The Mortgage Brothers Show

A lot of people ask us “how much can we qualify for” or “how much should we qualify for?” when it comes to applying for a mortgage. In other words: What prices of home should I be looking at?

In this post, we’re going to dig into a question we get a lot: Is it better for me to pay my closing costs upfront or roll them all into the loan?

The number you’re thinking about probably isn’t just closing costs alone

Often what you think of as “Closing Costs” are actually the closing costs plus prepaid taxes and insurance, plus an interest rate. When you get a quote from a lender, they’re likely incorporating the prepaid taxes and insurance in the quote for closing costs.

There’s a whole industry built on trying to help people through bankruptcies and debt consolidation. They have a whole strategy to take all your debt bundled together and help you renegotiate payments. But we’re talking about something very different: refinancing. This comes into play when borrowers have reasonable debt, and they want a structure it inside of a mortgage. They want to take the debt from a car or maybe credit cards, or a home equity line of credit (or HELOC) and combine it.

Often times we’ll get borrowers calling us asking what an escrow account is for and if it is a “Good” OR “Bad” thing to have one on a mortgage. We figured we’d dig in a bit and help people get oriented. First off, escrow refers to an arrangement in which a third party temporarily holds a sum of money or property until a particular condition has been met. Now, let’s dive in.

We get asked this question all the time, but it’s not always in these exact words. Sometimes it’s: How many mortgages can I get on my home? or How many can you just stack? Oftentimes, it’s people simply wondering if they can get another line of credit. They’re thinking of it that way rather than as in terms of positions.

$0 down up to $1.2 million

Today we are talking about VA home loan limits for 2021. Part of this is reminding people of the VA home loan change that happened in 2020. That’s because the loan limit hasn’t really changed and that’s because…

This coming year brings some great news when it comes to FHA loans. The limit’s gone up for 2021 and a whole new potential bucket has opened up for interested buyers. The FHA is really helping a lot of people, especially if they’re on the lower end of the credit score or if they have a higher debt to income ratio.

It’s the time of the year when new things start coming out — new cars are announced, new trucks. But for loan guys like us, nothing is quite as exciting as the new loan limits. And they’ve come just in time for Christmas and they open up a whole new arena for borrowers.

Today we’re talking about trigger leads. We’re going to cover what they are and how to avoid getting annoying phone calls after applying for a mortgage.

Interest rates are low right now and it’s a great time to refinance if you’re a veteran.

If you have a VA loan, you can do a streamlined VA Interest Rate Reduction Refinance Loan, or IRRRL (pronounced “Earl”). With the VA IRRRL you can get lower payments, reduce your rates, and even change some terms on the loan.

So, the short answer is that every mortgage is due on the first of the month. Now, where it gets a little trickier is that there are two different ways to think about if it’s late: