Thinking about buying your first home? Watch Lee and James to learn more.
FROM MARCH KATV INTERVIEW WITH LEE MARIS
No headphones? No problem! Read the transcript below:
James: "Welcome back to Good
Morning Arkansas, Lee Maris of Bank of
Little Rock Mortgage is here this morning to help us navigate the process
of buying a home for the first time
there's a lot of things that people need
to know and you guys have been
living our mortgage are really prepared
to help people go through that process."
Lee: "Yeah we have our own lingo and it's
sometimes difficult for the layperson
out there to understand what we're
talking about you know first and
foremost come see us to get pre-approved.
I mean we've talked about that
every time I'm on here."
James: "Yes most important things you can't really do
much unless you're pre-approved"
Lee: "exactly and Realtors don't want to drive you
around town waste their time, your time,
unless they know you can get the
money."
James: "What is the most
important factor for a first-time
homebuyer to consider?"
Lee: "Well there's
several things, I mean you know you kinda
have to know what your credit score is.
You're gonna want to ask what interest
rates are, you know down payment options
stuff like that. So that's the
thing everybody has a different story,
you know everybody has a different
income, everybody has different credit
profile, so it's hard for me just to put
it all in one, you know, round peg round
hole yeah that's all different."
James:"Getting your credit kind of where it
needs to be so you can buy home that's also
very important as well."
Lee: "Probably, if not the most important it's right up there.
You know credit scores come from
TransUnion, Experian and Equifax the
three credit bureaus. I hate to tell
people when they're out there and they
get on Credit Karma
that's probably not the credit score
you're gonna see when you come to me."
James: "Okay so when you go to get a credit
score it may be a little different."
Lee: " It is gonna be a little different, yeah. We're
gonna grade it are the algorithms they
use for a home loan or different than
the algorithms they use for a car loan."
James: "So that's a very important thing"
Lee: "Yes"
James: "Does not have the exact credit score you
see on those other websites"
Lee: "Right because I have people come in all the
time I got an 800 and I say yeah let me pull
it now you're gonna have a 740 but I
mean that's it's still good to keep
track of your credit. And
credit scores are, you know, are you
paying your bills on time, are your
credit cards at a good balance and not
maxed out and stuff like that."
James: "Yeah it's all very important. So what's
another important definition you
mentioned was being it was being
pre-qualified what does this mean how do
you go get pre-qualified there"
Lee: :Just call us, you know, we're good, we can do it over
the phone, you can do it online, you can
come in and I suggest most first-time
home buyers come in sit down
let's do face-to-face because
there's a lot of terms and like I
descended they don't understand. And
you're talking about buying a home in
the next couple years after you get
married and you probably want to come in
and sit down and let's put stuff
on paper and do the math and a
lot of times the most important thing is
can I afford it. I mean what are you comfortable
with paying a month? What's your income, what's your credit,
you know, loan to values, of a term
on this and that's basically the loan
compared to the value of the home you
know on them so it's a percentage and
the lower the loan to value the less
risky the loan.
James: "Well hey less risk is always good"
Lee: "Yep and that's gonna get
you a better rate, etc."
James: "So better let's talk about interest rates explain
what you mean by straight and it's
placed in your decision to purchase a
home.
Lee: "The interest interest rate or
interest, is the cost of money. You
know we're not gonna give it to you free
and it's based, your interest rate is based on how risky
that loan is. You know you've got
bad credit and a very small down payment
your interest rates gonna be higher it's
gonna cost you more to borrow money."
James:"Yeah so all right 15 year mortgage 30 year
mortgage, what's the difference? Which
route should you go?"
Lee: "Everybody in America
should do a 15 year loan
but we're Americans we always want more
than then we probably should. So
you're paying it off in half the time
so a 15 year loan is gonna be a lot more
expensive on a monthly basis"
James: "right, exactly because you're paying it off in
half the time"
Lee: "So I would say 75% of
people I deal with do a 30-year loan
there I wish we can all do 15-year loans."
James: "But sometimes it's not realistic"
Lee: "Exactly and to afford more house you know you
need to probably do a 30-year loan but
we have 25 year loans, 20 year loans."
James: "To kind of meet in the middle"
Lee: "Yeah you can do a 25 year loan"
James: "So of course to start this whole process you got to get
pre-approved.if people want to do that
where do they go,who do they call where
can they find you?"
Lee: "They can call our office
at 501-219-9100 or go on our website
BLRmortgage.com that's where I'd start"
James: "Yeah I mean it's
and you guys want to help people"
Lee:"I'm just all about getting you in the
best situation you are you're gonna set
somebody that propels you we don't
have the old banker mentality,
you know, that mean old banker.
I mean we're here to help, that's how we make a living and
keep the lights on so we want to do
loans."
James: "Yeah absolutely well
thanks for
coming in this morning,
always great tips coming in
talking about buying homes"
