{"id":24,"date":"2009-06-07T13:32:21","date_gmt":"2009-06-07T17:32:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/newhome.michaelwardonline.com\/?p=24"},"modified":"2011-08-26T18:16:31","modified_gmt":"2011-08-26T22:16:31","slug":"mortgage-madness","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/newhome.michaelwardonline.com\/?p=24","title":{"rendered":"Mortgage Madness"},"content":{"rendered":"

Point-six-two-five. That’s the difference\u00a0one week made when locking in our mortgage rate.\u00a0Back when we first inquired, we were quoted an FHA 30-year-fixed mortgage rate of 4.5%. Last Friday the mortgage market saw the largest single-day jump in rates that anyone in the industry can remember. Consequesntly, 4.5% quickly morphed into 5.125% over\u00a0the weekend. Still…5.125% is\u00a0really nothing to complain about. Perusing the historical mortgage rate <\/a>\u00a0information for the last 30 years or so\u00a0reveals that mortgage rates peaked in October 1981 at an eye-popping 18.45%!<\/p>\n

Despite the higher rate, our meeting with the Loan Officer over at Centennial Home Mortgage <\/a>\u00a0went better than expected. Centennial is a partnership between Wells Fargo Home Mortgage and Dominion Homes.<\/em> Dominion offers homebuyers an incentive for using their own mortgage partner—they will pay up to 3% of the purchase price to cover closing costs or to buy down the rate.\u00a0 We are using that money to buy down the rate.\u00a0Dominion offers another incentive for employees at Nationwide Insurance, where I work. An additional $3000 is offered to Nationwiders that can be used to pay closing costs or pay for options to the home, thus lowering the purchase price. We chose to use this money for our closing costs.<\/p>\n

A third incentive program offered by Dominion is called “Helping Hand.”<\/a>\u00a0It allows the buyer to earn up to 4% of the purchase price for the downpayment by completing one or more projects on the house during construction. One example is called “The Great Outdoors,” and requires the homeowner to clear the lot of large rocks and debris, to plant the landscaping and spread the mulch, and to apply sealer to the sidewalks and driveway. For this they pay $800. \"HelpingPainting the interior and attaching doorknobs and shelving is called “Fresh Coat.”\u00a0 Completing this one earns you a cool $2100. We are both pretty excited about this program because we feel like working on the house in this way will give us greater pride of ownership. I will keep you posted about how the projects go once we actually get to that point. As of today, they haven’t even broken ground.<\/p>\n

What these incentive programs mean to us is\u00a0that we will be moving into this house with ZERO DOLLARS out of pocket! They will even be refunding us our deposit and mortgage app fee. So we\u00a0could actually be walking away from the table with almost $1000 in our pockets. Or we could choose to use that money to further buy down the interest rate on the mortgage. Tough call. We will probably use the cash for new furniture and window treatments.<\/p>\n

Yay, us!<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

—Michael<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Point-six-two-five. That’s the difference\u00a0one week made when locking in our mortgage rate.\u00a0Back when we first inquired, we were quoted an FHA 30-year-fixed mortgage rate of 4.5%. Last Friday the mortgage market saw the largest single-day jump in rates that anyone in the industry can remember. Consequesntly, 4.5% quickly morphed into 5.125% over\u00a0the weekend. Still…5.125% is\u00a0really … <\/p>\n

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