Nothing’s the matter with them, other than that their interest rates and terms are less favorable than loans for people with good credit. You just…

Not necessarily. As with other loan types, it can depend upon your credit, but there are low-money-down subprime loans and even zero-money-down subprime loans for…

Believe it or not, most any mortgage company can help. But it’s important not to jump to any conclusions. There have been many misconceptions about…

Units that are bought under a time-share agreement, condotels, mobile homes, and properties that are particularly unusual. Time-Shares A time-share is a property that you…

Most definitely. Conventional mortgages finance a maximum of four units, including duplex, three-unit, and fourplex buildings. More than four units attached and you’re looking at…

You may want to for several reasons. One might be for simplicity’s sake. I recently had a client who had—hold onto your seat—nearly thirty retirement…

Because such loans would cost you more. Each time a risk element is removed from a loan program it’s offset with either more down payment,…

With an AUS, the better the borrower, the less documentation is required. If you have difficulties finding enough documentation for parts of your loan, simply…

Hopefully, yes. That’s one of their jobs. Good loan officers, especially good mortgage broker loan officers, always keep a keen eye out for the newest…

Because the amortization term is squished in half. With a 30- year mortgage there’s plenty of time to spread out interest payments, but when you…

Of course you do, as long as the lender offers it. Most loans start as low as ten years, but terms can be anything between…

Sometimes, but not always. If you can put a minimum of 20 percent down, that might be ideal, provided you have the funds available. It…

The first and perhaps foremost consideration is how much you intend to put down. Loans with no money down have higher interest rates and can…

Most loans still will accept a Fannie or Freddie approval using an AUS, and simply ask that the loan officer document the file just as…

Yes, in most cases, you should try for a conventional loan first. There are more conventional loans and conventional lenders than any other type, which…

Get a loan that you feel comfortable with, one you don’t have to worry about and that is easy to get in terms of qualifying…

There are two types of ‘‘Alt’’ loans, Alt-A and Alt-B, and they’re called so because they’re not conventional or government loans but step outside the…

This is a loan program where you pay every two weeks instead of once per month. Such programs, which are good because they can help…

There’s another way to get financing and that’s called a wraparound mortgage, or a ‘‘wrap.’’ A wrap mortgage is a mortgage ‘‘wrapped’’ around another mortgage.…

A lease-purchase agreement, also known as rent-to-own, is a viable option when someone wants to buy a property but isn’t quite there yet. Or if…

Seller financing is certainly an option, as long as the seller knows about it, of course. You’ll go through a lot fewer hoops to qualify…

A payment option ARM has been around for a long time as well; it’s just a different take on a neg-am loan. A payment option…

A negative amortization (neg am) implies that when you take the loan you don’t amortize, meaning you don’t automatically pay it down over a set…

An interest-only loan requires only that you pay the interest on your loan each month, so you don’t have to pay any part of the…

Yes, but there’s also a bonus. Fannie and Freddie both have the same conforming limits, but they also set the maximum loan limits for what…

As often as you like, but you can’t have more than one VA loan at a time. If you bought a home with a VA…

A VA entitlement is the amount the VA will guarantee in order for a VA loan to be made. Historically, VA entitlements were based upon…

Veterans, active duty personnel, reserve troops, and surviving spouses of veterans may be eligible. There are some requirements for each category. All honorably discharged wartime…

In 1944, as part of the GI Bill of Rights, the U.S. government established a special program that rewarded certain members and veterans of the…

Sometimes it’s to offset an additional layer of risk, while at the same time keeping the borrower’s payments lower. For example, a lender agrees to…

A prepayment penalty is an agreed-upon amount the lender gets in addition to normal principal and interest payments if the borrower pays extra on the…

Of course you can. Sometimes first-time home buyers might think that they don’t want a 30-year fixed rate because they don’t want to be paying…

It is a loan that is above the conforming loan limit. Just like conforming loans, jumbo mortgages may also be bought and sold in the…

There are occasions when a lender makes a special agreement with Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and markets these loans under slightly different terms. Such…

We’ve mentioned Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac earlier, but let’s take a moment to see what their real purposes are. Fannie and Freddie are the…

Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac set limits—the same way every year—by reviewing the average home price from October to October. If the average price of…

Besides deciding between a fixed rate and an adjustable rate, you also need to examine the types of loans available to you. Most loans will…

A buydown either temporarily or permanently reduces the note rate on a mortgage. A temporary buydown is sometimes called a two step or a 2–1…

A balloon mortgage is a loan whose entire note balance becomes due after a predetermined period. Balloon mortgages are recognized by their names, such as…

A hybrid loan is simply a combination of a fixed and an ARM where the rate is fixed for a predetermined number of years before…

Probably. For borrowers who locked in at the right time, ARMs may also help them to not only get a lower starting rate than competing…

There are four basics for an adjustable rate mortgage (ARM): the index, the margin, the adjustment period, and rate caps. The Index. This is what…

When rates are at relative highs compared to the previous years. If rates are currently at a high cycle, chances are rates will go down…

When rates are at relative lows compared to the previous two or three years. Here a fixed rate is good, because it locks in that…

As many as you can imagine. Here’s a brief list of the most common types of mortgage loans offered by every lender or mortgage broker:…

Credit scoring works like a credit report. Conventional loans use the middle credit score from the person who makes less money. Other loans use the…

That’s a good question. Most lenders will use the middle score, not the highest one and not the lowest one. And there’s a reason. Even…

Credit scores have no clue as to your marital status, whether or not you have kids, your race, religion, or whatever else. They scores look…

Your loan officer should help you with that, but you should only submit a rapid rescore to the two bureaus with the highest current scores.…

The way you can get incorrect items off of your credit report is the very same way you get your score corrected, except for one…

Not if the inquiries are for the same mortgage. An ‘‘inquiry’’ occurs when someone or some business inquires about your credit by contacting the credit…

You can’t. But you can ask for an increase in credit limits. Perhaps one of your current lenders will raise its maximum credit limit for…

Your payment history and amounts owed are the biggest factors, but other items can affect your score as well. One of the more common scoring…

The secret formula appears to be 30 percent. Keep your monthly credit balances around 30 percent of their limits. Is $10,000 your limit? Keep a…

A lender typically won’t approve or decline you solely on the basis of a number. There are some loans that do require a minimum credit…

That depends upon the loan program, but credit scores don’t ‘‘approve’’ or ‘‘decline’’ anyone. Lenders may have minimum credit score requirements for particular loan programs,…

By buying things on credit. Again, these computer models need a credit history of typically two years. I’ve seen credit reports with no score available…

That’s easy. It wasn’t too long ago that obtaining your own credit score was nearly impossible without applying for a mortgage loan first. Now it’s…

Amounts owed is relatively easy to identify: It’s how much you owe compared to how much you’re allowed to borrow. But here again, conventional credit…

Credit scores can be affected by how often you make your payments on or before the due date. The scoring model reviews the existence of…