again with a $150,000 house with 6% interest roughly you are going to be looking at another $10,000 worth of write offs on top of that. Now that is a write off not a tax credit, like the other one so you are going to save whatever your tax rate is. So lets say your tax rate is 30%, that is another $3,000 in taxes saved. So if you buy a house this year you are going to put an extra $11,000 in your pocket.

So if you buy a $150,000 house and you have to put 3.5% down, Thats what? Lets just say roughly $5,000, you just made $6,000 and you get to own a house. ($11,000 tax savings minus $5,000 down payment) And your mortgage payment is more than likely less than or equal to what you are paying for rent and you own it.

Exactly and you get the benefits of having your own house…

Duration : 0:6:14

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Duration : 0:2:43

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