🏠 Mortgages Made Simple: Demystifying Home Loans with John Lake of Shamrock Home Loans

🏠 Mortgages Made Simple: Demystifying Home Loans with John Lake of Shamrock Home Loans

In this episode of Jim Sells the Suncoast, Jim welcomes John Lake from Shamrock Home Loans to break down the mortgage process in a way that’s easy to understand—even for first-time buyers. From pre-approval vs. pre-qualification to loan types, down payments, and the myth of “just chasing the best rate,” John shares what really matters when financing a home.

Whether you’re buying on the Suncoast or beyond, this episode is packed with smart insights to help you shop with confidence—and avoid the pitfalls that cost people deals, dollars, and sleep.

🔑 Key Highlights

💡 Understanding the Mortgage Process

• From Contract to Keys: Shamrock’s step-by-step approach helps buyers stay informed and excited from day one.
• The Table Analogy: A mortgage should be solid and stable—just like a well-built table. That means starting with the right foundation: income, credit, and down payment.

📊 What Lenders Look For

• Credit Profile: More than just your score—lenders evaluate usage, types of credit, and payment history.
• Income Verification: Whether salaried, hourly, or self-employed, your income history matters. Lenders assess trends, consistency, and documentation over 2 years.
• Debt-to-Income Ratios: Ideal housing expenses = under 40% of income; total debt + mortgage = under 50% (though some exceptions apply).

💰 Down Payments & PMI

• 20% = No PMI: But smaller down payments are still viable with programs offering 0–10% options.
• PMI (Private Mortgage Insurance): Protects the lender, but doesn't always break the bank—and sometimes is the smarter financial move, especially with FHA.

📄 Pre-Approval vs. Pre-Qualification

• Pre-Qual = A Conversation: Based on unverified info; risky in competitive markets.
• Pre-Approval = Verified & Vetted: Full credit, income, and asset review; gives buyers a stronger edge with sellers and agents.

🧩 Types of Loans

• Conventional: Best for borrowers with solid credit and larger down payments.
• FHA: More flexible guidelines, especially good for first-time buyers or those with credit dings.
• VA: No down payment or PMI for eligible veterans.
• USDA: Zero-down for homes in rural-eligible areas with income limits.
• Non-Traditional/Bank Statement Loans: Ideal for self-employed borrowers or those with non-standard income.

🛠️ Points, Rate Buydowns & Smart Strategies

• Points = Prepaid Interest: May lower monthly payments but not always cost-effective long-term.
• Shamrock's List & Lock Program: Sellers can contribute toward rate buydowns to make deals more attractive in slower markets—especially powerful for resale homes.
• True Affordability: Focus less on chasing the “lowest rate” and more on what monthly payment feels comfortable long-term.

👀 Avoiding Common Mistakes

• Don't Wait to Talk to

A Personal Note from Jim:

Hey there, I’m Jim Ahearn, your go-to real estate guide and host of Jim Sells The Suncoast podcast! 🎙️✨ Dreaming of Florida life? I’ve got you covered! As your dedicated buyer's agent, I’ll handle everything from walk-throughs to closing, making your home-buying journey as smooth as a Florida breeze.

Whether you're local or tuning in from afar, I’ll bring the Suncoast to you with virtual tours and expert advice. Let’s chat about your dream home and I'll connect you with all the right people to make it happen.

Ready to move to paradise? Drop me a line – I can’t wait to help! 🌴🏡

Transcript

Jim: 0:53

All right. Hi, and welcome to Jim Sells the Suncoast. Today I'm honored to have John Lake from Shamrock Home Loans on John is multifaceted. He's working in a couple different areas, but he's familiar down here with the Suncoast. And we're gonna talk a little bit about different kinds of mortgages. How to apply for'em, what goes through the process of them, and then don't get fixated on that big number. Let's take a look at what you're actually gonna live in. John, welcome. Thank you. Thanks Jim. And how are you today? I am doing

John: 1:24

well, very well. Terrific. Terrific. Terrific. So when I started a conversation with a prospective borrower and client, most of the time what we try to focus in on is understanding the process, because we've heard horror stories about applying for a mortgage when somebody makes an offer. And that offer is accepted. People will pop the clock. The sellers, the buyers, the realtors,

