CORNER

The appraiser will go down to the property and take pictures to describe the condition and provide recent comparable houses that were sold in the area Although you might have done an inspection and you know the condition of the house, it is still mandatory to have an appraisal done Don’t confuse the appraiser with the home inspector; a home inspector assesses the condition of a structure, whereas an appraiser determines the value of a property. Next week IyH, we’ll continue with the mortgage process and explain more about title insurance.

Mortgage Market Update

To help you better understand the mortgage market update, we’ll elaborate on the loans we have on the Market Update.

The mortgage market update is information about standard QM (Qualified Mortgage) loans. QM loans are loans that meet the criteria established by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) to ensure borrowers are offered mortgages they can reasonably afford. There are several types of QM loans; we'll discuss the common ones.

Conforming loan is the typical, conventional loan that meets the guidelines and loan limits set by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the two government-sponsored enterprises that buy and guarantee most conventional mortgages.

There are several types of conforming loans There’s a 30 year loan, where the loan is divided, or amortized, into 30 years, and a 15 year loan, where the loan is amortized into 15 years. (There are options of doing 25, 20 and 10 years as well.) The loan can be a fixed rate where the rate is locked for the life of the loan or could be an ARM - an adjustable-rate mortgage, also known as a variable-rate mortgage, where the rate is not locked and can change over time. Typically, the initial interest rate is fixed for a certain period (e g , 5 years, 7 years), after which it adjusts periodic market conditions