Archive for May, 2011

First Time Home-Buyer? Three Ways to Get Informed

Monday, May 23rd, 2011

Despite the pain it causes for many Dallas homeowners, a slumping market is still a uniquely lucrative opportunity for first-time home-buyers. If you don’t need to sell your home in order to buy a home, now might be a great time to do exactly that.

But information is key to navigating the home-buying process — especially for those who haven’t done it before.  Here at Texas Lending, our Texas home loan experts can make home-buying easy for you.

Here are three areas where we can give you what you need to know:

1. The Process

A simple, transparent process makes life easier for everyone involved in a home purchase. So we’re eager to tell you everything you need to about:

To understand more, take a look our home loan process resource section, which walks you through everything from credit reports to applications to underwriting approval.

2. The Available Options

Not every potential homeowner will be in the same situation. So we offer a comprehensive variety of home loan options, including:

  • Conventional loans
  • 30-year fixed-rate loans
  • 15-year fixed rate loans
  • FHA loans
  • VA loans
  • Jumbo loans
  • Adjustable-rate mortgages (ARMs)
  • Interest-only loans

3. The Future

At Texas Lending, our goal is to help your family buy a house that you love and that you can afford — both now and two decades down the road. Our careful, informative process is designed to ensure that you won’t end up in over your head.

But circumstances do change over time. Economies boom and slump, rates rise and fall, and jobs are gained and lost. So we offer a smorgasbord of ways to alter your situation down the road, including home refinance loans, home equity loans, and reverse mortgages. In fact, we offer the lowest Texas refinance rates anywhere (Check out today’s home loan rates).

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Dallas Real Estate Prices: The Musical

Thursday, May 12th, 2011

If housing markets were mountain ranges, America would be the Rockies, Miami would be Himalayas, and the Dallas-Ft. Worth Metroplex would be, well, the Dallas-Ft. Worth Metroplex.

If housing markets were operas? You’ll just have to take a listen for yourself.

Decade of Home Prices

The good folks over at Planet Money are more than a little obsessed with figuring out ways to explain the economy in clear, innovative ways. So it should be no surprise that they went out and hired a real live opera singer to do a fine arts take the Case-Shiller index (which tracks home prices across the nation).

“The Case-Shiller home price index is a powerful way to look at the story of housing in America. You can see the boom and bust all in one simple graph. But when we go on the radio to talk about home prices, a graph isn’t much good to us — nobody can see it.

So we converted the Case-Shiller graph into musical notes.”

It’s a fun way to understand just how the market has changed over the past ten years, and it’s a good way to see just how different the housing bust has been in different parts of America. In places like Miami, for example, the pop was severe — think Mariah Carey.

“I could see those towers, those cranes, building those condo buildings on Miami Beach,” says Karl Case (of Case-Shiller). “Some of those cranes are still there. They’re not building much now.”

But in Dallas, the past ten years have sounded more like a chanting Buddhist monk. This is thanks in part to the big boom and boost we experienced back in the 1980s. According to Robert Shiller (of the Case-Shiller):

They’ve been through that, they’ve seen it, and they’re not ready for another bubble, and they just didn’t participate in this one. It’s like opera: You only have one grand moment when the heroine and the hero die on stage. You can’t do that again right away.

Case Shiller Home Prices

Two lessons:

1. Compared to most places in the country, real estate in Dallas-Ft. Worth is relatively stable. We’ve got jobs. We’ve got land. We’ve got warm weather. It’s simply a great place to live.

2. If you take the long-view, even mired…. home prices are still higher than they were ten years ago. In other words, even in a decade marked by the worst recession since the Great Depression, housing still proved itself as a relatively stable investment.

Of course, this is a light-hearted take on a problem that’s caused a lot of homeowners a lot of pain. So here at Texas Lending, we’re eager to help you make a safe, shrewd home investment. Whether through a Texas home loan, a home refinance loan, or a home equity loan, we’ll help you make the most of any market—high or low.

