Remember When Kansas City Home Buyers Were Trusted On Their Stated Income Level?

Checking The Pulse Of The Kansas City Real Estate Market

It’s hard to believe that stated income loans – a.k.a. liar loans – were a common lending practices just a few years ago. A borrower who was between jobs could simply tell the lender they’re monthly income, accept a slightly higher interest rate, the lender wouldn’t verify the income and the buyer was on their way to closing. Amazing. But those days are gone and it’s become much more black and white to get a mortgage loan today. If you don’t have a 3.5% down payment, you better have VA loan eligibility or be talking to me about one of the special loan programs out there that require you to jump through hoops to get a loan.

You definitely need to have stable employment and decent credit scores. Think about this for a moment… I actually had a buyer with 800 credit scores and 50% down get harassed late in the process to provide additional documentation. He was self-employed and my first thought was, wouldn’t a bank WANT a buyer with 50% equity to default on the loan. But it took just a moment to rationalize things and realize that banks don’t want any more REO properties on this books — even ones they’d make money on by taking back through the foreclosure process and selling later.