Get Rich Education 520: How to Use Other People’s Money for Your Rental Property Loan
Keith discusses his journey from an entitlement mentality to realizing the importance of wealth creation through real estate investing and shares the real estate shockwave that nobody is talking about.
We are also joined by Caeli Ridge, President of Ridge Lending Group, as she explains the differences between owner-occupied and investor mortgage loans.
Hear about the ease of entering real estate investing with no formal qualifications or high income required.
Learn the concept of demographic shockwaves and how the aging population will influence housing demand in the future.
How to ethically use other people's money to build wealth for yourself before you even own a property.
Learn about the key differences between owner-occupied mortgage loans and investor mortgage loans, particularly the use of rental income in qualification.
Resources:
RidgeLendingGroup.com or call 855-74-RIDGE
or e-mail: info@RidgeLendingGroup.com
Show Notes:
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Complete episode transcript:
Automatically Transcribed With Otter.ai
Keith Weinhold 00:01
Keith, welcome to GRE. I'm your host. Keith Weinhold, I'll discuss when I was an employee with a scarcity mindset, the real estate shock wave coming that no one's talking about, then, how you can ethically use other people's money to build wealth for yourself before you even own a property today, on get rich education.
00:24
Since 2014 the powerful get rich education podcast has created more passive income for people than nearly any other show in the world. This show teaches you how to earn strong returns from passive real estate investing in the best markets without losing your time being a flipper or landlord. Show Host Keith Weinhold rights for both Forbes and Rich Dad advisors, who delivers a new show every week since 2014 there's been millions of listener downloads of 188 world nations. He has a list show guests include top selling personal finance author Robert Kiyosaki. Get rich education can be heard on every podcast platform, plus it has its own dedicated Apple and Android listener phone apps build wealth on the go with the get rich education podcast. Sign up now for the get rich education podcast, or visit get rich education.com
Corey Coates 01:09
You're listening to the show that has created more financial freedom than nearly any show in the world. This is get rich education.
Keith Weinhold 01:25
welcome to GRE from Springfield Ohio to Springfield, Missouri and across 188 nations worldwide. I'm Keith Weinhold, and you are listening to get rich education. It's great to have you back for another week, and I genuinely appreciate your listenership, and I am grateful to have such a large audience. I've got to tell you, admittedly, coming out of college and in my first couple full time jobs, I wasn't always a good employee. I guess I had somewhat of an entitlement mentality. I'm not sure where that came from. I don't know that I can blame anyone else on planning it inside me. I don't know where I got this notion. It sure wasn't from my parents, but I kind of felt like somebody owed me a job just because I have a college degree and I'm good at showing up on time, yeah, like, I'm just a good representative for your company. I mean, now I can see that no one owed me a doggone thing. In fact, I owed my employer value. An employer actually takes a big risk on you when they hire you, paying you to train you until you're productive there. I mean, the hiring process itself is even expensive. Well, though I felt like someone owed me a job just out of college, somewhat Oppositely, I never expected any sort of high income at all, and I had quite a modest income in my first couple years out of college, just like a lot of recent college grads do, until it grew into something more. But my humble geography degree, it conditioned me to think lower income. I knew that going to college in Pennsylvania for geography in what interested me, I mean, that's what I went with, what interested me not what I could make money in well, then I couldn't find a job in my geography field at all. No one would really pay me to describe Asia's mountain ranges to them. So what I ended up doing is working under engineers at a construction and engineering firm, a few of them, one engineering firm really liked me and designated me as their new marketing person. Of all things, they wanted me to call prospective clients on the phone and meet them cold in person, because they just thought somehow, when they met me, that I could win new business for the engineering firm, just I guess, based on how I communicated with other people at other engineering companies, even though I couldn't