Home Loans

As soon as we receive your appraisal, we'll update your loan with the estimated value of the home. As a standard practice we will provide a copy of your appraisal at least 3 days before the loan closing.

Both a home inspection and an appraisal are designed to protect you against potential issues with your new home. Although they have totally different purposes, it makes the most sense to rely on each to help confirm that you've found the perfect home.

The appraiser will make note of obvious construction problems such as termite damage, dry rot or leaking roofs or basements. Other obvious interior or exterior damage that could affect the salability of the property will also be reported.

However, appraisers are not construction experts and won't find or report items that are not obvious. They won't turn on every light switch, run every faucet or inspect the attic or mechanicals. That's where the home inspector comes in. They generally perform a detailed inspection and can educate you about possible concerns or defects with the home.

Accompany the inspector during the home inspection. This is your opportunity to gain knowledge of major systems, appliances and fixtures, learn maintenance schedules and tips, and to ask questions about the condition of the home.

Interest rates fluctuate based on a variety of factors, including inflation, the pace of economic growth, and Federal Reserve policy. Over time, inflation has the largest influence on the level of interest rates. A modest rate of inflation will almost always lead to low interest rates, while concerns about rising inflation normally cause interest rates to increase. Our nation's central bank, the Federal Reserve, implements policies designed to keep inflation and interest rates relatively low and stable.

None of the loan programs we offer have penalties for prepayment. You can pay off your mortgage any time with no additional charges.

First of all, let's make sure that we mean the same thing when we discuss "mortgage insurance." Mortgage insurance should not be confused with mortgage life insurance, which is designed to pay off a mortgage in the event of a borrower's death. Mortgage insurance makes it possible for you to buy a home with less than a 20% down payment by protecting the lender against the additional risk associated with low down payment lending. Low down payment mortgages are becoming more and more popular, and by purchasing mortgage insurance, lenders are comfortable with down payments as low as 3 - 5% of the home's value. It also provides you with the ability to buy a more expensive home than might be possible if a 20% down payment were required.

The mortgage insurance premium is based on loan to value ratio, type of loan, and amount of coverage required by the lender. Usually, the premium is included in your monthly payment and one to two months of the premium is collected as a required advance at closing.

It may be possible to cancel private mortgage insurance at some point, such as when your loan balance is reduced to a certain amount - below 75% to 80% of the property value. Recent Federal Legislation requires automatic termination of mortgage insurance for many borrowers when their loan balance has been amortized down to 78% of the original property value. If you have any questions about when your mortgage insurance could be cancelled, please contact your Lender.

An abundance of credit inquiries can sometimes affect your credit scores since it may indicate that your use of credit is increasing.

But don't overreact! The data used to calculate your credit score doesn't include any mortgage or auto loan credit inquiries that are made within the 30 days prior to the score being calculated. In addition, all mortgage inquiries made in any 14-day period are always considered one inquiry. Don't limit your mortgage shopping for fear of the effect on your credit score.

There is no charge to you for the credit information we'll access with your permission to evaluate your application online. You will only be charged for a credit report if you decide to complete the application process after your loan is approved.

Yes, applying for a mortgage loan before you find a home may be the best thing you could do! If you apply for your mortgage now, we'll issue an approval subject to you finding the perfect home. We'll issue a pre-qualification letter to assure real estate brokers and sellers that you are a qualified buyer. Having a pre-qualification for a mortgage may give more weight to any offer to purchase that you make.

When you find the perfect home, you'll simply call your Lender to complete your application. You'll have an opportunity to lock in our great rates and fees then and we'll complete the processing of your request.

If you own rental properties, we'll generally ask for the most recent year's federal tax return to verify your rental income. We'll review the Schedule E of the tax return to verify your rental income, after all expenses except depreciation. Since depreciation is only a paper loss, it won't be counted against your rental income.

If you haven't owned the rental property for a complete tax year, we'll ask for a copy of any leases you've executed and we'll estimate the expenses of ownership.

