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Refinanced with Marty and Trident in August from a 30 to a 15yr.  No one could touch his rates, even my previous lender which frequents this forum.  Went to a 3.0 with ZERO costs.  He was also able to pull it off in about 3 weeks prior to my deployment.  Can not say enough good things about him and Jennifer.  He even called me while he was on an airline trip to answer a question that I had. 

 

Thanks Marty,

 

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Got a question and this seemed like the best place to ask it since my house is under a VA loan.

Getting ready to do some renovations (new kitchen and x2 bathrooms) and heard that it was possible to roll these expenses into a mortgage.  Is there any truth to that?  I've heard that it's possible but involves refinancing.  Any info would be appreciated.

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Got a question and this seemed like the best place to ask it since my house is under a VA loan.
Getting ready to do some renovations (new kitchen and x2 bathrooms) and heard that it was possible to roll these expenses into a mortgage.  Is there any truth to that?  I've heard that it's possible but involves refinancing.  Any info would be appreciated.

It all depends on how much money you need to complete the upgrades. There is not a specific VA rehab loan but there are options.

1) Do a no cost IRRRL and roll in the escrow amount into the loan. You'd skip one mortgage payment plus get to keep your escrow refund. This is the cheapest option but will only get you 5-10k in cash.

2) Do a VA cash out refi where you can take out up to 100% of the appraised value of your house. There is a 3.3% VA funding fee (unless you have a VA disability) to do this plus closing costs and escrow fees. I can pay 3% of your funding fee and you can pay the rest out of the cash out. This is going to cost you more money but will get you the maximum amount of cash to do the upgrades.

3) Assuming you have the equity, do a no cost Home Equity Loan or Line of Credit. These typically allow you to take out up to 90% of the appraised value and run around 4%.

Hope I answered your question.

Take care
Marty


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Wife and I are getting ready to PCS to FL and looking to possibly build a home.  We sold a couple house, paid some things off, and have little left other than a low car payment and a couple credit cards.. currently have a low DTI ratio.  We are trying to see what are options are as far as what we can build/buy.  Using my own spreadsheet we could actually afford upwards of $750k but I know the banks don't see what I do sometimes.  Is there a good method to determine what a bank will pre-approve you for instead of applying to numerous banks that want to run your credit?  We will be using a VA loan with a good amount of money down.

 

Thanks!

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25 minutes ago, Chicken said:

Wife and I are getting ready to PCS to FL and looking to possibly build a home.  We sold a couple house, paid some things off, and have little left other than a low car payment and a couple credit cards.. currently have a low DTI ratio.  We are trying to see what are options are as far as what we can build/buy.  Using my own spreadsheet we could actually afford upwards of $750k but I know the banks don't see what I do sometimes.  Is there a good method to determine what a bank will pre-approve you for instead of applying to numerous banks that want to run your credit?  We will be using a VA loan with a good amount of money down.

 

Thanks!

This is a good question.  I do think a good "do it yourself" first step is to find a calculator that helps you calculate the maximum mortgage based on some user input.  We have a basic one here that you can take a look at our NBKC website.  It's pretty conservative though in determining your maximum amount,  with good credit the "debt to income ratio" can be higher than what a standard calculator like this will show you.  But it's a good first step.

https://www.nbkcmortgage.com/calculators/maximum_mortgage.aspx

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Wife and I are getting ready to PCS to FL and looking to possibly build a home.  We sold a couple house, paid some things off, and have little left other than a low car payment and a couple credit cards.. currently have a low DTI ratio.  We are trying to see what are options are as far as what we can build/buy.  Using my own spreadsheet we could actually afford upwards of $750k but I know the banks don't see what I do sometimes.  Is there a good method to determine what a bank will pre-approve you for instead of applying to numerous banks that want to run your credit?  We will be using a VA loan with a good amount of money down.
 
Thanks!

Chicken,
Shoot me an email or call with your income, monthly debt obligations, and credit score. I'll run your numbers and let you know what you'd be pre-approved for based on the information you provide. I can't do an actual pre-approval without running your credit but if you give me solid info then I can get you to the 99% solution now.

Marty
Owner, Trident Home Loans
Legacy airline pilot
USNA Alumni
Former EA-6B pilot


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Just closed with Trident last week. Called around to several different banks, and no one could beat their rate + lender credit. Especially as we decided to do 0% down with the low interest rates right now. 

