The purchase market certainly has been heating up – which is great news for all of us!

And, some more good news is that last month we started to see Mortgage Insurance (MI) companies begin to expand their Loan to Value (LTV) guidelines and improve pricing. This provides additional options for your clients with less than 20% down.

FHA financing is a great option for some buyers. However, it’s not always the best choice for buyers that can put down 5%, 10% or even 15% as they will still assume the additional costs associated with a traditional FHA loans.

The expanded guidelines are as follows:

As of 4/12/2010

Conforming
($417,000)

 High Balance
Conforming
$729,750)
Single Family 95% 90%
Condo 95% 90%


Regardless of the type of loan your client utilizes, Opes Advisors continues to make two distinctions when working with our mortgage borrowers. One is the issue of qualifying. Qualifying is simply answering the question of how much and under what circumstances a lender is willing to provide you with a loan. The second issue is affordability. Affordability answers the question whether or not you should have a particular mortgage, debt structure and real estate.

For example, with these expanded MI guidelines, your clients may decide that, although they can afford to put 20% down, they’d prefer to just put 10% down. Utilizing our proprietary software, Opes Advantage™, we can actively and objectively evaluate the tradeoffs within life and show the financial impact those decisions can have on specific goals for the future.

In this case, your clients may have made the decision to put 10% down (vs. 20%) because they think they need to have extra reserves available to them. Our software can determine what that 10% “savings” will cost them in additional interest payments or even how their reduction in savings will impact their future (because they feel like the 10% “savings” has caught them up for a bit and they’re altering their saving practices). With the immediate and specific results our software provides, we can determine which variables can be adjusted to create the most significant impact on your clients’ financial futures. And, it can be instantly modified as often as needed to consider additional scenarios.

We find that clients appreciate our approach. And, seeing the details of their financial situation eliminates the insecurity of wondering where they stand and gives them the confidence to move forward with a bias for action.

Please call me to discuss your clients' mortgage or financial strategies.

Andy Block - Mortgage Advisor & Financial Advisor
Opes Advisors
Email Me
Direct: 650.931.0605
Fax: 650.931.0601

License #01096311
400 S. El Camino Real
Suite 250
San Mateo, CA 94402
Fax 650.931.0601

Opes Advisors is licensed as a registered investment advisor with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and is licensed as a Residential Mortgage Lender by the CA Dept of Real Estate.

Author and Business are endorsed by Samia Realty Group
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