Jim: 1:49

they pop the

John: 1:49

cork. Nobody on this little green plan of our has ever popped the clock when they've applied for a mortgage. We wanna take that into stride. Sadly, in today's world, because of technology, you can do this in an automated fashion. But, and if it's your first home, you are not getting the right guidance. You need to have that human factor because if you apply and you'll say, pick a loan product. The difference between U-S-D-A-F-H-A-A conventional 3 1 5 up Alejandra. And at that point, what ends up happening is interest. If you picked a different product, you might have a better chance of getting approved. So you need somebody to guide you and explain the process. I'm almost three decades into. This business. So I try to make buying very easy. Our motto at Shamrock is keeping our clients excited from contract to keys. And we do that by taking them along step by step and educating them to make sure they understand what the process is all about. So whenever I talk to a new client, I always ask them, have you ever bought furniture you have to assemble? And most of them say yes. We bought a table that we had to assemble just a short time ago. And I said, you get that box home. You open the box, you get everything out. You get a bag of bolts and you get one tool, two things can happen. One, you have a very solid table and it was a nice experience. Or two, the table's wobbly. Your hands are bloodied, and you've learned a. So we wanna eliminate that second and put you through a process that, so if we table together, the first we look at is your some personal information to obtain a credit report. And that credit report, the almighty credit score is important. And you get your credit card bill and it has a credit score like, oh, I got good credit. But every industry I. Has its own algorithm and your credit score is based on a mathematical formula that each industry can adjust towards their risk tolerance. Your risk tolerance are getting a$500 credit card at the gap is very different from the lender. You wanna start there and the credit report is basically. Us a few things. The first thing it does tell us your score and that score is made up of different things how much credit you have versus what are your your, what kind of credit is it? Is it revolving? Is it a MasterCard? Is student loans? So there is so much that goes into, tells you. And that previous two years, because this person their credit. Now I've had simple things where somebody has a couple credit limits and what.$400 balances and they pay it every month. But the algorithm doesn't understand that. So it says this person has used up most of their credit, so they're not managing it well, so we're gonna give them a hit. So the profile of the credit report is important as well as the second thing we take is your monthly minimum debt service. What is the monthly minimum payments on your account? And we take that data and we walk over to our second leg. Now the second leg is, and that is your ability to be paid, but we wanna know exactly how do you get paid? Do you get paid as a W2? Is there salary? Is it hourly? Is it overtime? Is there bonuses? Is there commission? Are you self-employed? File a sole proprietorship, schedule C, do you file joint return or a a partnership. Are you an SCORP corporation? And you have, we wanna find out what you've made over the last two years. So that we can see some sort of consistency in your income,

Jim: 6:07

right?

John: 6:08

So if you're self-employed, we look at your net adjusted number after you've had some of your deductions, and we'll even add some of the deductions. We say, okay, this is what this person made last two years trending up. Is it trending across or is it trend? So we look at that and say, this is what we're gonna use for income, salary, employee, and you don't get any bonuses 10 a month. And that's what we have. So we take that income. They want your housing expense, what your mortgage payment is. Principle, your interest, your taxes, any HOA fees, any private mortgage insurance. And I'll explain that in a second. They want that number to be under 40%. Okay. We can go higher in some cases but that's the target. And then we want to take that debt. We took off your credit report. Add it to the mortgage, and we'd like to keep that under 50%, but again, we can go a little higher in some cases. So that's where we get some of your ranges on what you can afford. Okay. The third leg of Right,

Jim: 7:25

and this is your starting point, right? Your, you pull all that information in, we say, Hey, here's where we're gonna start because we know what you can afford. And then you can start looking at how that's gonna apply to different different options that you have.

