High-Performance Home Appraisal Guide

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High-performance homes are becoming more and more popular, but is the market up to date with appraisals for these specialty homes? Builders, sales agents and homeowners can take several steps to ensure local appraisers, lenders and the general public about what makes your durable, energy-efficient, healthier home stand out from the competition.

Step 1:

Make sure to highlight the home's high-performance features when marketing the home. This can be done by advertising, educating, teaching, highlighting and displaying these high-performance features.

When advertising, make sure to include the features that make the home more comfortable, energy-efficient and water-efficient. Point out how these will help lower utility bills. For tips on verbiage to use or ideas on what to highlight, check out Home Performance Counts.

Educate and teach others about the results of an Energy Rating Index (ERI) which includes the Home Energy Rating System (HERS) score or Home Energy Score (HES). All sales agents and sales staff should know what an ERI, HERS and/or HES rating means and how to articulate the ratings to consumers and others in the industry.

Features such as independently verified green home certifications should be highlighted in the marketing materials. The National Green Building Standard is a great example that should be put on flyers and web pages. During open houses, display the ERI, HERS or HES ratings and an explanation of the potential energy savings. Also, display certification plaques that show the home is approved by the National Green Building Standard.

Step 2:

Buyers should choose a lender who is familiar with high-performance homes. Local mortgage lenders who have a separate appraisal panel of trained professionals with experience valuing high-performance homes are critical to get the value your above-code home deserves. It is important for a lender to choose an appraiser that is on the Appraisal Institute’s green registry. This way both the lender and appraiser will not be hesitant to appraise the home higher for its energy-efficient upgrades.

Step 3:

The sales contract for a high-performance home should include Residential Green and Energy Efficient Addendum. What this means is the high-performance features that are behind the walls and cannot be seen will be included. This documentation will help the appraiser fully understand the higher price when it comes to an above-code home.

Step 4:

Just like interviewing a sales agent, interview the appraiser before you choose them to appraise the home. Not only ask about their appraisal experience but also ask if they are familiar with ERI scores and HERS ratings. Find out what classes or courses they have taken on high-performance valuation.  The Federal Housing Administration, the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac all require that the appraiser has requisite knowledge prior to accepting the assignment, and the only way to enforce that is to ask about their knowledge and experience upfront.

Including these steps in the appraisal process will ensure a high-performance home will be given the right amount the home is worth. Choosing a sales agent who is versed in energy-efficient homes will help buyers with the home buying process.

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Home Buying Still Supports the Current Local Economy

The country is still trying to get comfortable with the new norm. Life all around is ever-changing with the current pandemic. The real estate market is no different – agents, lenders and customers are connecting and transacting virtually. One thing that has remand constant in this uncertain day in age is purchasing a home.

The National Association of Realtors‘ current report stresses the full economic impact of home sales, “The total economic impact of real estate related industries on the state economy, as well as the expenditures that result from a single home sale, including aspects like home construction costs, real

estate brokerage, mortgage lending and title insurance.”

To see how this works, we will breakdown the average economic impact of just one home sale in the United States. A home that sold for $84,724 will give the real estate industries $23,544 (27.8%), home purchase expenses $4,243 (5%), multiplier of house related expenditures $25,932 (15.1%) and new home construction $91,433 (53.3%).

As you can see when a home is purchased it makes a big impact on the economy. It is a win-win situation where you have a place to live, and you are initiating jobs and income for everyone involved in the transaction. In a nutshell, purchasing a home is making the home buyer an “economic driver.”

Even with the current times, there are many things you can do to keep your home search going. If you have decided to go ahead with your dream of owning a home you need to get pre-approved for a mortgage. Getting pre-approved not only helps you understand how much you can afford but also lets others know you are a serious buyer. Since there is a stay-at-home order, it is important to connect virtually with a Realtor or talk directly to a builder to build a new home or fully custom home. A Realtor is someone you can trust and knows the ever-changing dynamics in the current market. Builders have tons of resources including floorplan design, financing, pricing and selections recommendations, and all businesses involved in the closing of your new home.

Also, you can still do real estate research online.  Even before the pandemic, online searches for real estate were well over 90% with home buyers starting on the Internet to find a home to buy. Shop mortgage lenders and see if there are any down payment assistance programs that would work for you.

