Entries categorized as ‘Lee's Summit Real Estate’
Hands On The Heartland
Checking The Pulse Of The Kansas City Real Estate Market
The good news with the Kansas City Real estate market is that Freddie Mac reports that average 30 year interest rates dipped to 4.97% nationally last week. Interest rates below 5% are absolutely amazing and too many of us take today’s low interest rates for granted. One day, poof, they’ll be gone. I’m going to do a post sometime soon that shows just how much a borrower saves by purchasing with a 5% interest versus the 9% rate I had on my first home in the early 1990’s. The difference is truly astounding. Anyhow, so what other good news is there out there, other than the home buyer tax credit (that is keeping home sales moving along with smoke and mirrors)? I had to dig a little but I found that existing home sales in the Kansas City metro rose around 8% in January (compared to 1/09). That’s certainly good news but comes with the caveat that it’s being compared against a month that was just plain horrid.
The Good, The Bad & The Ugly
So moving on to the bad news, my National Association of Realtors reports this week that existing homes sales fell an unexpected 7.2% in January (compared to 1/09). The sales rate in January was the lowest since June of last year. Ouch. And now for the ugly news… New home construction sales nationally fell 6.1% in January (compared to 1/09) to reach the lowest number of home sales since records started being kept back in 1963. Local new home sales news was bad too, with the number of new home sales falling 28% in January (compared to 1/09). In case you couldn’t tell, it’s still a Buyer’s market out there. I can’t wait until this market turns and I get to write hundreds of posts about how great the market is. Ah, the good old days…
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Categories: City Market Stats · Home Buying · Home Selling · Investment Property · Johnson County KS Real Estate · Kansas City Real Estate · Leawood Kansas Real Estate · Lee's Summit Real Estate · Lenexa Kansas Real Estate · Mortgage Loans · Olathe Kansas Real Estate · Overland Park KS Real Estate · Prairie Village Real Estate · Shawnee Kansas Real Estate
Tagged: Kansas City Home Sales Stats, Kansas City Real Estate Market, Kansas City Real Estate News
Hands On The Heartland
Checking The Pulse Of The Kansas City Real Estate Market
When preparing your home for sale, it’s critical that you de-clutter the home. I’ve mentioned before that preparing one room can’t come at the expense of another room. The entire home needs to appeal to homebuyers and getting clutter out of the home is imperative. Donating or throwing away items isn’t always an option, and a home I sold last year was a prime example. The couple had recently married and the entire basement of the home is where one of the spouses entire household of items resided. This couple had no friends or family in town with storage space, so the choice was made to have pods delivered to get the items out the home.
A potentially cheaper but more labor intensive option is hauling the items yourself to a self-storage facility. Either way, getting the items out of the home is a great choice and will help sellers net the most out of their home. Another seller last year had very little clutter but they also had very little storage space. 90% of the basement area was finished and this left little storage space for the items they did have. If they hadn’t hauled all the items to a self-storage facility, the perception absolutely would have been that this home had no storage space — and perception is reality.
If storing items is in your future, here’s a list of companies that can help you with self-storage facility or having a pod delivered and then hauled away and stored until you’re ready to have it delivered…
Mobile Storage
Self Storage
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Categories: Home Selling · Investment Property · Johnson County KS Real Estate · Kansas City Real Estate · Leawood Kansas Real Estate · Lee's Summit Real Estate · Lenexa Kansas Real Estate · Olathe Kansas Real Estate · Overland Park KS Real Estate · Prairie Village Real Estate · Shawnee Kansas Real Estate
Tagged: Kansas City Container Storage, Kansas City Mobile Storage, Kansas City Self Storage, Kansas City Storage Companies
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…
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Categories: Home Buying · Investment Property · Johnson County KS Real Estate · Kansas City Real Estate · Leawood Kansas Real Estate · Lee's Summit Real Estate · Lenexa Kansas Real Estate · Mortgage Loans · Olathe Kansas Real Estate · Overland Park KS Real Estate · Prairie Village Real Estate · Shawnee Kansas Real Estate
Tagged: Kansas City Fannie Mae Foreclosures, Kansas City HomePath Lenders, Overland Park Fannie Mae Foreclosures
Hands On The Heartland
Checking The Pulse Of The Kansas City Real Estate Market
You’ve heard me say there’s a lot of downsides to having your own private pool in your back yard. The reason 99% of Johnson County Kansas homeowner’s will give for not wanting a pool is because they aren’t usable 8 or 9 months out of the year. Other concerns include they’re a money pit to maintain, they’re time-consuming, they’re a danger and liability… oh, and they’ll cost you thousands of dollars for your trouble. Want more? I’ve seen homes sell for less AFTER a pool was installed. This becomes less likely with upper bracket homes, but can still be true even then. You can read more about my thoughts on having a private pool in one of my older posts. So what’s the better option (in most cases)?