John: 7:37

And this is collecting the data portion of it. We wanna know what you have to put down because if you have less than 20% to put into the deal, and we have loans at a hundred percent. We have loans cases that have some down payment assistance. In some communities there's a lot of great programs there. But again, if you are managing your mortgage with an app, then chances are you're not gonna be fully educated on what may be available to you. So we want to know what percentage, and we can do zero. We may have some down payment assistance, 3%, three and a half, 5, 10, 15, 20. And that 20 is the magic number. Because if you have 20% down, you are not obligated to pay private mortgage insurance now. What is PMI? It's an acronym. A lot of loan officers love to talk in acronyms. I don't understand a lot of acronyms. If your LTV is more than 80 and a PMI is gonna be 0.5% over the first 10, and then we're gonna have to find out where your DTI is. They're tied in to make sure we're getting the right PMI. Yeah it's just people, they look at you like, this is why we don't wanna do this, but if it's explained properly. Many years ago when my parents wanted to buy a house and houses were like seven,$8,000. You had to have 30% down. And you also had to get a 10 year mortgage. That's it. That's how it was done. No special financing, then the new deal came across and they said, we want people to own homes. It's the American dream. Why are you banks making this so hard? It's because lenders are usually risk adverse. That means we don't wanna lose. We're in it for profit. We're a for-profit in. So in the long run, we realize that if we had a partner with a down payment, the chances of us having to foreclose are very little, because you're not gonna walk away from equity. You'll sell the house before we can.

Jim: 9:32

If everybody's got skin in the game, right? Everybody wants to win,

John: 9:35

right? So the government said not everybody has 30%. And as prices go up and up, and income doesn't move as much, it makes money almost impossible for the average American. So what PMI is an insurance policy and it does protect the loan. And it's based on your down payment and that 20% mark. So if you're buying a house and you're putting down 10%, we now only have to insure 10% because if you fail, then we foreclose, we sell the house, and if it doesn't sell at 90%, we have an insurance policy that will pay it up. If you're putting down 5%, then we're gonna insure 15% of the amount. So the bigger the loan amount and the higher the. The loan to value, we're gonna need proper coverage. So it now gives people an opportunity to buy a home with little down payment and have a manageable private mortgage insurance. Private mortgage insurance is not a dirty word or dirty words because they're becoming more inexpensive. Technology and stuff. It's become very inexpensive. So there's ways

Jim: 10:42

that. Borrower a chance to choose their own risk and choose their own level that they feel comfortable with. That hey, you know what, 10%, I don't mind paying this or 20%'cause I don't wanna pay it at all. Whatever works for that, you can really tailor it to that individual borrower.

John: 10:56

Just in your your email the other day meeting the average sales price was what? Six and change 20%? That's$50,000. Yeah. That's a lot of money for someone starting out. And come up with to, to buy. So it makes it more difficult for the buyer to buy. And this makes it a little easier for everybody. So the down payment, we want to see where the down payment is. And then the last which in. Florida is a little less difficult because there are our properties in all price ranges available for sale. So you're not I qualify for four 50 and there's really no house. Four 50. It starts at seven, so I can't buy a house because I'm limited by my ability to repay the loan. So that's. A fantastic problem to have in Florida because you have options. Options, means that there's availability and there's opportunity. So I'm very excited about the Florida market, even though there's, it's not a seller's market. And those sellers are like and they're staying in the house a little longer. And they're asking for more because a friend of a friend who has a cousin who knew somebody's brother, who one time sold the house. And got this price for it, so therefore my house must be

Jim: 12:10

worth that.

John: 12:10

So you know what that's like. So once we build this little model by obtaining a credit report. I become Noah. I collect two of everything. We ask for two pay stubs, two W twos. If you're self-employed, we might ask for two years of tax. We're two months of bank statement showing the money that is. Can get gift, you

Error: 12:37

can take,

John: 12:39

come. We wanna make sure you have access to liquidity. Then we give you a realtor, that letter of credit, which means that, we've done our diligence, we've underwritten this loan with credit reports, income and asset documents, and here are the programs you're available. And. Now it's time to go out and play house hundreds.'cause we all know you just see three houses in one day and you pick a house over cocktails.

Jim: 13:05

Absolutely. Super simple process.

John: 13:09

It's

Jim: 13:10

so once they've gone through all these steps, now you're talking about what is the right loan for them? Or is that's in that process. Process. Where they're talking, that's in process. Conventional, FHA, va, us da, yep. The number of choices continues to grow.