First, you'll complete our online application!

The application will ask you questions about the home and your finances and takes less than 20 minutes to complete. As soon as you've finished the application we'll review your request for instant approval. If your application is approved online, we'll ask you for a deposit to cover the cost of the appraisal on your home so that we can begin to process your request immediately. This deposit will be credited towards your closing fees at closing.

After completing your application, a Lender will contact you to introduce himself or herself and to answer any questions you may have. Your Lender is a mortgage expert and will provide help and guidance along the way. If your request wasn't approved online, he or she will ask you for any information required to make a decision about your loan.

If you are purchasing a new home, the Lender will also contact the Real Estate Broker or the seller so that they'll know whom to contact with questions.

We'll send you an application package and prepare your loan for closing.

The application package will be sent to you and will contain papers for you to sign and a list of items we'll need to verify the information you provided about your finances during the online application.

We'll order the appraisal from a licensed appraiser who is familiar with home values in your area. Depending on your finances and the loan amount requested, different types of appraisals are used. Sometimes the appraiser will need to view the home. Sometimes they are able to do their evaluation from the street.

Title insurance will be necessary. If you're purchasing a home, we'll work with the real estate broker or seller to ensure the title work is ordered as soon as possible. If you are refinancing we'll take care of ordering the title work for you. We'll use the title insurance to confirm the legal status of your property and to prepare the closing documents.

We'll contact you to coordinate your closing date.

After we received the application package back from you and the appraisal and title work, we'll contact you to schedule your loan closing. If you are purchasing a home, we'll also schedule the closing with the real estate broker and the seller.

The closing will take place at the office of a title company or attorney in your area who will act as our agent. A few days before closing, your Lender will contact you to walk through the final information so that there won't be any surprises at closing.

That's all there is to it! You're on your way to the most convenient home loan ever!

Having changed employers frequently is typically not a hindrance to obtaining a new mortgage loan. This is particularly true if you made employment changes without having periods of time in between without employment. We'll also look at your income advancements as you have changed employment.

If you're paid on a commission basis, a recent job change may be an issue since we'll have a difficult time of predicting your earnings without a history with your new employer.

Gifts are an acceptable source of down payment, if the gift giver is related to you or your co-borrower. We'll ask you for the name, address, and phone number of the gift giver, as well as the donor's relationship to you.

If your loan request is for more than 80% of the purchase price, we'll need to verify that you have at least 5% of the property's value in your own assets.

Prior to closing, we'll verify that the gift funds have been transferred to you by obtaining a copy of your bank receipt or deposit slip to verify that you have deposited the gift funds into your account.

Generally, a co-signed debt is considered when determining your qualifications for a mortgage. If the co-signed debt doesn't affect your ability to obtain a new mortgage we'll leave it at that. However, if it does make a difference, we can ignore the monthly payment of the co-signed debt if you can provide verification that the other person responsible for the debt has made the required payments, by obtaining copies of their cancelled checks for the last six months.

If you've had a bankruptcy or foreclosure in the past, it may affect your ability to get a new mortgage. Unless the bankruptcy or foreclosure was caused by situations beyond your control, we will generally require that two to four years have passed since the bankruptcy or foreclosure. It is also important that you've re-established an acceptable credit history with new loans or credit cards.

An installment debt is a loan that you make payments on, such as an auto loan, a student loan or a debt consolidation loan. Do not include payments on other living expenses, such as insurance costs or medical bill payments. We'll include any installment debts that have more than 10 months remaining when determining your qualifications for this mortgage.

The most important documents you will sign at closing are the note and mortgage, sometimes called the deed of trust. Unless there are special circumstances, these documents are usually prepared one to two days before your closing. Other documents are prepared by the closing agent the day before or the day of your closing. If you would like copies of the completed documents to be sent to you after they are prepared, please contact your Lender.

Automated monthly payments are available. At the loan closing an automated payment form will be provided.   This can be filled in at the closing to enroll in the automated payment program.