Johnson County KS Subdivision Pool
Fortunately, the answer doesn’t necessarily need to be for homeowners to head out to the city run pools. Those can be packed, an all-around hassle and dirty – well, ALL pools are dirty but you get the idea. In the past 20 years or so, community pools have been included as part of the amenity packages in many Johnson County Kansas subdivisions. Use of the pool typically falls under control of the homeowner’s association (the homeowners in the area) and the fees are almost always factored into a subdivision’s yearly HOA dues.
I have personally lived in 6 Johnson County Kansas home communities that had pools and have always had a good experience. The pools have always been clean (a pool company is paid to take care of the pools weekly) and usually the pools aren’t packed. There are exceptions, but generally I’ve always been able to get a chair to sit in and throw a football with my boys… something that can be much more difficult at a city pool. If having a pool in the subdivision could be an important part of your Johnson County Kansas home search, I’ve put together the following links to homes for sale in the Johnson County KS area. Only homes for sale in subdivisions with a pool will be included and I’ve broken the list down by price range to make it easier to search…
If you’d like to add any additional search parameters to the searches above, that can be done as well. Just email me directly to let me know all your preferred search parameters and I’ll follow up with you. We can add additional parameters and have a link to all matching areas homes for sale sent directly to you!
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Categories: Home Buying · Investment Property · Johnson County KS Real Estate · Kansas City Real Estate · Lee's Summit Real Estate · Lenexa Kansas Real Estate · Olathe Kansas Real Estate · Overland Park KS Real Estate · Shawnee Kansas Real Estate
Tagged: Johnson County Kansas Communities, Johnson County Kansas Subdivisions, Johnson County KS Subdivisions With Community Pools
Hands On The Heartland
Checking The Pulse Of The Kansas City Real Estate Market
Getting homeowner’s insurance in place is one of the important aspects of buying a Kansas City home. I always remind my home buyers early on to shop carriers and insurance rates because they can save a lot of money by doing so. But in most cases the response is they’ll just contact their current insurance agent and have them get the info to their lender. At this point I mention that since they’re already going to have to go through the process of setting up a new policy, there’s no time like the present to check out the insurance options available — and with rates fluctuating greatly in recent years, it makes a lot of sense to shop around.
Getting at least 3 quotes is advantageous because all insurance companies handle insurance quotes differently. I’ve been there and at times it can feel like you’re comparing apples and oranges, so asking questions whenever you don’t understand something is also important. At one point I found out that my insurer would no longer cover roofs for wind and hail damage… yes, I switched companies at that point. “Replacement coverage” is very common and is designed to cover the replacement cost if you had to rebuild the home from scratch — including personal property in the home. This may seem like common sense insurance but there are varying degrees of under-insuring and over-insuring, so be sure you understand just exactly what you’re getting.
Other common considerations include making sure you add coverage for outbuildings, detached garages, barns and pools. Also be sure you have coverage for luxury items in your home, like a diamond ring or a fur. If homes in your area are appreciating at a great rate (something they used to do – and will again at some point), you need to make sure you’re amount of coverage is keeping up with the appreciation rate. One item I’m sure many homeowners often overlook is that if you finish your basement, you need to contact your insurance agent to increase your coverage.
I’ve seen quotes that are double from one insurance company to the next and you never know the motivation (or lack thereof) of any particular insurance company. They could be looking to add policy holders or they could be constricting. As with auto insurance, the higher you’re willing to go on your deductible, the lower your annual policy premium will be. So if you want your policy deductible to be low enough to cover a broken window, you shouldn’t expect you’re annual premium to be low as well. You can find reductions in insurance premiums by having your vehicles with the same insurance company and by installing a security system. There are many other ways to get reduced premiums, so be sure to ask what the options are. Oh, and your credit scores is likely to play a role in how much your policy will cost you. Insurance companies have found a link between homeowner’s with high credit scores making fewer claims. So there’s all the more incentive to improve that credit score when buying a home.