John: 13:25

It does because we're getting back into some creative lending. But creative lending still all requires the ability to repay. I have people tell me that, Hey, my credit score is high. I am like, that's terrific. Good for you. You've done a good job so far, but let's talk about your income. And that's where everything starts to fall apart. Some people, while I'm self-employed, I can't buy a loan. That's not true. We have many loan types that can help people who may have the ability. To take legal deductions and their taxes and show less of an income, but doesn't mean that their house, we just have to go through a little alternative, right? They're out there and available. Now, when you get outta that little box, realize that, gentleman I am to work with says, the more you give me, the less I ask for. So you gimme more money down, the less documents I'm gonna require. And that's usually true that we can find ways to make things happen, whether it's so some of these new fancy loans, which just look at bank statements for self-employed people and stuff like that, we can usually come up with a way to do it.

Jim: 14:30

So you mentioned a little bit earlier too, that magic paper that you give to your realtor the pre-approval, the difference between a pre-approval. And pre-qualify. There's a difference.

John: 14:40

There is a big difference. To be pre-qualified. You and I just got pre-qualified without me asking you right. Some questions. Do you have good credit? Your credit card says 800. Okay. And what are your bills? There are about$300 a month. Okay. And what do you make? You make. A hundred thousand dollars a year. Okay. And what do you have in the bank? I have$150,000 in the bank. Okay based on this. And you wanna buy that house for X amount of dollars. This number works and you're pre-qualified. But when I start pulling credit and I see that their score isn't exactly what they said, because our algorithm is a little different and well. You don't make that money, but you have the ability to make up to that money. But right now you haven't made that money in the last two years. So this is what you're trending, which is substantially less and you said you had this in the bank. Oh, you would eventually would have that in the bank. So now all of a sudden you're sitting across from a seller with your buyer and you've given a pre-qual letter and they sign the agreement and now you come and apply and we find out that we do not have a loan. Because we had a conversation. Pre-approval is now we've done diligence, we've pulled credit we've acquired your income and asset documents, and now we've reviewed everything. We've done an underwriting through, with an underwriter and through some of the automated underwriting processes that we have. So we're gonna tell you that yeah, we've done our diligence. All you have to do is find a house and we'll do diligence on that home.

Jim: 16:07

So letter, you basically vetted and verified that information and now you feel pretty good about this is gonna work so we can give a stamp of approval.

John: 16:17

Oh, yeah. And that's what you, everybody should be looking for. I know a lot of a listing agents, they'll see a pre-qual letter and they'll just pass and that just gets pulled over. We're not even entertain, especially if you're in a situation where there are multiple offers. A pre goes way to the bottom and you have to have something special about your offer that will make that go to the top because there are gonna be, cash offers, there's going to be people putting large amounts of down payment, some things that make your offer stronger than somebody who's just prequalified.

Jim: 16:46

Because the seller, at the end of the day, they want to reach that deal. Yeah. And if there's things in there that may cause the deal to fall through, hey, you don't make quite what you said, or you don't have the actual, rounding can be a terrible thing. Yeah. So the pre-qualify isn't a strong an offer. Even if it looks good on paper, it hasn't been embedded.

John: 17:05

We wanna have a solid table from ikea.

Jim: 17:07

Yes.

John: 17:08

We don't want a wobbly one. We want a solid one. And most people understand that once it's explained to'em that a prequalification really isn't gonna get you anywhere with offers. It'll get your heart broken, but it's not gonna get you a house. So I always say that if you are ready to. Get into this and buy a house, let's get you set up so that we can maybe in multiple offers, make it a little quicker. Because if I've already got you through underwriting and approved, then I just have to have appraisal and title work to add into that package. So that cuts down on a lot of time, and maybe instead of 30 day close, we can do a 21 day close. We've done some pretty quick closings dependent upon where the borrower is in this stage of paperwork and getting us what we need as quickly as we need, and if I already have it, then I'm just now filling in an address on the application and we're ramping it up. And if we have to order stuff as a rush it can be done.

Jim: 18:08

Versus

John: 18:08

finding out. Can you speak a little

Jim: 18:09

bit? Yeah. Can you speak a little bit about the different types of loans and maybe the main ones? Really conventional. FHA very specific for va USDA. How do those apply? Is there one that's stands out or any that may be particularly niche?