 

Biggest takeaway for me is that, within about 20 minutes of emailing with some questions, Marty was giving me a call back to talk rough numbers (which were really close to on the money by the time we closed). We're up in Seattle where the housing market is really hot and they were able to quick turn on anything we needed, which ended up being the difference in getting our house. 

 

Bonus points for hiring military spouses. Highly recommend, and would use again/recommend to family. 

 

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Just closed with Trident last week. Called around to several different banks, and no one could beat their rate + lender credit. Especially as we decided to do 0% down with the low interest rates right now. 
 
Biggest takeaway for me is that, within about 20 minutes of emailing with some questions, Marty was giving me a call back to talk rough numbers (which were really close to on the money by the time we closed). We're up in Seattle where the housing market is really hot and they were able to quick turn on anything we needed, which ended up being the difference in getting our house. 
 
Bonus points for hiring military spouses. Highly recommend, and would use again/recommend to family. 
 

Thank you Sir! I just shared your feedback with my team of 25 employees. I am very proud of each of them and delighted that we earned your trust! We love serving the military and will always do anything we can to help.

Marty


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Another recommendation for Marty and Trident Home Loans.  In the end, we went with a local bank because we got a smidge lower rate, but I would definitely recommend them any of my friends, especially first year airline guys, to check them out and see what they can do.  

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  • 2 weeks later...

Anyone ever bought a house as they were getting off AD?

 

Looking to separate in approximately 6-9 months and buying a house for the next phase of my life. Going to be shooting for the airlines, so there is potentially a time of joblessness or reduced income while I play the waiting game. I have a good chunk of money saved up from 10 years of AD.

 

Questions:

Are banks familiar with this situation or are they going to look at a snapshot of time? (no income no loan?)

Does a high down payment mitigate some of this? How high would I need?

Anyone ever done this before and have anecdotal stories or done this transition before? What was the hardest part?

 

Edited by xaarman
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Every lender is going to be different and some are better than others with these situations.

The two options we give guys who are separating and going to the airlines are:
1) Buy before you establish a separation date if possible
2) Buy once you start getting your airline training pay.

Option 1 is easy and there won't be any questions asked or larger down payment required because an officer has an indefinite DOS until your separation package is approved.

Option 2 is something we do all the time. It won't require a larger down payment assuming you're doing a VA. The break in employment isn't an issue because you've been in the same line of work (pilot) for more than 2 years regardless of who you fly for. Training pay is typically around $5K which usually allows us to qualify someone like you for around a $2.8K mortgage payment once you start training.

Shoot me an email at marty@mythl.com or PM if you want to talk specifics or have more questions.

Hope that helps!
Marty




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Marty - does having a DOS established, but still on AD, hurt you with getting a loan? You're still getting a paycheck, so why does the lender care...especially if you have follow on employment? Seems weird considering a civilian gets a loan and the lender would have no idea if they're about to leave their job a month after closing...there's no telling, so why would an established DOS hurt you?

 

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Marty - does having a DOS established, but still on AD, hurt you with getting a loan? You're still getting a paycheck, so why does the lender care...especially if you have follow on employment? Seems weird considering a civilian gets a loan and the lender would have no idea if they're about to leave their job a month after closing...there's no telling, so why would an established DOS hurt you?
 

A verification of employment and continued employment has to be done for both civilian and military alike. As long as you don't show your cards too early an underwriter has no grounds to deny the loan even if you quit your job the day after closing. The problem is if they know you are quitting which is where establishing a DOS can hurt you.

Having a DOS won't kill you if it's greater than 12 months out from the closing date, you have a verifiable job offer from an airline or you show intent to extend out your DOS.

You run into a problem if you have a DOS and haven't got a job offer from an airline yet or you separate prior to getting hired.

Getting a mortgage is like passing a flight physical. As long as the paperwork looks good during the 30-45 day closing window no one is going to care what you do after you close as long as you're making your payments.

Hope that helps answer your question!
Marty


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If the lender simply needs to see last x amount of LES, seems as long as you get past that part of the paperwork prior to a DOS showing up on a future LES, you're good. Is that a valid assumption?

You got it! As long as the most recent LES you submit has an Indef separation date you're good.

You could also setup the closing to be 60 days after the contract ratification date. If you do that you could get close to not making your first payment until 120 days from signing the contract which is when you could be on terminal leave and potentially already have a job offer too.