If you’re shopping for homeowner’s insurance, here’s a few insurance companies you can check with…
And here’s an interesting site for comparing insurance companies that I’ve seen receive some good online reviews…
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Categories: Home Buying · Investment Property · Johnson County KS Real Estate · Kansas City Real Estate · Leawood Kansas Real Estate · Lee's Summit Real Estate · Lenexa Kansas Real Estate · Mortgage Loans · Olathe Kansas Real Estate · Overland Park KS Real Estate · Prairie Village Real Estate · Shawnee Kansas Real Estate
Tagged: Kansas City Home Owner's Insurance, Kansas City Homeowner's Insurance
Hands On The Heartland
Checking The Pulse Of The Kansas City Real Estate Market
A home search in the southern Overland Park Kansas area sometimes crosses over into the city limits of in southern Leawood Kansas. A northern Overland Park home search can quickly lead to considering homes in northern Leawood, Prairie Village or Eastern Shawnee Kansas. It’s really difficult at times to know when you just left one city and entered another. Some homebuyers may care about this but others place no importance on whether they just left the Lenexa city limits and entered Shawnee. In another example, some home buyers might assume that being west of Pflumm and south of I-435 means you’re in Olathe. But it could mean you’re in Overland Park at certain points too. Again, that may matter to some buyers but not to others.
So, while some buyers are best served by searching by School Districts or by city, others may want to consider a Zip Code search instead. Many Zip Code searches will often allow a buyer to cross city boundaries while keeping them in close proximity to their work or whatever it is that’s driving their home search. A zip code search can also help a buyer focus on demographics, if that’s important. If you wish to be in the Western Olathe area, a search of the 66061 zip code would do the trick. If you only want to view homes for sale in Western Lenexa, a 66220 zip code search would be an excellent starting point. Homes in the old Stilwell Kansas area (what’s now southeast Overland Park)? Try the 66085 zip code. You really can zone in on an area by finding one great listing that you like, noting that zip code, and then coming back to this page and clicking on the that zip code to view all the other area homes for sale…
If searching by zip code doesn’t do the trick, we can schedule a time to sit down at my office to log into MLS and draw lines on the MLS map to select the precise parameters you want… it doesn’t have to be a simple boxed area either. We can zig and zag the lines on an MLS map to meet your precise area parameters. So don’t hesitate to contact me to schedule an appointment to do so.
If you are getting MORE than 100 results when clicking any of the above zip codes, be aware that you’re not seeing all of the available homes. In fact, you’ll be seeing just the 100 most expensive homes in that zip code. You can tell if there are more than 100 results by looking for the black print right above the button that says “Email Me When New Listings Match This Search”. If it indicates there’s more than 100, here’s a trick you can use: once you’ve clicked on one of the above zip codes if it indicates there’s between 100 and 200 properties for sale in the zip code, click “ASCENDING BY PRICE” and click the SORT button. This allows you view the 100 LEAST expensive homes in the zip code – thus letting you see 200 total listings at most.
Now if there are more than 200 available homes in a zip code, you’ll have to go to work to narrow the parameters to less than 200 homes. Change the price or some other parameters because MLS rules only allow consumers to do a search that nets 100 maximum results (200 with the trick I just showed you). To search a zip code AND change a search parameters is easy, just go HERE and enter your preferred zip code and enter a price range parameter, etc. Enjoy searching!