John: 18:26

They're all pretty much have their own pros and cons. Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae, which are the conventional lenders they typically have some of the better terms. However, they also have sometimes more difficult criteria to meet. If somebody's putting down 20%, they're gonna be the go-to lender, down 10%, they're probably gonna be the go-to lender. The next would be the FHA, the Federal Housing Agency. And they are a good first time home buyer loan. They are more flexible. And they have certain things that make it a little better. For example, when I say private mortgage insurance, because Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae don't offer it. So we as lenders have to go out externally and find that for you, and it's all credit and risk based.

Jim: 19:20

So

John: 19:21

you have maybe a couple dings and a lower score. Your PMI could end up being very,

Error: 19:27

how much?

John: 19:28

FHA, whether you've got a five 80 score or an 800 score. The PMI is the same because they're Oh, okay. So it's the same number for everybody. So that's going to make somebody with a ding or two, maybe a little better the. Part about the, that they require PMI on all of their loans. So if you're putting down 20% and we don't need PMI, and maybe you're dinged up, you're still gonna get a better deal with Freddie down and you're dinged up FHA is gonna be a better fit. Sometimes they have better terms for us, and they will be a little bit more flexible with things like. Debt to income ratios, they'll go 40, 39 and 49. They might go as high as 53. Again, dependent upon the circumstances in the right criteria. So the FHA is not a bad loan? They're too particular on their home. They do because they're at 3% and they wanna make sure that a borrower is not gonna go into. A purchase with a house that's gonna have holes in the wall, it's gonna need a new roof. It's got a cracked in the foundation. It's got this and that. So the appraiser. Does the look, they're not the home inspector and they're just gonna say based on my guideline experience with the FHA, we have issues with the holes in the wall. The ceilings get holes, there's broken windows, and the roof is, should have somebody look at it and a professional give their opinion so it. So we wanna make sure that we're we're doing the right service. That's why you look at just rates. Somebody who's putting down 20% might see a better rate. We

Error: 21:26

met with him on getting some

John: 21:30

coaching on that is important. Now a VA is for veterans. Entitled to a benefit and they have some great deals. No money down, no monthly private mortgage insurance. They're very flexible with their guidelines. So it's a great benefit for people who've done the right thing and served our country, right? So they're entitled to it and they deserve it. Then we have USDA, which is another great loan. They will also go to a hundred percent financing, but they are looking at rural areas. So if you're in Bradenton or in Sarasota you're probably not gonna qualify because of the. The population and they go off census is right the city. But if you get out on the other side of 75, you know you've got farmlands. And that's great. Area for USDA loans. Now they do have income guidelines, meaning that they're there as the lender of last resort. And if you have. Three people in the house all working, they're gonna want all three, even not on the mortgage. They're gonna want to see those income to make sure that your household income meets their guidelines.'cause they do have income guidelines in cap. So it's a great loan. And then we have the, a little bit more, I guess you would call'em boutique type loans. And that's the right person. Somebody who maybe is an investor, somebody who is self-employed, somebody who doesn't show a lot of money on their tax returns, but their bank statements have money coming in huge amounts. They have a good accountant who is taking full advantage of their deductions. We want you to report properly. You are entitled to deductions, and if you take them, then that's within the law. We don't want anybody who's gonna deceive the government and end up in trouble. Those are new products to coming into the market and it's really for a particular group, and that's why somebody applying maybe online is gonna get denied and not know why I. Right where we, this is

Jim: 23:24

I think to your point where that human element comes in is to walking through the different ones. Because, if I don't know the difference and I just have a selection screen, I'm randomly pressing buttons and then hoping that's what's gonna work for me. Yeah, it might, but not necessarily