even talk the language of engineering. Well, anyway, these disciplines engineering, and really it was construction inspection that I did for a while. You know, that stuff, even the marketing stuff, it just didn't fill my soul. And you must have felt this way at your job before. If you don't feel it perpetually, you aren't aligned with your purpose on this earth, and you're spending so many of your faculties and so much of your waking conscious life at that job. Well, motivation to escape that is what got me reading about wealth mindset and real estate investing. Since anyone can do it, no degree needed, no certification, zero formal qualification. And now I think I mentioned this to you before, but it's worth bringing up here again, a turning point is when I read one life changing sentence, just one little what is it? A. Five word sentence in a rich dad book, that pivotal paradigm shifting, course correcting sentence was, being wealthy is a choice. And when I first read being wealthy is a choice, I just didn't believe it. I thought that Robert Kiyosaki, the author, was wrong. Well now I know that he was right. I had thought that being rich is unobtainable. You had to be born into it, so unless you won the lottery, you can't achieve more than middle class. Well, I was wrong about that. Now I can't really say something like, oh, well, a college professor said that rich people are bad or, you know, I don't have that story. I can't blame anyone else for growing up with a limited, scarcity mindset, really, other than myself in the context that was created around me. I mean, growing up in Pennsylvania, I just knew that the carts family and the domileskeys, they had more than us. And that's just the way it would always be. It's sort of preordained, and other families had less than us, and these family trajectories were just cast in stone as to how it had to be. But the good news is that it's not, and this is still what makes America great, the fact that it takes zero formal training, zero risk parents, and not even a high salary for you to do something like get a three and a half percent down payment loan for owner occupied FHA fourplex or 20% down for a single family rental that produces income from day one in The Southeast or Midwest, you can plant that seed that get other people's money working for you seed in just that way, even if you're interested in something as unprofitable as geography. Now, a huge reason that people disparage the wealthy is rooted in jealousy and envy, and that is not good. There's no goodness in those emotions, and that is because people don't think it's obtainable for them. It's obtainable for almost anybody. Learning that it is within your reach that completely breaks down your resentment of the rich. Yes, indeed, being wealthy is a choice. Well, people are obtaining wealth in today's real estate market. Here, Redfin reported that through the latest quarter ended real estate investors bought fully one in four of the nation's most affordable homes. That's up 3% year over year. And as Redfin puts it, it's a sign that investor activity is stabilizing, and as homeownership remains out of reach for many Americans, real estate investors are coming out of hibernation to take advantage of robust demand from renters. So investors are buying a greater proportion of affordable homes, some of them through our marketplace, GRE marketplace. Now over the long term, let's think about how US housing is going to be positioned for sustainable demand. Demography is destiny. That's a quote attributed to 19th century philosopher Auguste coon Tay, it means that the size and structure of a population will influence its future. So then all we need to do is track the age of a population over time to sharpen and give clarity to a forecast. It is axiomatic that in 10 years, a 25 year old will be 35 No kidding. Well, what's important about the age of 35 is that is the average age of today's first time homebuyer. It's between 35 and 36 All right. Well, the US is peak birth year occurred in 2007 we know that just look at demographics. Well, then add 35 to it. Add 35 years to 2007 This means that, on average, they will buy their first home in the early 2040s a lot of people are going to be forming their first household, whether it's rent or buy around the year 2040, I mean, the peak in all of American history, a lot more people will need homes. In fact, more than 13,000 Americans are turning age 35 every single day for the foreseeable future for more than a decade. This year is the first year where we've ever had over 13,000 Americans turning 35 every single day. And that is projected to continue to happen every single year through 2035 and that's as late as the Census Bureau projection that I have goes