People's Home Equity - Refinancing Your Mortgage

Bruce Dodd goes over some frequently asked questions in the mortgage business.

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[Music] in today's local business spotlight we are joined by Bruce from people's home equity mortgage to tell us a little bit about some of the frequently asked questions I guess you could say happening in the mortgage world right now Bruce thanks for joining us it's always good to be here all right tell me a little bit about refinancing our home for the purpose of using that money towards maybe some debts that we have okay you'll find that my answer probably is a little surprising I'm in a mortgage guy I think that's one of those things you always have to really take a hard look at because I think you don't want to take the hard fought equity out of your house and pay off bills there's another way of getting it done let's say for you have some special circumstances that are just large bills that you're just not going to be able to knock down like a serious medical cost for a family member or you had a business that didn't make it you had a number of things that came up I think it makes sense you can take a look at it but I think any time you're refinancing we have to look at cost and benefit just because a payment looks okay does not I mean that's not the end of the story you need to look to see how much is this gonna cost me over time to make sure the decision I'm making to refinance is a good one what you don't want to do is have a little short term savings but a long term hangover I'm hearing there may be a sweet spot where it makes sense for some individuals but it's always best to speak with the profession yeah you want to look at all the numbers and you want to get you know if for example you get 22 years left on your mortgage and you're going to 30 years and you're saving a little bit each month you're not really saving money you're saving money on a monthly basis so I think it's important to look at the details and make sure you're getting advice from somebody who has your best interests at heart versus just trying to get another deal done all right and so I want to switch gears a little bit of course we're kicking off a new year if someone's looking to purchase a home this year when do we need to begin that process of course we've talked in previous episodes about how a pre-approval is so important well here's what I would say is there's never any big endeavor I've done in my life where I said man oh we're sort of procrastinate it a little more I wish I hadn't been prepared I wish I'd started later so I would tell anybody thinking about in 2000 you know 20 buy the house you know now's a good time to go ahead and take a look at your situation even if you've got great credit you know sometimes there's some manipulations you can do with your credit that can raise your credit score which can lower your long-term costs of borrowing the other thing is you may think I hey I'm just starting to look but the real estate market is so competitive these days if you find the right house you need need to be able to move quickly and the only way you can really do that effectively if you've already lined up your finances so if we were to go ahead and pre-approve somebody right now and let's say it took a few months could we would we have to update a few things maybe so but it's I think it's in this market it's really important to be prepared before you ever even look at a house but how good is that pre-approval letter for how easy to to get it to continue or - not a big deal typically you know you don't want to pull your credit too much but it's gonna be good usually no about 90 days - 120 days depending on the program we may have to update some things like pay stubs but or get a new bank statement but once we're kind of over it then it's not a big deal but I really think in today's market especially if you're buying something under say about $300,000 when you find a house you're not gonna be the only person that found it and so sometimes if you're not ready to move it's tragic when I get a call from somebody and they're there found the house and their situation may be a little too complex to get them pre-approved overnight or something and they miss out on that house and so I think it's important before you even start looking just go ahead and get that piece of it knocked out especially with how quickly homes are going in our market guys do not take the chance of missing out on your dream home go ahead and start that process now how does it start I mean it's super simple right easy phone call just give us call forty three five nine one nine eight zero one we'd get the ball rolling that way if you want to do things online we have all kinds of fancy schmancy ways you can do it from the couch simple as that we've got lots more tips coming up from you thanks to Bruce and people's home agony will talk to you again in a few weeks pleasure [Music]