What kind of mortgage rate will I qualify for? Possibly one of the scarier questions prospective homeowners must ask themselves before making the big leap, investing in their first property. The journey of qualifying for, let alone purchasing a home these days is a daunting one to the majority of people across the nation. This can be attributed to that rather catastrophic housing crisis that threw our country into a tailspin in 2009.
Mortgage officers and banks alike have a plethora of reasons behind the hoops that prospective homeowners must jump through prior to making their big purchase. Perhaps one of the most prevalent is government regulation of banks, for lack of better terms, an attempt to avoid the same mistakes being made twice.
Another reason that many mortgage officers have pointed to in order to explain the now difficult process, is simply that they do not want to be victim to borrowers who do not pay their mortgages on time. During the crisis, many people who had initially signed contracts agreeing to pay back their monthly mortgage; stopped payments and were eventually bailed out by the government’s mortgage debt forgiveness programs. This has cause many loan officers to be wary when working with borrowers, as during the crisis, loan officers were laid off in the masses due to this very reason.
Recommendations courtesy of loan officers for prospective homeowners, is to shop around for a mortgage that’s right for you, and to consider real estate crowdsourcing opportunities.