on. On that stat this baked in demographic housing demand. Hey, if we don't get serious about building more housing fast, and it's likely that we won't, this will be analogous to a demographic shock wave that hits the housing market. The population aging into homeownership is projected to exceed the population aging out, as in the death rate for a long time. This will pump housing demand, and that's not all. I've only talked domestically so far. This doesn't even account for additional demand from immigration. And immigrants tend to be younger and are renters for a long duration, or just forever. On top of immigration, the average number of people per household is falling as well. In 1960 3.3, people live per household in 1990 it was down to 2.6 by 2023 it was down to 2.5 this means that more housing is required just in order to shelter the same population. But of course, the population won't stay static. So to keep piling on with the housing demand here, the overall US population is projected to grow as well, from 342 million today to 383 million in 30 years. That's per the CBO. The demographics for senior housing are even more bullish. And of course, when I use the word bullish like this, this bullish sentiment that's from the investor side. If you're looking to buy your first home or find a place to rent, this is all more discouraging than perhaps all of our perpetual struggles to live a balanced life or lose weight. This baked into the cake. Demand is almost perfectly predictable, and it's of seismic importance to the real estate market. And yet, despite that fact, you know, more investors curiously fixate for month after month on something like the Fed's interest rate decision or the next jobs report. I mean, this is both harder to predict and way less significant than the sustainable demographic demand for rental housing that you got right there. So really, to sum up, this segment demographics reveal that housing demand should stay high for decades, long term, then you should expect higher home prices, higher occupancy rates and higher rents. And you can benefit by owning many rental properties. And our guest and I are about to discuss how you can do exactly that own many rental properties, and how to do it efficiently with less cash out of your pocket, including how you can start using other people's money before you even own a property when you're trying to qualify for a loan on a rental property, in some cases, you can Use a portion of the tenant's rent income toward your qualification income. Let's talk with this week's guest. There's one place that's created more financial freedom through real estate than any other lender in the entire nation that's time for a big welcome back to their president, Caeli Ridge.
Caeli Ridge 13:23
Keith Weinhold, my friend, thank you for having me happy to be here, sir.
Keith Weinhold 13:26
Oh, it's so good to have you here. You're a longtime friend of the show and so many of our listeners that you've helped originate investor mortgage loans. Caeli leads Ridge lending group. They're an investor centric lender. She does such a good concise job of explaining specifically what real estate investors need to know in optimizing your loan positions. In fact, on a previous episode, she once broke down every single line of a closing disclosure form for us one by one, detailing each individual closing cost and prepaid item and in there, besides being specific income property loan experts, they're really thorough and helpful that way. Well, Caeli, tell us about the key differences between owner occupied mortgage loans for buying a primary residence and investor mortgage loans for a rental property.
Caeli Ridge 14:17
The key things are that on a rental property, probably the biggest difference is going to be that for a rental property, there's additional incomes that potentially we get to use to help offset that new monthly liability, aka the mortgage payment, p, i, t i, principal, interest, tax and insurance, we have access to income potentially to help offset that. So in the debt to income ratio category, it can be a huge boon or a huge benefit, depending on what the individual's qualifications are. Additionally, in that same theme, we're not just confined to a conventional Fannie Freddie loan for investors. We have things like the DSCR debt service coverage ratio that you would not be able to apply to a primary residence, but also allows for income to help identify whether the property qualifies for financing.
Keith Weinhold 15:04
So for prospective investor borrower is wondering whether we'll have enough income to qualify for that property or not. Is it a certain percentage of the tenants rent income that is used in the investor borrowers qualification income?
