I'm Qualified!! Now what?

[Tara585]

I received an email from my counselor informing me I am officially Qualified!! Yay me! Question now is….what do I do now. I have been remotely counseled so its not like I can walk into an office and say…”Hello, I want a house please!!!”
HELP!!!

[2BLESSED]

I too got the same FANTABULOUS NEWS!!! I am remote as well so my MC Skyped me while she was teaching the HomeBuyer Workshop class. I received an email of 10 pages on the Do’s Don’ts etc as well as receiving my Pre-Qual letter. Get in Touch with your MC and find out when the next homebuyers workshop is good luck

[Tara585]

COngrats to you!!! I’m emailing my counselor now!! Keep in touch!!

[Nelsont]

Once you are qualified you need to attend the purchase workshop. Whether remote or in office. At the workshop you will receive your qualification letter then you can shop for houses. Congratulations!

[Tara585]

So my counselor was taking too long to get back to me regarding the purchase workshop (actually she really wasn’t I’m just excited!). So I called my local office to ask about the workshop. The lady on the line was so nice and she informed me I was in luck they were having a workshop tomorrow (yesterday)! So I got signed up for it! Once I arrived, I was informed that since I was attending the workshop locally NOW I have a local counselor going forward. I almost walked out. I really liked my remote counselor. She was the BEST! But it’s not about liking someone its about getting into my new home. So there was only two people in the workshop!! Myself and a really nice older gentlemen. Not a problem at all. My counselor was the presenter. Even better. So were going over our forms. and my qualification form stated the exact information my remote counselor stated regarding desired payment and purchase price. GREAT! Then my chair was knocked from under me. The have the desired payment I would only be qualified for a purchase price $20,000 less than the amount on my qualification form!!! I ALMOST PASSED OUT! WTH!! There is no way I can find the home I want for that price. You can settle for a car that doesnt have a sunroof but you can’t settle for a home you don’t want, it costs too much. Now what am I going to do?????

[living20057]

Wait, the qualification sheet has the payment you want but the house price doesn’t match?

If the payment is correct then you have so room, the payment is based on so many other factors: insurance, taxes, hoa, interest rate.

I found the house they said was 230 or 240 on my paper but I’m buying a house for 300. You will have to calculate all the other costs. Are you buying down the rate? You can get seller’s assistance or new construction see if any incentives to use for buy down. If you can get the rate down, 20k you should be able to swing. It’s gonna be the rate buydown.

[Nelsont]

First of all, your purchase price is completely dependent upon the interest rate at the time you purchase the house and the amount of funds you use to buy down the interest rate. If your purchase price is 20k less then that means the interest rate went up since last you checked.

The number you need to pay more attention to is your maximum monthly payment. That should have stayed the same. The interest rate will go up and down between now wand when you get it locked in which will happen after you put an offer in on a house. If you still want more then you need to buy down the interest rate. Ask the seller for contributions. I got my seller to contribute 3% of the purchase price to the buy down.

[Tara585]

When they were going over the mortgage calculator they entered for the Tax rate: 30%. When I asked them why did they use that number the guy said it was because NYS has an extremely high taxes which is why I can’t afford a higher priced home. I just don’t understand the mortgage calculator. I’m hoping to get seller assist but I’m sure it will not be that much. The price range I saw in the homes in my desired area are going for $120,000. Not much at all compared to other cities. The funny thing is the amount of my MRF went from $2800 to $1800. That’s great but I doubt the remainder would be enough to buy down the rate very much if at all.

[Nelsont]

From what I understand the naca calculator is not straightforward. The 30% in the calculator I think is equal to 3% property taxes. It doesn’t make sense to me. The highest property taxes in the country are roughly 6% and it’s not in ny. With that said your mrf are outrageously low so take that as a win. I had a mrf of $8898.

[southflorida]

@Tara585 Tara, don’t focus too much on the purchase price that you got approved for, that’s just an estimate based on many factors, What’s really important is the monthly payment amount that you got qualified for which is called PITI, this payment would include the mortgage, taxes, insurance and HOA (If any).

You can get qualified for a PITI of up to 31% of your monthly gross income as long as your monthly debt payments are not more than 9% of your monthly gross income, your monthly debt payments are your minimum payments on credit cards, car loans, student loans, etc.

In other words, your PITI can be 31% as long as if it’s combined with your monthly debt payments, it does not go over 40% of your gross monthly income.

Don’t get discouraged, My monthly payment had to be increased twice before I was able to get approved for 31% of my monthly gross income, and at the end I was able to purchase a house with a price that was a lot higher than the approved purchase price that I had on my approval letter, if you take advantage of the interest buydown you can buy the house you like and want.

[spanishvita]

IF your remote counselor is licensed in the state you are buying in you can request to change back…thats why i did. my remote counselor was to good to me and thankfully she is license in a few states. so i had them switch me back to her.

[Tara585]

I have a meeting with a new agent in about an hour. If I dont focus on a purchase price and my qualification form says on amount when my new counselor says an amount $20,000 less what price range do I give the agent to look for? When taxes vary in my hometwon from city to suburbs Im complete loss. And during the purchase workshop the kept saying not to show the agent the qualification form ever! This is going to be a crazy appointment.

[living20057]

You need to some legwork, calculate average taxes in the area and hoi.

For me, I know taxes in my area was 200-300 a month. I had did an estimate of hoi online to see what costs are. I know for my area i shouldn’t spend more than 100 a month.

So that’s 300-400 a month in fees. I knew I was buying down my rate. I calculated how much I could do. I wanted to be around 1500/month in total. I looked at houses under 300k.

[Nelsont]

First you are focusing on the wrong thing as @southflorida mentioned. It is easy to get caught up in the purchase price. ALL banks actually DO NOT approve you for a purchase price. You are ALWAYS under every homebuyer program, NACA or not, ONLY approved for a monthly payment amount. The reason is that the interest rate, taxes, closing costs, agency fees and down payment all factor into the affordability. Think of it this way: a 100k house and a 300k house can have the same monthly payment! It all depends on the down payment in that case.

What is the monthly payment you were approved for? For argument’s sake let’s say it’s $1000. Every single home listing website will have a mortgage calculator on the page of the particular home listing. It will probably have the purchase price, taxes, insurance, interest rate and down payment as variables. Play with the numbers. If you were approved for $1000/month including taxes, insurace and HOA fees then set the down payment to $0 and the interest rate to the current NACA rate which is 3.375% and on the NACA front page and play around with the numbers to see what gets you the $1000/month payment. Maybe you need to lower the interest rate to 2.375%. Maybe you need to offer $10,000 less than asking.

Bottom line EVERY SINGLE house will be different and require it’s own calculation.

The last thing is please show your agent the qualification form. It makes no sense not to. I gave my agent a copy of mine for his records.

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