John: 23:39

you, you're taking, you're risking something that, you can end up. Now you have to close because you are in process and you realize that you made a big mistake and you got an FHA loan with PMI and you don't need it, and now you've got it. And the only way to get rid of it is to refinance, which is gonna cost you a little bit of money to do that. So you, the guidance on a purchase is invaluable when you're dealing with a human being. If you want to refinance, that's a whole different story. You've gone through the process. A lot of lenders out there will offer special deals, but I will caution everybody and realize this. We all get the money from the same place. We all have the same mortgage backed securities that are selling at a certain particular price, and we all are gonna have pretty much the same rates. So if you are getting a, an unbelievable rate that nobody else can meet, there's something there. You need to look at your loan estimate because there's charging you, I had one where the gentleman was telling me, you're up and down, that he's not paying any points. He's not paying any points. And I'm like, okay, I believe you. I said, ask for a loan estimate and let me take a look at it. If it's better than I can do, then I'm gonna wish you the best and send you on your absolutely. And then it came across and I said, do you realize you're paying a$7,500 bank fee? And he is what's that? I said we would've called them points, but you're just paying a fee to do business with this company or get this better rate because they're giving you a deal, but they're making it back with what they're getting upfront in costs so that a PR is important in this particular case, because even though my rate was higher, my a PR was lower because we didn't charge anybody$7,500.

Jim: 25:26

And we're seeing a lot of that now with the current environment and where the rates are. People are looking for ways to have a a less expensive mortgage payment. So that brings up what you were just talking about points. So let's talk a little bit what our points, how can they be utilized to make a, live in the mortgage and still make it affordable to buy the house? Points

John: 25:46

are interest paid in advance. Okay, so if today's rate is 7% And normally a point would reduce that rate by a quarter. So if you have a$500,000 loan and you paid a point, it would cost you$5,000, but you would save a quarter of a point on the payment. And that might not make enough of a difference to offset that. That$5,000, because it might only save you, let's say.$75 a month and no, okay, how long do I have to keep this loan in order to recoup my$75? Now we are in a market that should be a declining rate market, and all of a sudden now you've paid 5,000 and you've got this rate of 6, 3, 7, 5, or 6, 7, 5, and now you want to refinance. And I was like you just wasted that$5,000 now. The power of a reduced interest rate is huge. And we see builders do this where they say, okay, we're home sellers. We're home builders and home sellers. We just do the mortgage thing on the side to help facilitate the sale of a house. So what they do is they just move part of their profit. And they plunk a chunk of it down on the, on, on the mortgage. So if you've got three or four points or a percentage of the mortgage that you can offset the rate, now all of a sudden you're down into the fives. Now that's huge. That could save you two or$300 a month and make it more affordable. Most fellows don't realize that they have the ability to do that. And we at Shamrock have a program called Liston Lock, where if you have a house that's not selling let's say you're going, you've got a$600,000 house and you're gonna take 20,000, the price of that house. Now you have five 80. You've got somebody who's looking to buy and finance it. You've saved$20,000. And again, I really, 10% of that is$2,000 less in your down payment. And now you have

Jim: 28:09

what here? We're

John: 28:11

less than your, is that enough to move the needle to, to attract somebody to buy?

Jim: 28:17

Right

John: 28:18

now you give Shamrock and the seller, the buyer, that$20,000 in buy down of their interest rate.'cause that's all going towards interest.

Jim: 28:28

And

John: 28:29

what it's gonna do is it's gonna inev take your rate down from maybe seven to, six and a half. And at Shamrock with our program, the seller signs up for it. We have a lot of marketing material for the seller to, to use social media. We build a video we give you signs. We have all kinds of great tools. We throw in a point, so that 3% that you might be discounting is now 4%, and we're now looking at a rate, maybe close to six or mid sixes that's gonna save you three or$400 a month. That moves the needle tremendously. So it's not only to the builder's advantages current houses that are existing can take advantage of the same thing, and we have a tool that will enhance it and make it a little bit more attractive because we're willing to be a part of this. And it's been, yeah, it's

Jim: 29:22

more than, yeah, it's more than just the price of what a house is. When you look at what's gonna make it affordable, who doesn't wanna get something cheaper, but is that really gonna be the best deal? You really gotta look at it and leverage it. Is this gonna save me a couple dollars up front, but this one's gonna save me money ongoing over the course of, 30 years or until down the road you refinance or something. It can make the living day-to-day much better.