I'm basing this timeline on you applying to separate 6 months prior to your ADSC being up which I believe is pretty typical.

Cheers!
Marty


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Thanks Marty! Is it possible to get through this portion of the loan approval process prior to finding a house? or does a lender reassess your LES a second time once you find a house? My issue is there is almost no way I will buy a house/go into contract prior to a DOS being established...based on several factors. However, do have full time employment post-separation. 

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brabus,

I just went through this as a recently separated new TR with a civilian job on the side. It's kind of a pain in the ass as a part time reservist. It's much easier if you have just a normal civilian job you can show the bank. You can submit either past pay stubs or a contract that would show how much you would make. The problem isn't with banks like Trident or NBKC - it's just that their underwriters aren't going to understand reserve pay (though, as an aside, does anyone understand reserve pay?) You'll also run into trouble if you have multiple "part time" jobs, like being a TR half of the month and being a civilian for the other half of the month.

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Thanks Marty! Is it possible to get through this portion of the loan approval process prior to finding a house? or does a lender reassess your LES a second time once you find a house? My issue is there is almost no way I will buy a house/go into contract prior to a DOS being established...based on several factors. However, do have full time employment post-separation. 


There is what is called pre-underwriting prior to finding a house but that wouldn't buy you anything since they'd want your most current LES once you found the house.

You're fine though as long as you already have full time employment lined up with a job offer in writing. You can have a DOS but will just have to provide a copy of the job offer.


brabus,
I just went through this as a recently separated new TR with a civilian job on the side. It's kind of a pain in the ass as a part time reservist. It's much easier if you have just a normal civilian job you can show the bank. You can submit either past pay stubs or a contract that would show how much you would make. The problem isn't with banks like Trident or NBKC - it's just that their underwriters aren't going to understand reserve pay (though, as an aside, does anyone understand reserve pay?) You'll also run into trouble if you have multiple "part time" jobs, like being a TR half of the month and being a civilian for the other half of the month.


Reserve pay can be tricky since it varies month to month, but we're used to it. Same goes for "hourly" airline pay which some underwriters can't wrap their brains around, but we do it so frequently that we have cracked the code.

We can qualify someone for a VA loan up to 55% debt to income so a lot of time we can just drop the reserve pay off your application and still make the numbers work.

If we do have to use it we have you get a letter from your commander documenting your projected annual reserve income and back that up with your LES and bank statements. Rarely have we run into an issue where we couldn't get the underwriter to understand it. If we do then I just call the VP and as the owner of Trident can push it through.



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Hello!  I am a mortgage loan officer and have helped quite a few members of this forum (Amy Stuhr Paterson with NBKC Bank).

My husband is retired A/F and flies commercially.  Almost all of my customers are pilots and I have helped many customers in your exact situation.  I understand how pilots are paid as do my underwriters. 

Typically my pilot new hires fall in one of 2 categories; newly retired and starting with the airline (has the benefit of using retirement pay for income) OR signed on with a Guard unit (part time Guard wages available to augment skinny 1st year 1st officer pay). 

No income at all is going to be tough from a qualification stand point even with a sizeable down payment. 

PM me if you would like to discuss in more detail.  I would be glad to help! 

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On 11/5/2016 at 9:02 PM, brabus said:

Marty - does having a DOS established, but still on AD, hurt you with getting a loan? You're still getting a paycheck, so why does the lender care...especially if you have follow on employment? Seems weird considering a civilian gets a loan and the lender would have no idea if they're about to leave their job a month after closing...there's no telling, so why would an established DOS hurt you?

 

Are you looking to buy in the same area where you are currently AD?  That makes life a lot easier.  If you are buying a home that is not local to your AD employment, it makes things trickier.  Have to establish your family will move into the home within 60 days of closing...If obtaining a VA loan, typically will have to qualify with double residual income (local to your home and local to your employment)....Explanation needed for underwriting to understand why you are buying a home with VA financing  not in the area where you are working...Doable but makes things a little more complicated...Have helped borrowers close in this exact situation...Let me know if there is anything I can do to help!  apaterson@nbkc.com

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Another shoutout to Marty and the gang at Trident.  I did a 30 year VA cash-out refi and closed in under 30 days.  Nobody even came close to Marty's offer.  Thanks for the great service you guys provide and I look forward to doing business with you again.

Thank you bluedevil! It was a pleasure working with you. Happy Veterans Day to everyone!

Marty


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