Caeli Ridge 15:19
absolutely, so conventional full doc mortgages they are going to receive in the acquisition year formula, because there's two formulas that will be used in underwriting. One is called the acquisition year. The other one is called the Schedule E I'll focus on the acquisition year. This is applicable from the date that they acquire the property and until that tax year's Federal tax return is filed. I needed to find up to in a minute they get up to 75% of the gross rents minus the proposed p, i, t, I, principal, interest, tax and insurance. Now I say up to because it depends on two primary criteria that the borrower must possess in order to get the full 75% so think about it this way. There's three buckets. Okay, the first bucket gets the full 75% of whatever the gross rents are. The easy math example that I give, let's say that the gross rents are $1,000 a month. The PI ti proposed payment is 500 a month. If they're in bucket number one, and they get the full 75% of 1000 they have 750 bucks, right? And from that they're going to subtract out the $500 of mortgage payment. In that example, it would leave them with a gain positive 250 so that individual came to us with a debt to income ratio of x as a result of purchasing this investment property, their DTI is going to go down because they're $250 richer monthly. So 75% is the maximum you can use in the acquisition year. That individual in that bucket has to demonstrate two things. One, they have a primary housing expense, whether that's a mortgage or they rent, either is fine. And then second, they need to be able to demonstrate that they can they've had 12 months of history in owning investment property. So if they have both of those two things, they get the full 75 if they have one or the other, they're in bucket number two, which gives us an offset. They cannot have the full 75% they don't get the full gain, but I can offset. So going back to my example, using $1,000 of income and $500 of mortgage payment, they can't have the 250 gain, but I can give them up to 500 making that a zero, right? It's covered completely the mortgage payment. It's not increased any debt or anything in the example. So DTI would stay exactly the same as where they began, when we started. And then finally, bucket number three would mean that individuals that have neither of those two things, no primary they live rent free, no primary house expense, and they do not have 12 months demonstrated history currently, of being an investor. They get zero of the rental income, so they've got to support the full new payment within their DTI and keep it within that 50% threshold. So that was a long explanation to the question, but I think that that pretty much covers it.
Keith Weinhold 17:56
Now, That's really helpful. Okay, that can help the borrower's debt to income ratio. I guess a lot of cases is going to be helping it out by a small amount. What if, say that investors buying a new build rental property and there is no tenant, hence no rent income there yet.
Caeli Ridge 18:11
I'm so glad you asked. So on a subject property basis, that is the property in which they're purchasing at the moment in time. It's called the subject property. Those properties do not need to be tenant occupied. We can use assumptive rental income from the appraisal on a rental property that will come with some additional forms. It's called a 1007, it's just the number on the page. Those are rental income comps. The appraiser has given us an average of what those rents are going to be, and that's what we're going to use the 75% calculation on.
Keith Weinhold 18:41
Okay, that's really good to know new build or resale rental property, that's going to work the same with either one there. Now I know oftentimes that one wants to qualify. When we look at non order occupied properties, rental properties with conventional conforming loans from Fannie or Freddie, typically, one puts 20% down on those properties we've talked before. I think one can put as little as 15% down, although they would have PMI in that case, or alternatively, rather than putting 20% down, last time I checked, they could put 25% down and get a lower interest rate. So can you talk to us about the interplay of the percent down payment for rental property.
Caeli Ridge 19:21
I'll start by saying, more often than not, when you do the math the capital expenditure, or in this case, the difference between 5% down 80 versus 75% divided by the monthly payment difference, you're going to find that the leverage is going to outperform the higher 80% will outperform the lower 75% but absolutely, to your point, the payment is going to be less for two reasons. At the 75% level, the interest rate will be lower because you've got more skin in the game. The interest rate, loan level, price adjustment for 75% is going to be more attractive than it will be at 20% down. So the rate will be lower. And of course. The loan amount is lower, so both of those combined characteristics are going to create better cash flow, it's true, and a lower monthly payment. However, the math that I always want to promote, that people are doing is looking at it side by side, all you have to do, and it's actually much easier than people, I think, assume. So you figure out the capital expenditure difference. Let's just use 100 grand, okay, because his math is simple. So you've got $5,000 in additional capital that you'd be bringing to the table for the 75% option, right? Versus retaining the five grand, the payment difference is 50 bucks a month. Okay? Whatever the number is, all you're going to do is take the five grand and divide that by the payment difference, and that will give the individual the number of months it takes them to recapture that capital for the savings. Generally, my opinion, per an investment property is that if that number is in excess of 36 months, it's going to take you over 30 or three years to recapture that capital versus the savings. I'd keep my money because I can do one of a few things with it. If I chose to, I could cash flow the 50 bucks myself every month for 100 months, if that was the math. Or I could apply that five grand and use it with some other monies, perhaps, and buy another investment property, or put it in different investment asset class that would provide a return so more often than not, when they do that math, my belief is, when I do it, I'd say even 95% of the time, the higher the leverage is going to be, the better return numbers.
