Mortgage secrets to help you get approved

There are a variety of lesser-known programs to help people refinance an existing mortgage or purchase a home. Policy changes also are opening doors for some borrowers. Granted, no one is saying getting a home loan is easy. Three in 10 Americans are unlikely to qualify for a mortgage, according to recent research from Zillow Mortgage Marketplace. And only those with tiptop credit scores get the best rates. The study analyzed 13 million loan quotes and 225,000 purchase loan requests.

But if you’d benefit from a refinance or you’d like to buy a house, there are options you might not know about. The following are several to consider.

For the retiree:
For retirees who don’t have a steady pension check coming through the door, getting a mortgage can be a challenge. But a recent rule change at Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac is helping retirees who have robust savings but aren’t taking regular distributions from their retirement funds just yet.

In the past, a lender would have told that pension-less retiree that they needed to show they were taking regular distributions of a certain amount in order to cover their mortgage payments, said Cyndee Kendall, regional sales manager and vice president for Bank of the West. Now, balances in retirement accounts can be used to determine mortgage eligibility—without touching the funds.

“It probably affects close to half the retirees that we originate loans for, those who have saved and are not taking distributions until they have to,” Kendall said. The new rule means that retirees aren’t penalized for maintaining their retirement account balances, she said.

For the cash-strapped homeowner

The Home Affordable Refinance Program, or HARP, is a government program that allows people whose home value has declined to refinance into lower rates. Homeowners can be “underwater,” meaning they owe more on their mortgage than the home is currently worth.

And while the program has been in effect for years now, there are supposedly 2 million people who still could qualify, according to Mike Aubrey, a real-estate agent and star of several programs on HGTV. Recently, he’s been drafted by the government to help promote HARP in a new campaign designed to find eligible borrowers and get them into lower-cost mortgages.

Some of the people who qualify—but don’t realize they do—may have applied for a HARP refinance before rules were changed that removed the cap on how much you could be underwater on the current mortgage. The new rules also don’t require an appraisal, he said.

“A lot of people think that HARP is for special cases or the extraordinarily poor. It’s really just for regular people,” Aubrey said. People who took out a mortgage at the height of the real-estate bubble would benefit from this program the most, since their rates could be in the 6% to 8% range, he added.

Those with a current mortgage backed by the Federal Housing Administration may be eligible for the FHA Streamline program, which has a huge perk for the unemployed: There’s no income requirement, Kendall said.

For the fixer-upper

Lenders market FHA 203(k) mortgages more heavily in urban areas, where homes are in severe need of rehabbing, Kendall said. But properties that qualify for these loans can be located anywhere. And many times, these diamonds in the rough are bargains.

Call it a “mini construction loan,” which allows people to purchase a home and finance improvements in one mortgage, she said. The mortgage amount is based on the estimated value of the property once the work is completed, factoring in the cost of the work, according to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development website.

While the program is a benefit for homes in really bad shape (think abandoned foreclosure properties), it can also be used for more less dramatic upgrades, such as modernizing a kitchen—the main point being that the upgrade has to increase the value of the home, Kendall said.

For those without a down payment

Coming up with a down payment can be the biggest hurdle for first-time home buyers. But there are ways to help scrape together that money.

Assistance funds are available for home buyers who are expected to be successful as homeowners, and they come from a variety of sources, including state and local governments, lenders and employers. Often, buyers are asked to complete a homeownership course in return. See HSH.com’s list of states with the best home buyer assistance programs.

Also, there is at least one avenue for 100% financing still available for buyers: That’s the U.S. Department of Agriculture loan program, and areas of the country that qualify aren’t always as rural as you might think, said Keith Gumbinger, vice president of HSH.com. Note: Those interested in this option might have to wait until the government shutdown ends to apply, as it appears the USDA mortgage program is closed at the moment, Gumbinger said.

Lowest Interest Rates – Mortgage Professional Newport Beach

The Federal Reserve was so spooked by the backup in mortgage rates that it postponed tapering its bond-buying program. But what about prospective home buyers?

Data released Tuesday will shed more light on that topic, with home price gauges from S&P/Case-Shiller and the Federal Housing Finance Agency both due at 9 a.m. Eastern and both covering July. The two series have slightly different methodologies — in June, prices were up 12.1% on the Case-Shiller gauge and up 7.7% on the FHFA gauge from the same period of 2012. But prices should, at least for now, remain resilient, economists say.

At 10 a.m., the Conference Board’s consumer confidence gauge for September will be released, with economists polled by MarketWatch expecting a fall to 79.5 from 81.5.

Also on Tuesday, Cleveland Fed president Sandra Pianalto is due to speak about payments systems at a Chicago Fed conference.

Mortgage Interest Rate News – Are we still heading toward 5% mortgages?

Prospective buyers who have been shying away from the housing market due to rising rates may have reason to start shopping again.

On Wednesday, the Federal Reserve surprised market watchers when it announced that it would not start tapering its purchases of mortgage-backed securities and Treasury bonds.

Mortgage rates have risen significantly amid concerns that the Fed would cut back on its $85 billion a month bond-buying program. Rates on a 30-year fixed mortgage are currently averaging about 4.5%, up from 3.35% in early May. That rate increase has meant an extra $132 a month in payments for a homebuyer with a $200,000 30-year loan.

But now that the Fed has said it will continue to purchase the bonds, rates will likely retrace some of those gains, said Keith Gumbinger of mortgage information provider HSH.com.

“Now, we do have some space for rates to fall,” he said. “I don’t expect a plummet, just a drop of 0.1 percentage points or so over the next week or two.”

The day after the Fed’s announcement, Freddie Mac reported that rates on 30-year fixed-rate loans fell from 4.57% to 4.5% over the past week. Freddie Mac’s chief economist, Frank Nothaft, said rates were reacting to the same economic trends that influenced the Fed’s decision. Among them: slowing growth in retail sales and industrial production and the lowest reading in consumer sentiment since April. He also noted tighter financial conditions, including the sharp increase in mortgage rates in recent months.

Should the economy gain more momentum, however, fears that the Fed will taper off its bond purchases will most certainly resurface and rates will move higher again, he said.

Nothaft expects rates to hit about 5% by mid-2014. That’s an increase of less than $24 a month for every $100,000 borrowed — enough to weed out borrowers who are struggling to afford homes but not enough to impact overall demand.

Despite recent increases, rates are still low by historical standards. During the housing boom years, they typically ranged between 6% and 7%.

And higher rates should prompt some banks to ease up on their lending standards, helping more people to buy homes, said Jed Kolko, chief economist for Trulia.

“Rates will be slightly higher next year but not enough to derail the housing market recovery,” he said