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Categories: Home Buying · Investment Property · Johnson County KS Real Estate · Kansas City Real Estate · Leawood Kansas Real Estate · Lee's Summit Real Estate · Lenexa Kansas Real Estate · Olathe Kansas Real Estate · Overland Park KS Real Estate · Prairie Village Real Estate · Shawnee Kansas Real Estate
Tagged: Search Johnson County KS Homes By Zip Code, Search Kansas City Homes By Zip Code, Search Leawood KS Homes By Zip Code, Search Lenexa KS Homes By Zip Code, Search Olathe KS Homes By Zip Code, Search Overland Park Kansas Homes By Zip Code
Hands On The Heartland
Checking The Pulse Of The Kansas City Real Estate Market
A late 2009 poll of Realtors who are a member of the National Association of Realtors indicates that 39% of mortgage loans in recent months were Federal Housing Administration (FHA) loans. So it’s important to note that new FHA guidelines are planned to go into effect sometime this spring. These new guidelines will make it more complicated to get a FHA loan and a little costlier too. On one hand, I don’t want to hear of anything that makes it more restrictive for Kansas City home buyers to get a loan. On the other hand, keeping FHA on solid ground is absolutely essential to the housing market, even if it means some buyers will no longer qualify for a FHA loan. Keep in mind that FHA provides the majority of loans to first time home buyers — and nearly half of the home sales were seeing today ARE first time home buyers.
“Striking the right balance between managing the FHA’s risk, continuing to provide access to underserved communities, and supporting the nation’s economic recovery is critically important… When combined with the risk management measures announced in September of last year, these changes are among the most significant steps to address risk in the agency’s history. Additionally, by continuing to provide affordable, responsible mortgage products, FHA will support the housing market’s recovery. Importantly, FHA will remain the largest source of home purchase financing for under served communities.” — FHA Commissioner David Stevens
The big changes that are coming include a requirement that home buyers have a minimum 580 FICO score to qualify for the standard 3.5% minimum down payment. If your FICO score is lower than a 580 you MUST have a minimum 10% down payment. This may seem like a bad idea to some, but the low-down and no-down home loans that were made the past decade played a huge role in the number of defaulted loans we’ve seen. So if you have a 570 credit score you’ve shown you are a huge credit risk. Giving out loans is all about risk management (or should be) and, by requiring a 10% down payment, FHA will either (a) run off the buyers most likely to default on a loan or (b) hold the buyers hand to the fire by requiring a 10% down payment. It will certainly be a whole lot harder for a borrower to throw their hands in the air and walk away from a 10% down payment than it was to walk away from a 3% down payment (which is all that was required as recently as a year ago). Then again there may not be many of these 10% down loans anyhow because I don’t know any lenders handing out loans to buyers with credit score in the 500’s.
Another of the new guidelines is that seller paid concessions may NOT exceed 3% of the sales price of the home — the maximum allowed previously was 6%. This means on a home that goes under contract for $100,000, a buyer can not get the seller to pay more than $3,000 of the buyer’s allowable closing costs. The old system would have allowed $6,000. But here’s why this change should matter very little… Very few sellers were willing to pay more than 3% of a buyer’s closing costs anyhow. Still, I’ve heard many other agents screaming this could be a huge problem for borrowers. But even if a seller were willing to pay 4, 5 or 6% of a buyers allowable closing costs, I simply can’t see any appraiser allowing the home to appraise for the purchase price PLUS a huge amount in seller-paid closing costs. To be honest, you’re asking for trouble even getting a home to appraise for ONE PERCENT more than the purchase price in today’s market.
There’s one other change guaranteed to have an effect on ALL borrowers getting a FHA loan. The up front mortgage insurance premium (MIP) required on FHA loans will increase from 1.75% to 2.25%. On a $100,000 mortgage, this means the up front fee would increase from $1,750 to $2,250 – thus you can expect a $500 increase for every $100,000 of mortgage. As always, buyers will still be able to finance this amount into their loans — but it’s a real cost increase when getting a FHA loan going forward. If you’re considering getting a FHA loan, these are all factors to take into consideration and discuss with your mortgage loan officer. Again, these guidelines are estimated to go into effect sometime later this spring.
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Categories: Home Buying · Johnson County KS Real Estate · Kansas City Real Estate · Leawood Kansas Real Estate · Lee's Summit Real Estate · Lenexa Kansas Real Estate · Mortgage Loans · Olathe Kansas Real Estate · Overland Park KS Real Estate · Prairie Village Real Estate · Shawnee Kansas Real Estate
Tagged: Kansas City FHA Home Loan, Kansas City FHA Mortgage Loans
Hands On The Heartland
Checking The Pulse Of The Kansas City Real Estate Market
When preparing your home to sell, there’s a lot of checklists you can follow. But if you’re not careful, the de-cluttering of one area can quickly lead to the cluttering up of another area. Remember, you’re working to make your ENTIRE home appealing to home buyers, not just the main living spaces. When a home hits the market, it needs to be completely organized where all rooms appear as large as possible and completely functional to potential home buyers. An example of de-cluttering would be removal of all ottomans from living spaces. Items such as these are space killers and do nothing when it comes to making rooms appealing to homebuyers. They are in fact detriments that cause home buyers to walk-around them, while taking the buyers focus away from home’s important details. Just as importantly, they can prevent a home buyer from envisioning their own furniture and items in your home.