Keith Weinhold 21:27
We're philosophically aligned that way. We're leveraged proponents here, typically the smaller down payment, 20% is going to be better for you long term than 25% even though you'll get a somewhat lower interest rate on a rental property, putting 25% down rather than 20% when we pull back, we look at the interest rate difference between an owner occupied property and a rental property. What is the spread between the interest rate? Of course, you're going to pay higher interest rate on a rental property because it's a lot less likely that the borrower is going to walk away from their own home than they would a rental property.
Caeli Ridge 22:02
exactly and this is a great segue into those LLPAs that I always like that we spend some time talking about. So llpa, loan level, price adjustment. So for the GRE listeners, this is a more complicated concept, so I'm going to try and quickly break it down. Keith loves it when I get so wordy. So llpa is a positive or a negative number that associates with the individual characteristics of the loan transaction. So one of those characteristics, obviously, is occupancy. The loan level price adjustment for a primary residence versus an investment property is quite different, and for the reasons exactly that you described, there's a lot less risk in a primary then there will be in a rental. Because if an individual needs to choose between defaulting on where they live and an investment property, if it came down to that, obviously they're going to maintain, yeah, so they got to choose. So skin in the game, risk, etc, generally speaking. And there's all those other variables too, credit score, loan size, loan to value, property type, purchase versus refi, those are all unique llpas That will have their own unique number. But in general terms, an owner occupied where you live is typically going to price out an interest rate about one percentage point lower than you would find on an investment property, generally, if we're comparing apples to apples.
Keith Weinhold 23:15
talking about that risk difference for the lender, just like in the 20% versus 25% down. Example, there's less risk for the lender when you put 25% skin in the game. Hence the lower interest rate there too. Caeli, tell us about fitting the right mortgage type to the borrower. And of course, there are so many types. There's 30 year versus 15 year, fixed rate mortgages versus Adjustable Rate Mortgages, interest only, DSCR loans like you touched on. So tell us about getting that right fit for that individual borrower.
Caeli Ridge 23:49
This is a bit of a rabbit hole. So what I would start by saying is we do at Ridge take a lot of time on the front end and identifying not only what their needs are, their goals are, but obviously what their qualifications are, and marrying all of those things together and coming up with a roadmap that I like to call it, depending on where the individual is in their journey of real estate investing, as the tax returns may continue to be filed, and how aggressive they want to be with their deductions, maybe some cost segregation. I know I'm getting a little bit technical here, but because we maintain and have all of those products, it's very, very uncommon, or very rare, that we find an investor, potential client, that we do not have some sort of loan product to satisfy what their end game or end goal is. And you know, maybe we continue to graduate them. Let's say that they start in a DSCR because they can't qualify for Fannie Freddie today, but that is their ultimate goal. We're going to provide them with the insight and the background or the feedback that plants the seeds and gets them to that place in six months or a year, or whatever. So I hope I answered the question, depending on their individual needs and goals and qualifications, of course, really will dictate which one of those is going to be applicable.
Keith Weinhold 25:00
We've got a lot more to discuss, including, is it easier to approve w2 incomes from a day job versus 1099 from contract or gig work? And more, we're talking with the nation's foremost expert on income property. She is the president of ridge lending group, Caeli ridge. More, we come back. I'm your host. Keith Weinhold. hey, you can get your mortgage loans at the same place where I get mine, at Ridge lending group and MLS, 42056, they provided our listeners with more loans than any provider in the entire nation because they specialize in income properties. They help you build a long term plan for growing your real estate empire with leverage, you can start your pre qualification and chat with President Chaley Ridge personally. Start now while it's on your mind at Ridge lendinggroup.com. That's ridgelendinggroup.com. Your bank is getting rich off of you, the national average bank account pays less than 1% on your savings. If your money isn't making 4% you're losing your hard earned cash to inflation. Let the liquidity fund help you put your money to work with minimum risk, your cash generates up to an 8% return with compound interest year in and year out. Instead of earning less than 1% sitting in your bank account, the minimum investment is just 25k you keep getting paid until you decide you want your money back. Their decade plus track record proves they've always paid their investors 100% in full and on time. And I would know, because I'm an investor two, earn 8% hundreds of others are text family, 266, 866, learn more about freedom. Family investments, liquidity fund on your journey to financial freedom through passive income. Text family, 266, 866
Robert Kiyosaki 27:00
This is Rich Dad, Poor Dad Author Robert Kiyosaki, listen to get rich education with Keith Weinhold, Don't Quit Your Daydream.