You do not have to put your dream of owning your own home on hold, you can view do most of the preliminary footwork for finding and making an offer on a home for sale online. Virtual tours and online sites can help you navigate the housing market, and Ron Lee Homes is also here to help with a toolbox of virtual services for your home buying or home building needs.  Contact Us Today at 985-626-7619 or email Info@RonLeeHomes.com.

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Tips to Find the Best Loan for A First Time Homebuyer

There are many different kinds of mortgages to choose when purchasing a home. Not every mortgage is right for you. Here are some tips to follow when choosing which mortgage best fits your needs.
Do your homework. You will want to first research special mortgage programs. There are a great number of programs out there which can assist first-time home buyers. Programs can help with down payments, lower your interest rate or help with other expenses you might have such as a student loan. These programs can help you along the way by allowing you to build equity in your home. Professionals can help with finding the best program to suit your needs, check with your lender or Realtor.

Go with a local. Big programs such as federal programs are more well known but there are many programs for first time home buyers through their city or state. Detroit and Baltimore have used first-time home buyer programs to promote revitalization in their downtown areas. Many states have used

programs to urge first-time homebuyers to purchase their first home in rural areas. Always check your city or state government’s websites to see if there are any programs available to assist you. Another resource would be the community development or housing department.

Don’t overlook your mortgage rate. An obvious focal point is the price of your home. This is not the only thing you should focus on. Your mortgage rate is just as important. This number can tell you how much you will pay in interest every month. The lower the rate, the less you will pay. The easiest way to lower your rate is by a good credit score. Not every first-time buyer has a solid 20 % to put down with an excellent credit score. Many lenders allow you to purchase discount points with can lower your interest rate. Purchasing points is prepaying your interest rate which lowers your overall interest rate by approximately .25%. There are positives and negatives to buying down your rate with discount points. Your lender can help you with this decision.

There’s always an adjustable-rate mortgage (ARM). This can be a great way to start off your first home buying experience. How an ARM works is simple. You will start off with a set period with a fixed rate which will then adjust after a certain period of time. In other words, if you have a 5/1 ARM, you will have a fixed rate for 5 years and then after the 5 years, your interest rate will adjust every year. The rates will not always rise but can also fall. If the rates have gone down you could end up paying less but if it goes up, you will pay more. This is a great way for a first-time to use the first 5 years to improve credit, lower debt and raise your income in order to get a 15 or 30-year fixed-rate mortgage.

Just like an employer interviews for the right employee, the same goes for the right lender. You need to talk to several lenders about getting a mortgage. Shopping around can give you negotiating power and the lowest mortgage rate. You will want to research average rates for your area.

Have your paperwork in order. When applying for a mortgage, your lender will want your monetary life story. Get all your documents together before meeting with a lender. Many lenders will not lock in a rate and start your application until they have all your documents.

Keep your finances the same. Do not make a huge financial change when you are in the process of obtaining a mortgage. Do not apply for a new credit card, get a new car loan, or change jobs. If you do this, the mortgage lender will have to start your application process all over again. You will need to wait even longer to close on your new home.

Getting a loan for a home can be a daunting task but if you do your due diligence, the process will be a lot less painful in the end.

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Friendly Lenders For Potential Home Buyers

According to the Urban Institute Housing Finance Policy Center, mortgage lenders are becoming more flexible with riskier applicants. Their quarterly credit availability report found that they are lending to people with lower credit scores, higher debt-to-income ratios and smaller down payments.

The report finds that the Federal Housing Administration (FHA), Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) and the Department of Agriculture’s rural home loans are taking the highest risk levels since before the crash. In fact, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac have steadily taken more risk since 2009. This is great news for potential home buyers, especially those with less than perfect credit scores.
“Significant space remains to safely expand the credit box,” Laurie Goodman, vice president of the Housing Finance Policy Center, says.

The current lender risk levels are very low and will still stay within the “reasonable lending standards.” Loan officers around the country have seen a creative side to the lending industry recently which gives the “credit-strained buyer” hope. John Meussner, executive loan officer with Mason-McDuffie Mortgage Corp. in San Ramon, California, says he has seen a perfect example of this.

“Recently we saw one investor roll out a product offering up to $2 million in financing for FICO scores down to 600,” said Meussner.

