All Forum Posts by: Jared Viernes

Joye Bounthavy I don't know your particular situation for pre-approval and your career situation. But if you plan on moving and leaving a previous career and don't have any other regular income that will have a major negative affect on your approval. Most lenders want to see 2 years of continuous employment; if you quit and move then the likelihood of getting financing is very low.

@Juan Ayala , the standard VA loan escape clause follows:

It is expressly agreed that, notwithstanding any other provisions of this contract, the purchaser shall not incur any penalty by forfeiture of earnest money or otherwise be obligated to complete the purchase of  the property described herein, if the contract purchase price or cost exceeds the reasonable value of the property established by the Department of Veterans Affairs. The purchaser shall, however, have the privilege and option of proceeding with the consummation of this contract without regard to the amount of the reasonable value established by the Department of Veterans Affairs.

I expect your Realtor may have only included this contingency in the contract.  I don't know what the financing contingency for the contract submitted was.  However, it was your realtor's job to make sure you understood all the contingencies in the purchase contract; so what may be happening is the realtor is feeling some heat.  You definitely should have let them know about the re-fi, but if you signed a buyers agreement with them they have a fiduciary responsibility to you.

I don't know what the rules are in California, but in Kansas, if the two sides cannot come to an agreement in writing as to what to do with the earnest money deposit it HAS to go to court.  Therefore it is in everyone's best interest to come to an agreement.  It is highly unlikely to then go to court.

You might be able to "assume" the loan itself, but I don't think the seller would then be entitled to their benefits until you paid off that loan.  I would talk to their lender.  She definitely cannot assume the loan as if she had benefits.

I'm sorry to hear you are in a bidding war.

If your goal is to purchase the home with the smallest monthly mortgage payments you actually have a third option.  You can pay points in order to lower the interest rate.  Normally, 1 point will be 1% of the overall loan but you would have to talk with your lender; each point should bring down your interest rate by .25%.  Therefore you pay 4% you get 1% less in interest.  This makes your overall loan cost less, but you end up with less equity than if you paid toward the cost of the loan.

Additionally, assuming the seller is not covering any other costs they can fund up to 4% of closing costs (4% is the max they can provide in closing costs by VA limits). That includes points towards lowering your mortgage payment. If they pay towards the points they can actually raise the price the overall selling price WHILE lowering your monthly payment. In this way, it is a win-win situation. Your equity, to begin with, will be much much lower, but your monthly costs will be lower bringing down your risk.

The danger with this is that the property will not appraise for the offered value.

I would discuss this with your lender and your Real Estate Agent if you think it may be an option.  Win-Win situations tend to go over well in competitive offer situations.

@Douglas Rice there is definitely a  lot of good opportunities to invest in the $70k up for cash flow without the headaches.  As an out of state investor you probably want to stay away from the low end; there is definitely much better cash cows in the lower end but its often not worth the trouble.  As @Jonathan R. mentioned, there is tons of opportunity in SFRs with 3/2s all over.  The MFRs are not as plentiful, with the majority of those on the market in bad areas or too highly priced.

If you are looking to do some fixer uppers there is a fairly large wholesale community here with a couple reputable wholesalers.  Of course, managing a project from afar is not ideal.  Let me know if you need any assistance.

Daniel Dittmeyer you can still qualify if you didn't use all your $36,000 benefit. Talk to a lender that specializes in VA loans, many see that you used it before and automatically write you off; but by VA rules you can use additional benefits after a certain amount of years, which if it was 2009 has almost definitely passed.

@Daniel Dittmeyer I've been wanting to check out the escape room here for months!  (Too many kids to watch).  You'd think, however, that SERE would have taught you not to use a Green Beret photo.

Are you talking Wichita KS or Wichita Falls TX?

@Victoria N. for #3. Most service members use the Automated Housing Referral Network (https://www.ahrn.com/) to find housing. I would start here rather than with Post housing. Most places on Post are really hard to work with, especially civilian run areas.

Collyn Hoffman welcome! Thank you for what you do. There is a huge Kansas BP community. Make sure to get linked into your local REIA. Best of luck to you!