Q: Do you offer loans to people with less than perfect credit?
A: Yes! Mortgages have recently become much more attainable to my clients with less than perfect credit. Since credit scoring has become such a common factor in the mortgage industry, it has improved your chances. "Sub-prime" loans are now a very common occurrence.
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Q: Can I pull out more cash than my home is worth?
A: Yes. I have the ability to obtain mortgages that are 125% of the appraised value of the home. Second trust deeds simply mean that you can receive up to 125% of the value of their property, therefore borrowing more money than their home is worth. These types of loans carry a higher rate of interest because they are more risky to the lender. To minimize their risk, having a good credit score is a definite help in being able to obtain one of these types of loans.
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A: Yes. I can help you with this process. Depending on your credit score and the damage, in many cases the score can be cleaned up during your current transaction. You could take care of this process on your own by contacting the major credit reporting bureaus, or you can seek the advise of a professional service. Either way, credit clean up is definitely something I can help you with. Please ask me for a copy of my "Credit repair procedure" booklet to help speed you on your way to a higher credit score.
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A: These are the questions without a one word answer. I enjoy being a student of the market. There are a great many factors, some logical and some illogical, that go into the fluctuation of interest rates. It's very helpful to be a seasoned veteran in the mortgage industry as it relates to the forecasting of rates. The more years I log in as a mortgage professional the more that I become a knowledgeable source on market fluctuation. Depending upon the circumstances in the marketplace I can give you my short term opinion, but the truth is: nobody has a crystal ball ... and there are so many factors and the market changes by the minute.
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A: Locking is the securing of an interest rate. The locked rate is attached to a specific property address and to a specific borrower. It guarantees that rate for the given lock duration. You can choose to lock in from anywhere from 7 - 90 days. Please click on the Truth about Interest Rates section of my web site to find out more specific information about the intricacies of locking a loan.
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Q: Should I lock now?
A: Most of the time, Yes . It has been our experience over the
many years of doing business in the mortgage industry, that those borrowers
that like to treat their mortgage and subsequent interest rate like rolling
the dice in Vegas, will lose more than they win. Timing the market is
an extraordinarily difficult task. The appropriate approach in most cases
is to lock your loan in when you know that your escrow has a definite
close date attached to it. In the event that the market rallies significantly,
we can always renegotiate that lock and attempt to get a more attractive
rate.
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A: You are approved for as long as your situation doe not change.
Of course, after a period of time the documentation within your file becomes outdated. Recent bank statements, pay stubs and even tax returns sometimes are required to bring the file up to date. As long as ones income situation has not changed significantly and they have not incurred anymore obligations on a liability basis, their approval is, in fact, good indefinitely. Also you need to keep in mind that if interest rates go up it can affect someone's long-term ability to qualify because their payment becomes higher.
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A: A penalty to the borrower in the event that they pay their loan off within a given period of time. Remember, not all loans have this feature.
As a matter of fact, most loans that Pacific Inland Financial procures do not have prepayment penalties due to the fact that they can be quite limiting. At Pacific Inland Financial we are big fans of you having flexibility with your money. Prepayment penalties vary from one lender to another in terms of their impact. Some which are referred to as soft prepays, actually are waived in the event of a sale and only apply when there is a refinance before the end of the prepay period.
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A: Points are monies paid to buy down an interest rate.
If the market interest rate is at no points is at 8%, one might be able to buy it down to 7.75% by paying one point. A general rule of thumb is that one point will improve your interest rate by about .25%. Every point that you pay is equivalent to 1% of the loan amount. So on a $100,000.00 loan, one point would cost $1,000.00, two points would cost $2,000.00, etc.
The time that it is advisable to pay points is when you have a very strong opinion that you will be borrowing this money for an extended period of time. This is due to the fact that points, which are paid up front, can only be recuperated through time, via the savings that are received on a monthly basis as a result of the lower interest rate generated by paying the points. On a 30 year fixed rate mortgage, points can take approximately 2 to 5 years to get back, therefore for the first 2 to 5 years that you are in that loan you are in the red, where getting yourself out of the red and into the black is the objective. Everything past that month when you break even becomes savings and therefore it was beneficial to pay the points. If you get out of that loan by refinancing or selling the property before that 2 to 5-year period, you have effectively wasted money by paying them.
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Q: Why should I do my loan with a broker, and not my bank?
A: You save money. Banks will say that mortgage brokers
cost the consumer more money. The loan officers at Pacific Inland Financial
have proven time and time again that this is not true. Here are
the two biggest reasons:
In general most brokers are more knowledgeable about their trade then
bankers and salary employed people who work for Internet companies. One
must understand the mentality of a broker, in that a broker is an entrepreneur
and not an employee. What you get in working with an entrepreneur, is
someone who is a specialist in his or her trade. What you get with an
employee is someone who punches out and goes home at 5:00, who does not
receive a monetary incentive to be great at what they do. Keeping your
long and short term financial goal, and getting you the best loan program
is not usually in the front of their minds.