The loan mentioned, will allow the borrower to have made a late payment on a mortgage within the past year and have major incidents such as foreclosure or bankruptcy. Many lenders will now take a score in the mid-500s with a small down payment. In the past, Fannie and Freddie have required a FICO score of around 750 to obtain a home loan.

The requirements might be a little less risky but lenders are still doing their homework on their potential borrowers. Paul Skeens, president of Colonial Mortgage Group in Waldorf, Maryland believes that the attention to documents in unbelievable detail has kept the market from seeing a lot of defaults.





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An Economic Balancing Act

After the fall of the economy in 2007, policymakers want to keep a healthy balance in today’s economy. The Federal Reserve does not want to repeat what some economist consider to be the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression of the 1930s.

According to a statement released by the Federal Reserve, the labor market is continuing to strengthen and the “economic activity has been rising at a strong rate.”

This week Fed policymakers agreed to keep the rates the same for November 2018.  The reason for

this decision was based on the continued growth of the American economy.  The Federal Reserve wants to make sure the growth stays at a healthy rate, neither too fast nor too slow. The benchmark rate, the determining factor for the cost of borrowing on credit cards, mortgages and other loans, will stay between 2% to 2.25%

Markets have gone up this month and the Fed will more than likely raise rates at the final 2018 meeting. This also suggest the rates will raise several more times in 2019. Policymakers explain that this is a standard reaction to the strong economy.  This will give central bankers some cushion if a downturn were to occur.

Not all of the aspects of the economy are at full force. Business investments have risen very little and the investors are curious to see if the Fed officials will anticipate a lower growth in next year’s forecast.

The job market is strong. In October, employers added 250,000 jobs.  Wages have also gone up 3.1% year-over-year. While this is good news for Americans, officials fear that low unemployment and higher wages might speed up inflation which could force the central bank to raise rates aggressively.

Taking Care of the Details During the Closing Process

You’ve found or had a builder build your perfect home for you, and now it is time for you to complete the transaction and close on your home.  Closing day, if you have never done it before, can be a nerve-wracking process, so this article will help you with the requirements for that day.
In the original sales contract, there will be a “close-by” date that doesn’t necessarily mean the actual day that you will close on your home. This date is established to make sure that the contract is completed in a reasonable time period that is acceptable to both the buyer and the seller.  That way, there is a deadline to sell or buy the actual home.  The close-by date can be a “goal” of sorts to close

on your home. Much will determine the final closing date, mostly the time it takes for the appraisal, loan application, mortgage approval, and a final walk-through if you are building a new home.  The title company is the actual entity which sets up the closing for the home.  A title search / abstract is done on the property or the home itself to ensure that you have a clear title upon closing.  This process can also affect the timing of the closing.

Once the title company and you have received your closing disclosure from the lender, then any financial questions, closing cost questions, or tax questions are answered, and the closing is ready to happen.  The title company and lender work closely together to make sure that both parties are able to make the final closing date. So, ideally, you, as the buyer, should be able to set your closing date, but it typically ends up being more of a lender / title company decision.

In order to avoid additional interest and closing costs, you may want to suggest at the beginning of the process that the closing date be as close to the end of the month as possible.  A closing date after the 20th of the month can move out the date of your first payment and save the cost of daily interest until the first loan payment is due.

Another thing that you can take care of on your end is to make the move from your old place to your new place as smooth as possible. As soon as you can find out your closing date, you can make sure that you will be able to move out immediately afterwards so that you don’t incur anymore charges at the place where you are currently living.

For the closing day itself, you might want to bring your closing disclosure which the lender will typically send you 3 days prior to closing with you on the day of closing.  That way, you can compare what you previously received and the final closing documents to make sure that they match.  Also, if you feel like you will have questions or issues at closing, you can make sure that a representative of the lender and your Realtor (if you used one) shows up at closing to support you.

Buying a new home or a previously owned home can be an exciting adventure, but you will have to be prepared to take care of all of the details of the buying process with the help of your Realtor, the lender and the title company.  Since everyone involved in the transaction benefits financially, don’t hesitate to reach out to them to ask any questions or get the help you need during the closing process.

