Jozogo asked:


We are currently considering building an addition on our home but go back and forth with whether it would be better to just move. We are looking at converting an existing attached 2 car garage into a large rec room and building a new 2-car garage in front of the old one. We have the available space to do this. We’re also thinking about remodeling the kitchen at the same time and building a full bathroom (we currently have a half bath that would then become a walk-in pantry and/or coat closet? We don’t have a basement.

The next step up in homes in the area that might have a basement and are about 15-20 years newer than our current home are about $100k-$250k more in price.

It might also be noteworthy that we currently have a 5% 30-year mortgage with equity available for a home equity loan.

GILBERTO

shelli b asked:


–The house costs around $140,000.
–Could give a downpayment around $60 to 75,000.
–Plan on paying off all of their bills (currently on a debt management plan and late on some others.) so they would have no debts other than a school loan.
–Credit scores not the greatest. I believe around 620 for both husband and wife.
–Moving from Calif. to Arizona.
–Wife will have same job when moving to AZ–make about $2,400 month.
–Husband will not have job yet when wife moves. Plans to move once a transfer on current job goes through. Will visit on some weekends. (could be 6 months, a year?)
– They own a home in California but are accepting a mortgage buyout and their names will be taken off mortgage.

Any insight on this one? Thank you!
Husband makes about $3,500/month, but since he doesn’t have the job yet in Arizona, is that going to be a huge problem.

BLAIR

animalhappy asked:


over the life of the loan. If the current index rate is 4.3% what is the initail interest rate of the ARM?

DOMINIC

Jennifer W asked:


i am interested in refinancing my home and have a current loan with chase home mortgage. Which home loan lender it most popular or best to use?

FRANK

Becky asked:


We currently have a home loan on our house, but we just sold. We just recently got an excellent locked-in rate that we hate to give up but we have to move. We found a house and want to put in an offer today. Thing is, with the previous ARM loans we had, we almost got foreclosed on (we pushed on through and never did) and now our credit is not as great as it once was. In a perfect world, we could just use our same mortgage company and they could just “transfer” our loan from one house to the other. In reality, can this happen? Or can something similar happen? My husband was reading about loans, but the brokers use all these words that make no sense to real people and he doesn’t want to get screwed in the end. Anyone know the best way to go in this situation? Any advice at all is much appreciated! Oh, and a loan on the house we want would be a bit lower than our current loan, if that helps.

CODY

Kristin Abouelata - Home Loans asked:


With the current “mortgage meltdown” we hear so much about these days, your average consumer thinks that the days of 100% financing have gone by the wayside. True, you are hard pressed these days to find a bank or lender that will want to carry a second mortgage that combined with a first mortgage adds up to 100% financing. That’s because if there is a default, sitting in second lien position is particularly dicey. Too much risk is involved. And since, in recent history, that scenario of the 80/20 combo was the most common 100% financing vehicle available to a certain group of consumers (non first time homebuyers), there’s a misconception out there that 100% options are all but dried up.

But, a-ha! There is hope for someone who has great credit but prefers to invest his/her assets elsewhere when rates are so low. It’s called the Flex 100. And it can apply to purchases and refinance transactions.

I heard an analyst mention on television the other day that mortgage money is so cheap right now it’s like a sale at Macy’s. That made me chuckle, but it’s true. In which case, why not invest your money elsewhere if you qualify for 100% financing. After all, the homes are still appreciating in most areas, but not at the stellar rate we saw in the past.

The Flex 100 requires you to invest $500 of your own cash towards the transaction, so I guess it’s technically not 100% financing, but it’s pretty darn close. And no, you don’t have to be buying your first home to get this deal. You can actually have owned a home in the past three years! However, it does apply to financing your primary residence only. You can’t get this deal for that nice cabin in Gatlinburg you want to use on the weekends or for that great rental down the street you think you can get a good deal on. You’ve got to live in the house to qualify for this financing.

But you can do a refinance, as long as it’s not a “cash-out,” meaning you’re not paying off debt or taking equity out of the property. It must be a rate term refinance only. However, you can pay off that second mortgage or home equity line of credit you hate, IF you obtained that 2nd lien mortgage when you got your first mortgage (a piggy back closing, we call it). Or to make it clearer, you originally had that 80/20 combo mentioned earlier. If you got that home equity mortgage a month or two after your initial closing to build a deck or payoff a credit card, than it that won’t work for a Flex 100 refinance.

What about your credit score? Well, it will affect the price you get, but there is no “minimum” credit score required for this program. You just have to get an approval through the automated underwriting system required. But be realistic – if you’ve got “iffy” credit, you probably won’t get an approval. A borrower with a credit score below a 620 would probably have to have a low loan to value or debt to income ratio for a chance of an approval.

A Flex 100 may or may not make sense for you. But hey, at least you know it’s an option. Your lender should be able to help you determine if this opportunity to flex your mortgage muscle makes sense for you.



WILBURN

andropolise asked:


Thank you for your feedback. In response, it is my ex husband. He was granted full ownership of the house and everything inside (I did not care to contest), and he’s been good enough to keep the payments current, but he refuses to re-finance, and there is nothing in the divorce papers stipulating that he HAS to do anything. I was trusting enough to believe I could get through a divorce without a lawyer (definitely learned my lesson); now the only way to make him take action is to re-open our papers, and I don’t have the money for that. I simply want to know if my mistake and his obstinance will keep me from ever owning property.
Thanks again for the feedback.

TAYLOR