--- title: "ON KATV: BUYERS MARKET" description: Thinking of buying a new home? Now may be the best time to buy. Watch Lee and James to learn more. image: https://blog.blrmortgage.com/hubfs/KATV%20Buyers%20Market%20282019%20LeeMaris%20Pic.jpg --- ![blrm_logo-166x45.png](https://blog.blrmortgage.com/hs-fs/hubfs/Mortgage_Site/images/blrm_logo-166x45.png?width=166&name=blrm_logo-166x45.png "blrm_logo-166x45.png") ![logo-rock-mortgage.png](https://blog.blrmortgage.com/hs-fs/hubfs/Mortgage_Site/images/logo-rock-mortgage.png?width=180&name=logo-rock-mortgage.png "logo-rock-mortgage.png") ![blog-bg.jpg](https://blog.blrmortgage.com/hs-fs/hubfs/Mortgage_Site/images/blog-bg.jpg?width=1600&name=blog-bg.jpg "blog-bg.jpg") # NEWS # ON KATV: BUYERS MARKET Posted by [Blake Montgomery](https://blog.blrmortgage.com/mortgage-newblog/author/blake-montgomery) on Feb 13, 2019 12:00:20 PM ![Blake Montgomery](https://app.hubspot.com/settings/avatar/0d0a314baa0a411b65de2e97005b52d9) - [Tweet](https://twitter.com/share) Thinking of buying a new home? Now may be the best time to buy. Watch Lee and James to learn more. ![](https://blog.blrmortgage.com/hubfs/KATV%20Buyers%20Market%20282019%20LeeMaris%20Pic.jpg) From February KATV Interview with Lee Maris   No headphones? No problem! Read the transcript below!   James: "Welcome back to good morning   Arkansas Lee Maris with Bank of Little Rock Mortgage is here this morning to explain what a buyers market means and some important things to know if you're ready to jump into home ownership specifically a lot of people want to know what is a buyers market before you know you get into its buyers market let's go buy a house right we got to have some of the background in from young." Lee: "Buyers market essentially I think is you know more sellers and buyers  buyers were kind of in control we've kind of had a seller's market the last few years no inventory well they're a lot more houses are being built spring selling season's coming up so hopefully buyers will have the edge" James: "Yeah okay and what do we want to look for if we're looking to buy a house what is one thing you want to look for?" Lee: "Gotta have the money, so get pre-approved" James: "and getting pre-qualified what does that mean? Lee: "You know basically we're gonna do the due diligence on the front end realtor's you don't want to drop someone around all weekend or all week and then find a house and come to realize they can't qualify for a loan." James:"Yeah it's just a waste of time" Lee: "Yeah if you got cash that's one thing but if you need a loan  you got to get pre-approved you know call us at Bank a Little Rock" James: "So that's something you guys specialize in" Lee: "Absolutely mm-hmm and we can get you pre-approved in a day James: "So it doesn't take long at all no how long should the home buying process take nowadays" Lee: "Well with all our wonderful government regulations it's kind of stretched it out and we can still get loans done and you know if it's a solid loan we get it done in three weeks." James: "Okay so you're look at a process of a month right." Lee: "Yeah" James: "So if i was going to be looking to buy a house as a new buyer, is the process a little different than somebody who's maybe up sizing or downsizing?" Lee: "Not necessarily, there's a learning curve you know you've been through the process before you probably expect and understand how important it is to be timely getting us documentation etc. you know sometimes first-time home buyers don't understand the urgency you know if we ask for something please get it to us." James: "So don't wait around" Lee: "Yeah we're trying to help you, you know get into that house." James: "So at Bank of Little Rock Mortgage you guys have Realtors with that you  guys work or" Lee: "No we partner with realtors and try to get them to send us   business and that's the one thing they want to get you know they're gonna a realtor is gonna send John Doe to Lee Maris and wants me to get John Doe pre-approved." James: "Yeah so getting pre-qualified is that first step and now if you meet the qualifications you got a house you want to go get what's the next step?" Lee: "Well the realtor is gonna want a pre-approval letter so we're gonna you know provide a pre-approval letter and you know a lot of times when you get pre-approved we're gonna  tell you a max you can go look for you know go look for a house under X  and so really you want to get pre-approved before you go look for a house" James: "Absolutely okay so you don't just want to hop online I like that house I'm gonna go get this" Lee: "Right I mean you know a lot of