John: 29:48

And we just did that with a client who really liked the house. They were putting down some money and it just wasn't working for them because it was more than they could afford. And even with the a reduced offer. It still wasn't coming into where they wanted to be. So we have this program in our back pocket and the seller was willing to throw in rather than, take the discount and you're not gonna buy the house, but let me give that discount to, to buy down your rate. And John's gonna come with a point. And all of a sudden now, even though they were paying$25,000 more for the house, they were saving a hundred dollars on their payment compared to getting a discount at current rates. So it, it's a power of compounded interest in amortization. And if you stop buying things down in, in numbers, then all of a sudden now you are, you're starting to save some real money. And the other advantage is that, is you may not need to refinance. A couple years ago we had that, marry the house and date the rate. And who advantage of. We maybe haven't refinanced yet, but you know what? They ha fallen in love with their rate.'cause those were like in the low sixes. And we haven't seen that in, in a long time. It is a long term commitment. It is a home love where you live. Don't buy a house for the say of buying a house. Love where you live.

Jim: 31:15

What are some of the common mistakes that Suncoast residents make with mortgage and how can they avoid'em?

John: 31:21

The rate is usually the last thing on the list of things you need to be aware of. Because I can't effectively change the rate. You can't change the rate. Buyers can't change the rate. Affordability is my main driving when I sit and have my consultation with. My, my prospective borrowers and clients, we talk about what they qualify for, but then I say, let's take that and put that aside. What do you, can you afford? If you have to stop making a mortgage payment July 1st, and that bill comes and you've gotta pay it every month, tell me where that, what's gonna keep you up at night? What number will keep you up at night that you're not gonna be happy in your home? And then let's work off of that and find a way to get you the most that we can. So focusing in on the wrong thing is usually what I see, I can get it right here. I'm like, oh. What does that mean? Is it is, it's the house stop, look at the house, we're all gonna be the same or close to the same. We're a mortgage bank, we're a mortgage, independent mortgage lender. So we underwrite, fund the loans. We're not brokers. We're not gonna farm'em out to somebody. And all of a sudden, a week goes by and you haven't gotten any disclosures yet because they haven't figured out who they're gonna sell it to and they're outta compliance. We're gonna pick a product based on the fact that we do offer all of them, and the one that fits your needs. And having that, That conversation and taking the time to look at that before you go out and buy is important. And then the second thing is having somebody on your team who before you make the offer. You call your lender and you have a consultation. It's John, this is the house. We love. Jim found us the house and we want it. And what, here's the asking price. This is what we've talked to Jim about making the offer at. We wanna know what these numbers mean. So many people go into negotiations, are not realizing the difference between their offer, what asking prices. Any deviation in any of that along the way. Counter offers, they go into it completely blind of understanding the process. And I'll share a quick story with you'cause I know we're time sensitive is I had a gentleman who. Came in and I got him pre-approved and we sat, we got everybody happy. His wife, his two kids, we all had a great time. And they were out looking for houses and they kept getting office rejected. And they came close to one. And I said come back in. We need to have another meeting because we gotta make sure you're doing the right steps because you're not calling me. And he sat down and close to me and his wife had taken the kids to the restrooms. And he said, John, this was the house. We were so close, we made an offer. They counter offered us they're$10,000 to give them. I'm like, dude, you're not giving him 10,000. You're giving him a thousand dollars. And it's a difference of$58 in your payment. And this is the part of the story that I'll never, ever forget the fear in that man's eyes when I told him that and he looked at me and he said, my wife. Because he didn't take the time and ask the right questions and he would've gotten the right answers and they would've been in that house'cause the kids had already picked up their bedrooms. He had the fear of his wife in him.

Jim: 34:41

Yeah. You know what? A hundred percent right there. When you have that team that you're assembling,'cause when you're buying a house or you're selling a house, you have a team. You've got you've got your real estate agent, you've got your lender, you've got your insurance person. You know you're gonna go through all the steps. They're there to make sure you're happy with what. What you're picking, and then you don't step into anything that you don't wanna step into, so utilize the team, right? If you set up the team but don't use them, then you might end up failing. Yes. Yeah. So John, I could sit here and talk for you for hours. I always learn something. And love it. So thank you so much for joining me. I really appreciate it. My pleasure having, and I'll do this again soon.

John: 35:20

I hope so and hopefully it'll be warmer here one day, but I, yes. Can't wait to get back to my sunny, warm Florida home. I do miss it so much. It's a great, it's a great place to live. So Jim, thank you.