When removing items like ottoman’s from your living spaces, you’ll need to make room for them in your unfinished areas. Doing so often means you’ll have to get rid of unnecessary items already occupying the space in your unfinished areas. You simply can’t accept moving furniture to the basement if it’s going to give home buyers the appearance that the home lacks adequate storage space. And under no circumstances would you want to stack the items in an unsafe manner or let the items get double deep away from the storage room walls.
The best plan of attack when moving is to get rid of unnecessary items before your home goes on the market. The first consideration is often to donate the item but many items that are of little value to you will be of even less value to others — in other words, charities don’t want to come and haul off your trash for free. If you’ve gotten this far, you’re remaining options are probably to call your cousin Earl to come take the items, haul the items to a landfill yourself, have a company haul the items away or have a roll off dumpster delivered to your home. The list below will help you get going on many of these possibilities…
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Categories: Home Selling · Investment Property · Johnson County KS Real Estate · Kansas City Real Estate · Leawood Kansas Real Estate · Lee's Summit Real Estate · Lenexa Kansas Real Estate · Olathe Kansas Real Estate · Overland Park KS Real Estate · Prairie Village Real Estate · Shawnee Kansas Real Estate
Tagged: Kansas City Disposal Companies, Kansas City Roll Off Services, Kansas City Trash Removal
Hands On The Heartland
Checking The Pulse Of The Kansas City Real Estate Market
The search tool I use to show you all of the area homes for sale (fed from the Kansas City MLS) has been greatly improved. In addition to giving you the listing updates by email, now when they come to you the updates no longer jumble the old listing information with the new. You’ll get to clearly see what’s changed since the last update and specific changes will be highlighted. This is all designed to help you make an informed real estate decision. Although the sample below may a little hard to read, notice the text items in RED below showing recent CHANGES to the updates…
Kansas City Home Search Tool
You can see how clear the updates will be and this will save a ton of time when scanning the list of homes. Being able to see when a home from your previous list has SOLD will benefit home buyers and home sellers alike. You’ll also get to see what the market around you is doing as they’ll be clearly marked with PRICE REDUCTION. These are all improvements to our system to help Kansas City home buyers and home sellers stay current with the real estate market. We believe providing real estate information in a quick and efficient manner are key to a successful real estate transaction.
If you haven’t checked out our home search tool, visit our Home Search page to get going. Once you’ve created a search be sure to SAVE it, so you can come back to it later and also save the search to start receiving email updates – which now include the added features on this page! It’s all free when searching homes for sale in Kansas City, Johnson County KS, Overland Park, Olathe, Lenexa, Leawood, Shawnee and the surrounding metro area!
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Categories: Home Buying · Home Selling · Investment Property · Johnson County KS Real Estate · Kansas City Real Estate · Leawood Kansas Real Estate · Lee's Summit Real Estate · Lenexa Kansas Real Estate · Olathe Kansas Real Estate · Overland Park KS Real Estate · Prairie Village Real Estate · Shawnee Kansas Real Estate
Tagged: Homes Listed In The Kansas City Multiple Listing Service, Kansas City Home Search Tool, Kansas City Homes For Sale, Kansas City MLS Search, Lenexa Homes For Sale, Search Leawood Homes For Sale, Search Leawood Kansas Homes, Search Olathe Homes For Sale, Search Overland Park Kansas Homes
Hands On The Heartland
Checking The Pulse Of The Kansas City Real Estate Market
The new 2010 Good Faith Estimate has been in effect for more than a month and I’ve yet to see any mortgage lenders, borrowers or real estate agents climbing buildings or jumping off bridges. The changes do however have people talking and will certainly change the way loans have been handled over the years. For the best mortgage lenders, these changes won’t have the same drastic effect they’ll have on shady or unorganized lenders. The lenders I know well have also taken on the changes head on in educating agents and borrowers alike about the changes.
