Freddie Mac Home Possible reduces income limits

Freddie Mac has announced changes to their Home Possible mortgage program. Freddie Mac’s Home Possible and Fannie Mae’s Home Ready mortgage programs offers competitive pricing with interest rates and reduced private mortgage insurance premiums for home buyers. [Read more…]

Stop paying rent: Mortgages with down payment assistance

This post is the last in my series showing different options for buying a home using mortgages with low down payment options. The series started from a posting I saw on Facebook where one of my West Seattle neighbors is trying to find a place to rent that accepts pets. This is my handsome pup, Hitch, who might not be allowed in most apartments since he’s over 65 pounds…even though he’s just a big puppy.  🙂

My previous posts compared using Fannie Mae’s Home Ready program and an FHA mortgage with the goal of keeping the total mortgage payment around $2200.

This post will be using a program from the Washington State Housing Finance Commission which offers down payment assistance. The down payment assistance is actually a second mortgage at zero percent interest that is tacked on to the end of the first mortgage. There are no payments due for 30 years (or when the first mortgage is paid off). Although the down payment assistance interest rate is zero, the interest rates for the first mortgages with this program tend to be higher (as you’ll see with my quote). [Read more…]

Reason to stop paying rent #7: You have a pet

I love my pets, Rocko and Hitch. We have had pets before we had (our now adult) children. I totally understand someone’s anguish when they are trying to deal with where they are going to live when they have pets.
This morning, I was catching up on Facebook and in our local neighborhood group for West Seattle, a neighbor is worried about if their landlord is getting ready to sell the home they are currently renting. [Read more…]

Fannie Mae’s HomeReady Mortgage

2013-03-07_0746The HomeReady Mortgage is a mortgage program created by Fannie Mae intended to help low-to-moderate income borrowers with good credit buy or refinance a home.

Here are more details about the HomeReady Mortgage:

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Reduced Down Payment Conventional Loans may require Compensating Factors

Mel_WattMel Watt, Director of the FHFA, has released his prepared remarks for the National Association of Realtors Conference. In his remarks, he addresses the lower down payment options that should be available soon with conforming mortgages and that they will require compensating factors.

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One month left before FHA mortgage insurance is permanent…SO WHAT??

Borrowers not wanting to have FHA mortgage insurance as part of their mortgage payment for the life of the loan have about thirty days to take action. This shouldn’t be a reason to panic. 🙂

Effective FHA case numbers issued June 3, 2013 and later, FHA mortgage insurance will become a permanent part of the FHA mortgage payment.

Why do I say “SO WHAT?”

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