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4 Things to Consider While Looking for Best Mortgage Rates

Tuesday, May 10th, 2011

When you wish to purchase a house or property but do not have the adequate resources to do so, then you may take out a mortgage loan. The property that you purchase is treated as collateral on the loan. This implies that in case you are unable to make the payments your property will be seized by the lender in order to recover the loan. The mortgage loan is probably the biggest loan that you will ever take in your life, thus it is very important that you find out ways in which you can opt for the best possible mortgage rates. This means that you are to get the best available deal in the market.

A few tips that you may follow in order to get the best deals or the best possible rates on your mortgage, are as follows.

1. Improving your credit rating: To get the best rates in the mortgage market you are to check on and improve your credit rating as much as you can. This is because all lenders will look at your credit score before extending the loan. Thus, an adverse credit history can have a negative impact on your mortgage application and the loan may get rejected or you may be charged a high rate of interest. In order to evade such a situation you are to try and improve your credit rating even before you apply for a mortgage loan.

2. Shopping around: You must shop around in order to get the best possible rates on your mortgage. Along with searching online it is essential that you speak to your own lenders and also try to ensure that you speak to your banker and a good broker. When you choose a particular mortgage deal you must make sure that you qualify for the mortgage, that is you meet the lending criteria that has been set by the lender. Shopping around will also make sure that you get the best possible rates that are being offered by various lenders.

3. Looking past the initial interest rate: It is not the initial interest rate that should be the single factor that you need to consider. In many cases some mortgage loans offer very lucrative initial rates of interest and then convert to very high interest rate loans. Thus, you must look beyond the rate of interest that is offered to you right at the beginning and try and focus at the longer run. This will help you get the best possible rates of interest.

4. Building up a good amount of down payment: A very important factor that determines the rate of interest that you will be offered by the lender is the amount that you will put forward as the down payment. You must try to ensure that you deposit enough to pay a good deal of money as down payment. The lower the down payment, the more are the chances of the lender charging you a higher rate of interest.

These are a few things that you are to consider while looking for the best possible mortgage rates.

This was a guest post by: Marlon Powell

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Speed Matters: Fast Turnarounds for Short Home-Buying Windows

Monday, May 9th, 2011

Let’s say you’ve been waiting a couple years for the recession to ease before buying a home. Let’s say there’s thousands and thousands of potential homebuyers around Dallas-Ft. Worth just like you—eager to buy, tired of waiting, and ready to pounce. It’s probably a good idea to do everything possible to get a jump on this competition.

Speed matters in home purchase loan approval, especially when there is pent up demand in the market. So it’s important to plan ahead, and have everything ready for approval long before you’re ready to pounce.

Here at Texas Lending, we make getting a loan quick and easy in several ways:

– A simple, easy-to-understand loan process (you can read more about each step of our loan process here), which hides no surprises or snags to slow you down.

– A plethora of loan options to meet our customers’ unique needs, including conventional loans, FHA or VA loans, jumbo loans, ARMs, and interest-only loans.

– Services for troubled financial situations, including post-bankruptcy help and damaged credit loan qualification assistance.
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– Loads of resources and information about what to expect and demand in a home loan (or, of course, a home refinance loan, reverse mortgage, or home equity loan).

– An unmatched commitment to customer service, including online application feedback, Ask-an-Expert availability, and loan specialists available to talk with you within 30 seconds of calling. We’ll walk with you step by step.

Of course, caution matters as well. We’re not a mortgage factory, and will not blindly dish out mortgages to anyone who applies (as some irresponsible lenders did in the run up to the 2008 housing collapse). Loaded with both expertise and a commitment to thorough due diligence, we can be both cautious and quick when processing your application.

The best way to be ready when the right opportunity comes, of course, is to get the home loan process started now. The weather is getting warmer. School is beginning to end. The summer home-buying season is officially here. So don’t wait until you’ve finally found that perfect home in the perfect neighborhood to start the process. Contact us now to fully understand your options and be ready when the time comes.

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