times people don't know what their credit scores are  and a lot of times they might be able to afford or get approved for a lot more house than they think  we see that a lot" James: "oh wow I bet they know the home owning process especially for people who are younger is very foreign to them they don't know how it works  and they might if they knew more about it they might go out and try to do more try to get a buying process underway just don't know and don't want to go through the work to find out but it's actually not as hard as people think. Lee: "It's not rocket science we're looking at income, we're looking at credit, we're looking at your debt and then you get a number and you go from that." James: "Exactly that's very very good so what kind of documentation does a potential home buyer need in order to get this process started" Lee: "Generally we're gonna need the last two years w-2s or tax returns get you're self-employed we're gonna need your tax returns  if your salary w-2 a couple pay stubs we're gonna need to know where you now payments coming from some bank statements driver's license I mean that you know if you've been divorced we   probably need your divorce decree stuff like that" James: "So a lot of people ask this how much cash do you need down payment for getting a house" Lee: "We can go from zero down to whatever you got you don't have to have any but no there's there's a lot of zero down programs out there especially for veterans to be zero down" James: "As far as like what you see on day to day basis what percentage you say you get for downpayments?" Lee: "On average, I would probably say on average five to ten percent" James: "Okay i was thinking more of twenty percent" Lee: "Yeah I mean that's ideal because you're gonna avoid mortgage insurance yeah but we see a lot of three and a half, percent five percent I mean all day long and you can go up to three hundred thousand with three percent down." James: "Okay so the more the house is you put less" Lee: "Well not necessarily it used to be that if you had a very small down payment you were kind of limited to what price range around but now they've expanded it and you can I mean we can do loans 300-350K. James: "What is mortgage insurance?" Lee: "Mortgage insurance is basically a safety net for the lender  so back in the old days you had to put 20% down he gave the lender a spread if they were ever to foreclose on that person I had to sell the house mortgage insurance was developed basically it's a it's a monthly premium that you pay if you're only putting five percent ten percent down so if something were to happen that mortgage insurance company will step in and pay the loan down to give the lender of spread" James: "Okay so that just helps the lender right, it's a safety net for the lender. So if I was gonna go buy a house I would probably look to do something where I didn't want to get mortgage insurance?" Lee: "Yeah but I mean a lot of people don't know a percent ups a lot right as well and there's a ways around mortgage insurance yeah well less than 20% down" James: "Well alright, for all the home buyers out there where can   they go to find more information?" Lee: "Our website BLRmortgage.com or you can call us at 501-219-9100. On our website   there's tons of tools and calculators that you can play around with and figure out how much you can" James: "That's always real fun to do oh yeah so I guess you're saying the best thing you can do is get information get information get pre-approved it's best step alright well Lee Maris from Bank of Little Rock Mortgage this morning" English (auto-generated)     Topics: [mortgage](https://blog.blrmortgage.com/mortgage-newblog/topic/mortgage) [first-time home buying](https://blog.blrmortgage.com/mortgage-newblog/topic/first-time-home-buying) [home ownership](https://blog.blrmortgage.com/mortgage-newblog/topic/home-ownership) [VA Loans](https://blog.blrmortgage.com/mortgage-newblog/topic/va-loans) [FHA Loans](https://blog.blrmortgage.com/mortgage-newblog/topic/fha-loans) [On Time Closing](https://blog.blrmortgage.com/mortgage-newblog/topic/on-time-closing) [Home Loans](https://blog.blrmortgage.com/mortgage-newblog/topic/home-loans) [ADFA](https://blog.blrmortgage.com/mortgage-newblog/topic/adfa) [Mortgage Loans](https://blog.blrmortgage.com/mortgage-newblog/topic/mortgage-loans) [Rent or Buy](https://blog.blrmortgage.com/mortgage-newblog/topic/rent-or-buy) [USDA Loans](https://blog.blrmortgage.com/mortgage-newblog/topic/usda-loans) ### Subscribe to Email ### Recent Posts ### Posts by Topic - 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