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Know Your Credit Score and Other Helpful Home Buying Tips

There are many tools that new home buyers can use to prepare to become a homeowner, which were not available even a few years ago.  On the Internet, new home buyers can access home loan calculators, tax appraisals, pre-qualification opportunities, and constant credit monitoring.  Some new home buyers may not realize that the last item – credit monitoring – is one of the most important factors that lenders use to determine eligibility for a new home loan.  Staying on top of your credit right before you are about to buy a home is the most important thing you will need to do unless you are planning on being able to purchase a new home for sale with cash.

If you have the availability, sign up for a free credit monitoring agency which will not only be able to constantly inform you about your credit report, but it will also alert you if there are any changes to

your credit report.  You are going to want to know exactly where you stand with your credit when you go to apply for a loan.

If you check your credit report, and you see items on it that you don’t recognize, be sure to immediately report those errors to the credit agencies so that they can be removed.  Any good credit monitoring company will have information where you can dispute items on any of the three credit agencies’ reports.  You will need to have as clean a credit report as you can when applying for a home loan.

Finally, if there are legitimate items on your credit report which need to be addressed or paid, you will want to be sure to take care of those before applying for a loan.  Some banks won’t approve you for a loan with derogatory marks on your credit report.  Others will give you a loan, but it will be for a higher interest rate than you would have gotten with a better credit rating.

Credit is the biggest factor in getting a home loan, but don’t forget that you will need to have enough income to qualify for a home loan. Make sure you know how much you qualify for before going out to search for a house, so that you don’t go out of your price range during your search.

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What to Know About Researching Your Loan

An article written on a popular website begins with the assumption that you, as the home buyer, are aware that you have the choice to shop your lender.  So let’s start there with the discussion of what you should be learning from the company which is going to be lending you money for what could be the most important investment of your life.

Researching Your Loan

As a home buyer, you have the right to shop your mortgage.  You can and should contact as many lenders, banks, and / or mortgage companies as possible and ask them the costs on application fees, appraisal fees, and the breakdown of your closing costs.  Specifically with your closing costs, you will want to check to see if they are a mortgage broker or if they are the company that has the underwriter who will approve your loan.  A mortgage broker can incur additional fees on top of your loan origination fees. When you contact your lender, you are going to be asking them what their loan origination fees are.  This is a way to “weed out” any unknown loan companies which may have higher fees.

Know Your Title Company

You, as the home buyer, do have some say in the title company that is used by the lender.  The lender works with specific title companies, therefore sometimes gets a better rate that you would as an individual.  However, if you are interested in cross-checking their rates, you can get quotes from title companies as well to make sure that you are not overpaying for those services.

Another big chunk of your closing costs is the cost of your escrow account, if you are doing one.  There is a deposit into your escrow account that is for your taxes and insurance.  If you haven’t yet shopped for the most competitive rate for your homeowner’s insurance, you should definitely do that before you choose your lender or title company.  Your insurance rate accounts for the amount of money that is added to your loan each month in order to pay your annual premium.  The better the rate, the lower the deposit and the lower monthly payment.

On the flip side, you should find out if there are any credits available to you depending on the type of loan that you are getting.  Some lenders are authorized to credit up to a certain amount of money depending on the loan-to-value ratio or the type of loan they are doing. If you are pulling money out of the loan for renovations or to create a home equity line of credit, make sure you get the most amount of money you can at the best interest rate.

Hidden Fees / Down Payment

Once you have done all of your research mentioned above, don’t forget to check with your lender on the following items:

You should find out what interest rates are offered and how much points would be if you chose to “buy down” your interest rate.  Many people don’t know about points, and lenders can sometimes add them into the cost of the loan in order to advertise a better rate to the home buyer.  Make sure that you are getting the base cost of the loan and then the cost of points.  Your lender can break down for you how the cost of points can save you money in the long run by showing how you “pay off” your points and still ssave money of your monthly payments.

Secondly, when you are finding out about the type of loan available to you, find out the specific information about the down payment.  Lending restrictions have loosened up in the last couple of years, so a 20% down payment is not necessarily required anymore to get a loan.

If you are able to obtain a fabulous rate, make SURE to find out exactly when you are required to close if you lock-in your rate in order to be able to keep that excellent rate for closing.  Locking in your rate means, though, that you can’t get a better rate later on, so if you feel like your closing can happen fast, and you have the best rate, go ahead and lock it down to get the most savings.

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