HANDS ON THE HEARTLAND: Checking The Pulse Of The Kansas City Real Estate Market

Hands On The Heartland
Checking The Pulse Of The Kansas City Real Estate Market

Whether I’m representing smaller local banks or large national banks, I really enjoy selling bank owned properties in Kansas City. The process is one that comes second nature to me and knowing the process inside and out also comes in very handy when representing buyers in their purchase of a bank property. In my experience, these transactions are simplified because the homes are already through all of the nonsense of the foreclosure process, the lender’s want them off their books, there’s little problem negotiating a close date, the buyer already knows they’re not going to be asking for any inspection repairs, etc.  Buying a Fannie Mae foreclosed home also just became a little easier for many home buyers in Kansas City.

Fannie Mae Foreclosures are homes that had borrower loans that were backed by Fannie Mae and have since gone through the foreclosure process. This is not just some foreclosure niche either. Fannie Mae owns or backs HALF of the mortgage loans being written in our country today, so it’s a lot of homes were talking about that fall under Fannie Mae control. To help deal with moving the high number of foreclosures off of their books, Fannie Mae created the HomePath Mortgage Program as incentive for home buyers to purchase these homes. This program allows Kansas City home buyers to purchase a Fannie Mae foreclosed home with clear-cut advantages not found with most other lenders/loans and homes.

I want to be clear that a Fannie Mae foreclosed property can be purchased WITHOUT going through the Fannie Mae HomePath program. But there are a lot of reasons borrowers should consider the HomePath program. For starters, borrowers will only need a 3% down payment. FHA loans require a 3.5% down payment and conventional loans require 5%. There’s also a relaxation on explaining where the down payment came from… it can come from your Aunt Topsy, your savings account, your riverboat winnings, a loan from your boss (seriously), etc.  There are flexible options on the type of loan, as borrowers can go with a loan that’s a fixed rate, adjustable rate or interest only (I’m going to bite my tongue on discussing how adjustable rate and interest only loans are part of what got us in our current financial mess). Borrowers can qualify with less than perfect credit and there are investor loan options too, although investors would be required to have a 5% down payment, among other things.

Another big benefit is there are no required appraisal fees. Probably most important of all, Kansas City home buyers can get a HomePath loan with NO PMI! So you can have less than a 20% down payment and not have to pay the mortgage insurance premium other types of loans require. This is typically one of the biggest negatives when buying a home, so not having to worry about PMI would save borrowers a TON of money with lower mortgage payments. To give you an idea of what’s out there, here’s a list of Johnson County Kansas homes that qualify for HomePath financing. If you find a great home, you can then search that address directly from my home search page to verify it’s still available. Also, be aware that only a handful of local Johnson County Kansas and Kansas City lenders are approved HomePath lenders. Check out the following list of approved lenders at the time of this writing…

CapWest Mortgage

Century 21 Mortgage

Champion Mortgage

CitiMortgage

CMG Mortgage, Inc.

Coldwell Banker Mortgage

Colonial National Mortgage

ERA Mortgage

First Place Bank

Flagstar Bank

GMAC Mortgage

MetLife Home Loans

Nationstar Mortgage

PNC Mortgage

Prospect Mortgage

PHH Mortgage

Quicken Loans

Weichert Financial Services

Posted by Jason A. Brown

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