Re: FHA or conventional home loan w/ 20% down?
They were the last 12 years! Places Im lookin at (180-200K) were selling for at least double 5-7 yrs ago.
Similar story around the country, the same home I bought for 200k this past spring sold in 2006 for $380k. Needless to say they foreclosed which (2 owners later allowed me to get a decent deal on a home that is now priced appropriately IMO).
How long do you plan on being on the planet? I think when purchasing a house in your older age that is something to consider. I went FHA 30yr 10% down but I am planning on being in this home for a while. I am in no hurry to pay it off, but I am still young. I also didnt max out what I could afford though, I ran the calculators and read the advice and got a real sense of how much I was comfortable paying, if you arent comfortable with your payment your just going to stress yourself out.
Find a good mortgage broker, hell find 3, I did I just didnt tell them about eachother until the end. Doing this I learned that some brokers are willing to bend on there fee's and some just dont have that luxury, you will find the ones who can negotiate the fee's by dropping them a copy of there competitors Good Faith Estimate.
Also, remember the real estate agent is there to assist you in negotiating the deal and are very good at not giving there opinions and opening doors for you. They were completely unhelpful when it came to anything other than that in my experience. Also, find an agent that KNOWS the area you are looking in, otherwise you will waste a lot of time if they aren't familiar.
Of all the people involved in the process, you are the one that needs to be the most competent throughout it. Know what your signing and if anything doesnt make sense, ask your mortgage broker (lender/agent). In my experience they were more than happy to answer even the dumbest questions.
With FHA you have to pay PMI, but if you can afford conventional and your credit is up to snuff, you wouldnt be asking the forum guys. You would have a guy for that :wink:
Another experience I had, I had an independent broker, and was also working with another independent broker, USBank and WellsFargo directly, my loan was denied by wells fargo for reasons unknwon to me. Eventually I settled with an indpendent broker who was willing to work with the fees...and low and behold, guess who ended up with my mortgage through the broker...take a guess...you got it, WellsFargo. Apparerntly if an independent broker pushes the paperwork, it eliminates some of the risk that wells Fargo wasnt willing to take...so my only assumption is that initially when WF denied my loan, they were not willing to risk sending it to underwriting hahaha.
I don't want this to get political, but long story short even though I was denied by a bank, they ultimately ended up with the loan even though they didnt do the initial processing.
I hope some of this info helps! Happy house / Loan hunting. IM me if you have any other questions. I learned a lot through the process.