I also have a greater variety of products. When you go to a bank you have
one option and that is their product only. The ability to go to many different
sources and subsequently shop for the best loan program available in the
marketplace is an advantage that a broker has that a bank never will.
A broker does not cost you extra money due to being a middleman; the interest
rate that is provided to a broker is a "Wholesale Rate". When you enter
a bank as a consumer you are receiving a retail rate. My discounted broker
rate is almost always better than a banks retail rate.
Since I will combine the benefits of my versatility and my focus on your
goals, I am sure that you will come out ahead.
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A: You first must ask yourself the question as to what you are looking for from your loan experience. Is the most important thing to you the advise and consultation that you are going to receive? Is it the interest rate? Is it the speed with which things get done? These reasons and many others can compel someone to make a decision as to whom they want to work with.
At Pacific Inland Financial we believe that we offer and provide all of these benefits and many more. Our objective is to provide an extremely competitive interest rate with expert consulting and a high level of customer service with the integration of technology.
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A: Non-recurring closing costs are a one time fee. Examples of non-recurring closing costs would be as follows: Your appraisal, your credit report, your escrow, your title insurance, lender fees, etc. Recurring closing costs are costs that recur over and over again such as your mortgage payment, property taxes, insurance, etc. The reason that this is important is because lenders will allow for the broker/ banker, or even the seller to pay non-recurring closing costs on behalf of the client, but will usually not allow for the recurring closing cost to be paid by anyone other than the borrower themselves.
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A: There really is no best time to close an escrow. On a purchase transaction, an escrow would be closed at the specified negotiated time between buyer and seller. On a refinance, you can try to target your close date near the end of the month therefore eliminating as much prepaid interest as possible and making your closing costs that you have to come up with less than it would be if you closed mid-month or even early in the month.
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A: It's a very interesting thing these days that builders of new homes have decided to jump into the mortgage market. Many of them own their own mortgage companies, some of them have formed an alliance with an outside mortgage entity.
In some cases, the consumer truly does get a better deal from working with the builders mortgage company. What you will find in most cases is that the level of expertise of one who would work for a builder's mortgage company is minimal so the type of financial advise that many people are seeking is not going to be provided. And usually, simply due to the fact that there are "several hands in the cookie jar" you will end up with a worse scenario.
You must ask yourself the question as a consumer, what type of service and financial consultation am I really getting? The type of loan officer that would typically work for a builder's mortgage company would lack the experience and knowledge that many people would want as it relates to the consulting of their finances. Benefits in many cases are that the builder is willing to provide perks as it relates to upgrades on the home. Once again, one must ask the question, am I really paying for this somewhere else that I don't realize?
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Q: What is PMI (Private Mortgage Insurance)?
A: When a borrower makes a down payment of less than
20 percent of the home's sale price, lenders often will purchase private
MI to protect themselves against the borrower going into default. Research
indicates that rates of default are significantly higher among borrowers
making less than a 20 percent down payment.
The lender is listed on the MI policy as both the insured party and the
beneficiary, but private MI provides advantages to the consumer as well.
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A: On July 29, 1999, President Clinton signed Senate Bill 318 (S-318) into law. The President's signing of S-318, also known as the Homeowners Protection Act of 1998. culminates a year's worth of the political process on Capitol Hill and put to rest, finally, the national debate about consumer's rights to have private mortgage insurance cancelled.
To understand the impact of S-318, it is important to clearly understand the role of private MI and how it works.
With LPMI (Lender Paid Mortgage Insurance) the incremental cost of coverage is incorporated into the first mortgage note rate.
This new law succeeds in providing consumers with disclosure about their rights to have private MI canceled, and it establishes equity thresholds for automatic termination of private MI policies.
One new consumer-protective requirement is the Annual Disclosure. Lenders must inform borrowers annually with a written statement that they continue to have private MI and have the right to have it canceled upon request and subsequent to meeting the lender's cancellation criteria.
For Borrower Initiated cancellation, for most conventional loans closed beginning on July 29, 1999, the borrower will have the right to cancel private MI coverage by written request (if the borrower has a good payment history and there is no decline in property value) at an LTV of 80%.
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Because you want to work with an expert in debt planning!
Too many times a borrower obtains a loan that is not monetarily beneficial to them because they make the mistake of only associating interest rate with the objective of borrowing money. At Pacific Inland Financial, I can offer extremely competitive interest rates and fees, but unlike most others I don't stop there. I can show you the value of having a professional handle probably the largest debt you obtain in your lifetime, a mortgage loan.
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