The headline of WOSU article: "Potential Homeowners Look For Deals."   The article quotes the Columbus Board of Realtors about the January 2008 inventory in Central Ohio but says "buyers beware" that they may need  six months of mortgage payment up front. 

As part of the downpayment?  Reserves? 

FHA financing to the rescue. 

New FHA limits, effective March 5, 2008  Buyer Quiz... take the quiz but here's a hint on one question.  Buyers do not need two months of reserves... much less six.  

What happened in the mortgage market in the past six years? Why do we have so many foreclosures nationally?  The Movie 

I'd love to hear from you if you have a comment on the topic of financing or buying a home. All comments are moderated so you will not see your comment immediately. Thanks. Copyright 2008 Discover Columbus and Maureen McCabe

You see a house advertised.  You call the listing agent.*

The listing agent asks:

"Are you  working with a Realtor? "

You say "no."

The listing agent asks:

"Have you been pre-approved for a mortgage."

You have not talked to a lender but you've done some on-line pre-qualification thingies (thingies is a highly technical mortgage term there is nothing inherently wrong with these mortgage thingies)  and you know  you can afford a house for... let's say $150,000 based on your income and your debt.

You and the agent schedule the appointment.  You fully understand the agency relationships in the transaction whether the agent is working for you, or working for the seller or both (disclosed dual agency ) and thus neither you nor the seller... agency... that's a whole 'nuther blog for another day...

You see the house. You love the house  You make an offer, the house is priced at $158,000 but you you hope that seller will accept your offer of $150,000 because that's what the on-line thingies told you, you could afford.  You  know the house is overpriced. The seller accepts the offer.

You go to a lender. The lender says "oops" You can't afford it. "You need to ask the seller to raise the price and build in your closing costs (points, the down payment on certain programs ams...)

You go back to the listing agent and say ...

* It does not necessarily even need to be the listing agent on a property... it just is in my scenario...  it could be another agent, it could be your buyers agent if they have not made sure you are really, really qualified for the offer you are making to the seller.  It was just the listing agent in this scenario...

Is the moral of this story just automatically ask for concessions on any offer?  No, not really the moral is get pre-approved by a good lender... I have links to good lenders on my website mortgage page on  MaureenMcCabe.com (link is in the sidebar here.)

I'd love to hear from you if you have a comment on the topic of mortgage finance, mortgage fraud, pre approval, etc.  All comments are moderated so you will not see your comment immediately. Thanks. Copyright 2008 Discover Columbus and Maureen McCabe

I found Dan's video on Teri Lussier's The Brick Ranch blog about Huber Heights Ohio (Dayton area.)  If you go really far back somewhere on this blog there is at least one post inspired by Dan Green... but it was when he was in Chicago. 


Need mortgage info...  read Dan Green's blog...

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