HUGE Success for First Time Home Buyer!
Hope you are staying warm and dry out there! Today is a good day to stay close to the fire and send an email to my friends. The snow is coming down in buckets and boy, do we need it. It's days like this that give me a moment to reflect on the successes of our clients, those that are, for the first time, tucked securely into their first home and watching the snow come down.
A young gentleman client of ours came to me with a very strict budget. One question I always ask of my buyers is what is their tippy top budget they would feel COMFORTABLE paying for their monthly mortgage payment. It doesn't matter what your highest payment I can qualify you on if you aren't comfortable paying it. Even as prices and interest rates have rose over the last few years, I have no interest in making my folks house poor. That's just dumb.
Anyway, for what he felt comfortable paying for a monthly payment, we were going to have to put our thinking caps on and combine a few opportunities to make the math work. He was shopping in a very limited price bracket that has a lot of competition. He came to me with a home in mind and said he was going to offer almost 10% lower than asking price and then ask for the seller to cover closing costs AND a rate buydown. I was frank with him and told him that would be a big ask in this market with such limited inventory, especially in this price point. BOY DID HE PROVE ME WRONG! He and his ROCK STAR realtor (who is not yet a seasoned veteran!) were able to negotiate $20,000 off the listing price PLUS A FULL 6% IN SELLER CREDIT!!! 6% is the maximum amount that a seller can contribute on an FHA loan! With the price reduction and all that credit, we were able to reduce his interest rate down to 5.704% AND he only had to come to closing with his required minimum investment of 3.5% downpayment minus his earnest money! This brought his payment completely in line with his budget!
At the end of the day, you won't ever get what you don't ask for. I thought his offer was crazy asking for all that credit but I was wrong! In this market, the worst thing that can happen is the seller telling you no and then you can come back with another offer! Don't be afraid to ask for what you need!
We love what we do. We love supporting folks into their homes, especially first-time homebuyers. This was a good day for everyone involved. I hope you have a good one too.
