Get Ready… Get Set… Go!

by

from John Inzeo, Vice President of Wisconsin Mortgage Corporation

Get Ready… Get Set… GO !!!! That has been our motto at Wisconsin Mortgage as we have prepared to assist home buyers in 2014. Many new rules and regulations have been created these past few years with the newest taking effect on January 10, 2014.

I’m happy to report that Wisconsin Mortgage’s testing of the new Qualified Mortgage (QM) rule has been much more positive than we anticipated. If you recall, QM standards include a stated maximum debt-to-income ratio (DTI) of 43%. QM also requires that borrowers pay no more than 3% of the proposed mortgage principal in total costs to acquire financing. A very small percentage of loans failed this new test, and we fully expect to successfully navigate a very high percentage of our loans through this new regulation in 2014 and beyond.

The Ability To Repay (ATR) standard  which requires additional documentation has also created concern related to tightening of available credit. Our industry partners have been working in concert to develop “make sense” worksheets to assist mortgage underwriters in the further documentation and clarification of income used to qualify borrowers. Assisting customers to acquire financing that they can actually afford has been a major tenant of our company since it was formed in 1983. Meeting the ATR standards will require us to ask for more documentation, but the key to our success will be a higher level of communication with Shorewest real estate agents and the buyers they entrust to us.

On the national front, the new Director of Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) will delay any increases in loan fees, ensuring that we would NOT start the new year with higher fees being charged to customers who do not have perfect credit scores and/or those with lower down payments. Furthermore, the new Federal Reserve Chairwoman is advocating for gradual tapering of Federal Reserve Bonds to ensure stability of interest rates in 2014 and 2015.

So my best advice is this… Get ready by getting pre approved for financing today. Get set by contacting a Shorewest agent to begin the home buying process and GO! Rates are still historically low and housing inventory will sell fast. Don’t miss out on the opportunity to own the home of your dreams. We would be honored to finance that dream for you today.

Categories: Home Buying, Home Selling, Mortgage, Quarterly Newsletter