The January 1st 2010 Real Estate Settlement Procedure Act (RESPA) has certainly made the Good Faith Estimate a lot more good faith — and a lot less Que Sara, Sara. Lenders will have to educate borrowers on what’s being charged for their loan, why they’re being charged each amount and in many cases, who exactly is charging the fees. I’m expecting it will clearly educate borrowers on the risks of ARM loans and other creative financing methods that are at the root of our current financial mess. I’ve read many places online that it will make it very easy to compare the Good Faith Estimate that was given out early in the process to the actual HUD-1 Settlement Statement that will be produced for the real estate closing.
The new Good Faith Estimate requires that mortgage lenders show all the key loan terms and closing costs to borrowers. More importantly, if the lender half-asses a Good Faith estimate, the lender could be on the hook for overages in many instances. I’m thinking this will give home buyers some good assurance that the Good Faith Estimates will be reasonably accurate and minimize or eliminate the junk fees seen all too often over the years. Finding junk fees on the HUD-1 has put many a borrower in the difficult circumstance of not being able to fight it because they’ve already closed on their home sale. And, if you’re thinking ahead like me, this seems likely to lead lenders to work closely with closing agents to build a comfort level that the fees quoted early on are more-or-less guaranteed come closing time.
Different aspects of the new Good Faith Estimate (GFE) are defined at different tolerance levels. The one I’ve commonly heard referred to is the 10% tolerance of quoted fees. This applies to settlement service fees where the lender specifies the provider to be used in the transaction. But there’s also many that fall under zero tolerance, including fees the lender was in direct control of when they were listed on the GFE – such as the lender’s own origination fees, underwriting fees and processing fees. Then there’s the unlimited tolerance for items that the borrower is in control of – such as title insurance, home inspections and homeowner’s insurance. You can see how the lender can’t be expected to guarantee the latter.
It’s worth noting that many lenders believe any money saved by the new GFE could be lost due to the extra time and costs required to make sure they are in compliance with the changes — all costs they’d likely want to pass on to consumers. But if lenders start erring on the safe side, competitors who are on the ball and quoting accurate fees and costs will undercut them and secure the borrower’s business. So I find it unlikely that lenders will simply quote high amounts on the GFE, because if they do they may go out of business – due to having no business. The new Good Faith Estimate is a 3-page document that provides a break down of loan costs in layman terms. ALL mortgage lenders are required to use this document going forward and you can check out some of the most common GFE questions here on these 57 pages of frequently asked RESPA questions.
A down side that I’m pondering is whether lenders will refuse to give borrowers a Good Faith Estimate early in the home buying process. If they refuse until a buyer has applied for a home loan and gone under contract, this would keep a borrower from really knowing the costs of the loan until they’re already under contract. Although I could argue that’s no worse than what’s been dealt with before these changes were made. We’ll need several more months to see how things play out and make any definitive assessments of the effect of the new GFE. Irregardless, it’s as critical as ever that borrowers work with a reputable and trust-worthy lender. If you’re looking for a good lender to finance your home purchase or refinance your current home, here are three lenders that I would trust to handle my own Kansas City mortgage loan…
Jill Underwood with Pulaski Bank
Email: jill@jillunderwood.com
Phone: 913-915-0150
www.JillUnderwood.com
Alan Scarpa with National Bank Of Kansas City
Email: ascarpa@nbofkc.com
Phone: 913-253-0189
www.nbofkc.com
Rick Woodruff with Metropolitan Mortgage Corporation
Email: rick@e-metropolitan.com
Phone: 913-642-8300
www.emetropolitan.com
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Categories: Home Buying · Investment Property · Johnson County KS Real Estate · Kansas City Real Estate · Leawood Kansas Real Estate · Lee's Summit Real Estate · Lenexa Kansas Real Estate · Mortgage Loans · Olathe Kansas Real Estate · Overland Park KS Real Estate · Prairie Village Real Estate · Shawnee Kansas Real Estate
Tagged: Kansas City Home Loans, Kansas City Mortgage Lenders, Kansas City Mortgage Loans
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