Does Going With Conventional Financing Avoid Having To Make Required Repairs?

If FHA/ USDA/ VA loans require repairs to be completed prior to closing, why not just switch to a Conventional Mortgage? As long as the buyers qualify, we won’t have to worry about doing any repairs to the home.  Besides, many of these homes are foreclosures, and many banks, Freddie Mac, Fannie Mae, HUD, and others won’t allow the properties to be touched prior to closing.  Wrong! The appraisers have been going through a scrutiny as of late.  The level of responsibility to report accurate and concise information of the homes, has increased exponentially.  Appraisers are being told that they can be held liable for any unreported issues, so appraisers are now required to take pictures of every room in the house, and they must note any unusual abnormalities that can effect the marketability of a home. They must give the home a Quality rating, too.  They are given a rating of  C-1 to C-5. A rating of C-3 is considered average.  When the Conventional appraiser reviews the home, they are still taking pictures and making notations of things like: Stains in the carpet, water stains in the ceiling, holes in the wall, missing molding, broken windows, water in the basement,etc.  Even though none of these is structural in nature, banks are requiring these items to be fixed because they are concerned about safety and soundness issues with the property.  The average quality rating is expected, and anything below that rating requires repairs to be made before the buyer can take possession of the home.  Once these repairs are completed, the appraiser must go back out to the property and reinspect it for the bank.  The appraiser verifies that the Quality rating is up to average. There are two ways that this situation can be dealt with.  Either the buyer does the repairs on a home that they don’t own, which can be time consuming and unacceptable to a seller, or they can apply for a rehabilitation loan.  A rehab loan is one where a buyer obtains an estimate of repairs from a contractor, our bank holds the amount of money in an escrow account.  Once the required repairs are complete, the bank pays the contractor direct for the repairs, or reimburses the buyer once they have been shown that have been completed.  Most lenders can’t do any type of Rehab loans, or they offer the FHA 203K, which is arduous and expensive.  I can do a standard conventional rehab loan, requiring as little as 5% down payment.  Regardless which way you want to go, please know that switching the type of financing to Conventional doesn’t promise any different outcome.

3 Day Mandatory Buyer Review of Hud-1

Is this another way of slowing down our turnaround times? It is bad enough that the government enacted so many lending changes in the past few years, much too late to avoid the kinds of loan fraud which were prevalent in the mid 2000’s. Now they are continuing to find more red tape that slows down the lending process. They changed the good faith estimate, requiring that the lenders would have to eat any fees being over charged to the buyers at settlement. This was a novel idea which kept the predatory lenders from using bait and switch tactics to take advantage of consumers. They required licensing for individual loan officers, mandatory continuing education, testing, criminal background and credit checks. All of these have been effective in eliminating the less than desirable loan officers from continuing to originate loans. Why are they requiring a minimum of a 3 business day review of the HUD-1? As of August 1, 2015, there is a mandatory 3 business day review in which a buyer can cancel their contract to buy a home after receiving a copy of the HUD-1. This is an example of an overkill. Any discrepancies at closing fall within the 10% tolerance, meaning that the lender or loan officer will have to absorb any additional lender charges incurred by the buyer. Since the fees cannot be changed from what the borrower was shown at the time of application and/or within 3 business days from the date of application, there is no need to delay the closings an additional 3 business days. Many lenders take until the day of closing to do the final preparations of closing papers. They wire the monies needed, and email the papers to the title company within 24 hours of the closing. With these changes, they will have to have everything to the title company at least 4 business days before the closing so that the title company will have the time they need to complete the final HUD-1 and get it to the borrower. This is doing nothing to help anyone, because the culprits who changed the fees at closing are long gone, and only the remaining experienced and reputable loan officers remain. All this does is provide another reason why the government agencies are too late to act, and often overreact to problems. Tack on another 3 days to your real estate contracts!