Carrie Guarrero of Fairway Independent Mortgage is fired up over a CNBC article with a misleading title that, at first glance, implies the gloom and doom of home buying down payments. Evidently, that is not the case, especially in Edina with over 52 pages of different payment programs readily available to home buyers! Think you need to slave away for a 20% down payment?
Home Buying Myth: Wait, What?
The article, based on analysis by rental listing company, HotPads, claims it will take about six and a half years for a person to save the “needed” 20% mortgage down payment, and if you only read the first few paragraphs, this is all the reader would know. The article did eventually offer other options for the reader and home buyer, but with people usually just skimming through instead of reading fully, most people would have already disqualified themselves from the dream of buying a house. To Carrie, this is unfortunate and troublesome because buyers who don’t check with a loan expert just believe what they skim through online.
The Truth About Home Buying: You Don’t Need a 20% Down
Does it really take a person six and a half years to save for a home down payment? The simple answer is no. Each person is different. There are people who cannot save even if their lives depended on it and there are people who can diligently put away a specific amount of money every month. And then there’s the option to choose among different home buying programs depending on one’s credit standing and location. Carrie says that she’s had clients buying homes with very little down payment from 3% to 5% to nothing at all at 0%. In fact, for Minnesota home buyers, there are actually over 52 pages of payment programs available. To quote Carrie, “every individual circumstance is going to dictate a different product, a different program..” so obviously, a 20% down payment is not universal.
Current Rent Prices Versus Mortgage Payments
In today’s Minneapolis market, as rental prices keep going up, Carrie is seeing more people who are qualified to buy homes with their projected payments less than their rent. “People don’t need the down payment that everybody thinks they need,” Carrie emphasizes again. There’s usually a payment shock when her clients find out what that there’s no difference between mortgage and rent amounts.
A great example of this would be a client who was paying $2400 a month for a 700 square feet condo. Carrie helped them with their first home purchase, a 3-bedroom with a couple of baths, with a mortgage payment of $2000 per month.
Listen to the entire episode!
Ask an Expert, Get a Sustainable Home Loan
With everyone consulting the Internet about everything these days, few bother to ask an actual expert. This could be said about mortgage loans and the real estate industry. Google searches won’t give you the entire story which could lead you down a path of disqualifying yourself from your own capabilities.
Carrie’s own philosophy when it comes to helping her home buying clients is in itself a very buyer-centered one. “My philosophy is, I don’t say no, I say not now. But here’s what’s going to take to get you where you want to be. I’ll sit down with people whether face-to-face or a Zoom video conference call. We’ll walk through their credit, we’ll walk through their assets, we’ll walk through what they’re paying for rent, what their situation is now, and then we’ll set a clear path. These are the three steps you need to take in order to get where you want to be and we’ll check in on a monthly basis, see where you’re at and when you’re ready, we’ll go.”
The idea is to put people into houses that they can afford to have for the long-term. Carrie adds, “I’ve always said it’s not just my job to put people into houses; it’s my job to keep them there too. We do sustainable home loans.”
For more information, contact Carrie directly:
Carrie Guarrero
Producing Branch Manager
NMLS# 209015
Office: 952.851.8966
Email: cghomeloan@fairwaymc.com
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