Busting First-Time Home Buyer Myths

When buying a first home, most people are making one of the biggest purchases of their lives. Without home buying experience, it can be difficult to separate fact from fiction. Get the facts on these common first-time home buying myths: Myth – It takes a 20 percent down payment to buy a home. Reality – Required down payment amounts vary by type of loan and they are on average much smaller than people think. Last year, the median down payment for all first-time buyers was 6 percent, according to the National Association of REALTORS®. One reason is that many first-time buyers use FHA loans, which require down payments as low as 3 to 3.5 percent. VA loans require nothing down for qualified veterans or active military personnel. If you want to take out a conventional loan, many lenders do require 20 percent down, but you can lower that percentage with private mortgage insurance. There are also hundreds of down payment assistance programs that eliminate or reduce down payment requirements for qualified borrowers. Myth – If you owe a lot of student loan debt, there is no way you can get a mortgage. Reality – Don’t assume that having a lot of student loan debt automatically disqualifies you from getting a mortgage. The key factor is not necessarily the size of your loan obligation, but the amount of your total monthly debt payments compared to your monthly income. This is called DTI. Myth – If your credit score is low, you should not even try to get a mortgage. Reality – Millions of potential buyers assume they will not be approved for a mortgage even though many could qualify. Today, median FICO scores for mortgages to buy a home are 683 for FHA loans and 754 for conventional loans. But hundreds of thousands of buyers with scores lower than those are getting mortgages if they have good income and low levels of debt. Myth – Buying a home isn’t a good investment. Reality – Real estate, like other assets, rises and falls based on supply and demand. Over the past two years, home values in most markets have been rising. While all real estate is local, if you bought a home in March 2012, by August 2014, the national median home price as measured by Case-Shiller had risen 29.6 percent. Myth – The mortgage interest tax deduction is going away. Reality – Though the deduction has its critics, most observers believe it is unlikely that Congress will eliminate the mortgage interest deduction any time soon. Many states also allow homeowners to write off the interest they pay on their mortgages from their state income taxes. Check with your accountant or CPA on if you can qualify for this type of tax deduction. Myth – I’m about to get married and the wedding is so expensive I won’t be able to buy a home. Reality – According to TheKnot, the average wedding has 138 guests who typically give a gift valued at $100 each. That’s $13,800 in spatulas, baking pans and other things. If every guest contributed to a down payment fund instead, you could have enough saved for a down payment.

Mortgage Rates Hit New 2014 Lows

Freddie Mac recently released the results of its Primary Mortgage Market Survey® (PMMS®), showing average fixed mortgage rates hitting new lows for the year as 10-year bond yields briefly dipped below 2 percent. At 3.97 percent the average 30-year fixed rate is at its lowest level since the week of June 20, 2013 when it averaged 3.93 percent. This was also the last time the 30-year fixed averaged below 4 percent in the PMMS until last week.

“Mortgage rates were down sharply following the decline in the 10-year Treasury yield for the second straight week,” says Frank Nothaft, vice president and chief economist, Freddie Mac. “Rates are at their lowest levels since June 2013 amidst continued investor skepticism regarding the precarious economic situation in Europe.”

The 30-year fixed-rate mortgage (FRM) averaged 3.97 percent with an average 0.5 point for the week ending October 16, 2014, down from the previous week when it averaged 4.12 percent. A year ago at this time, the 30-year FRM averaged 4.28 percent.

Results show the 15-year FRM averaged 3.18 percent with an average 0.5 point, down from last week when it averaged 3.30 percent. A year ago at this time, the 15-year FRM averaged 3.33 percent.

Additionally, the 5-year Treasury-indexed hybrid adjustable-rate mortgage (ARM) averaged 2.92 percent last week with an average 0.5 point, down from the previous week when it averaged 3.05 percent. A year ago, the 5-year ARM averaged 3.07 percent.

The 1-year Treasury-indexed ARM averaged 2.38 percent this past week with an average 0.4 point, down from the week prior when it averaged 2.42 percent. At this time last year, the 1-year ARM averaged 2.63 percent.

For more information, visit www.FreddieMac.com/blog.

Reprinted with permission from RISMedia. ©2014. All rights reserved.

Q: When Is the Best Time to Refinance?

A: Many people flock to refinance while mortgage interest rates are low, particularly when rates are about two percentage points below their existing home loans.

Other factors, like when to finance, will depend on how long you plan to hold on to your home and whether you have to pay considerable fees to refinance. It also will depend on how far along you are in paying off your current mortgage.

If you expect to sell your home relatively soon, you are not likely to recoup the costs you incurred to refinance.  And if you are more than halfway through paying your current mortgage, you probably will gain little by refinancing. However, if you are going to own your home for at least another five years, that is probably long enough to recoup any refinancing costs and realize real savings as a result of lowering your monthly payment.

In fact, if it costs you nothing to refinance, you can gain even more.  Many lenders will let you roll the costs of the refinancing into the new note and still reduce the amount of the monthly payment. Plus, there are no-cost refinancing deals available.

Contact your lender, and its competitors, before you refinance.

Reprinted with permission from RISMedia. ©2014. All rights reserved.