Keith Weinhold 27:18
Welcome back to get rich education. We're talking with Ridge lending Group President Chaley ridge. These discussions are great, because debt, through leverage, builds wealth even faster than compound interest, as I've discussed, and Caeli is really the linchpin in her company, and help makes that happen with reliable income property loans and Caeli today, there are a lot more people with sharing economy income, gig economy income, or doing contract work, and they're paid with a 1099 form that shows their income for that year, versus a w2 employee wage job. So can you tell us about whether it's easier to approve those that have a w2 income and that versus the 1099
Caeli Ridge 28:03
I don't know that I would classify it as easier as harder. It's just different. So on the 1099 first and foremost, if you don't have a 24 month history of having that kind of income, you're not going to get a conventional loan. And assuming that we're going to kind of keep on that path of Fannie Freddie's. Because remember, guys, if you can't fit into those boxes. We've got 10 others that we can look to to get the financing for. But if we're in the Fannie Freddie, that's really where this is applicable, the 1099 and the w2 I mean, they're really equal in terms of the overall process. The difference would be that with 1099 you must have that 24 month history. The calculation is that we're going to take an average, it gets a little bit convoluted, like anything else that is leverage or financing related, but a 24 month average of 1099 unless we can show that that individual, let's say that they're self employed and maybe a Schedule C, and they've got their 1099 coming in through that way. If they can show five year history of having license or being self employed that way, that instead of having to use a 24 month average, we'll use a 12 month average, and that may be to their advantage. Let's say that the most recent year filed is in a bit of a decline from the prior year. Let's just use 2022 and 23 let's say 23 is a little bit lower than 22 a 24 month average is not going to be as big a number than if I were to just to be able to take the 12 month average of the most recent year. So if that individual can demonstrate they have five years of being or receiving that kind of income, then instead of being a 24 month average, I get to choose and just do the 12 month average. So that would be one thing about the 1099 that I would say otherwise, yeah, they're just different. I don't know that one is harder than the other. As long as the qualifications are there, they're there.
Keith Weinhold 29:43
When I think about this, I guess it does make sense from the lender perspective. If you're paid and shown income there on your 1099 from sharing economy work, gig economy work, or being self employed, that's more volatile work than having a day job. Um, as an employee.
Caeli Ridge 30:01
Sure, absolutely. And if you can demonstrate that you have that history and you've been able to consistently earn and have those numbers, it's okay, yeah, but without the 24 months, you're not going to get a conventional loan. You're gonna have to look at DSCR or something else.
Keith Weinhold 30:15
We're talking about what it takes to qualify for income property loans today with Ridge lending Group President Caeli Ridge, when we talk about that qualification bar that needs to be met. Caeli, you see so many loan applications in there. You have a team. You look at and deal with so many situations when you're free, you even pick up the phone, sometimes yourself, and you will talk to individual borrowers. So what do you see in there as the top reasons for not qualifying for an income property loan.
Caeli Ridge 30:42
The top reasons for not qualifying for a conventional loan probably is debt to income ratio, yeah, more often than not of the three basic criteria, which are assets, enough cash to close or reserves, credit and then DTI, I would say it's the DTI category that more often than not, is the culprit for qualifying or not. And it may be as simple as how they filed their last year's tax return and saying, Okay, before you file 2024 don't do that until you send Ridge a draft, so that we can get ahead of what you may not have known to look for last time. They could be very simple, little easy fixes. And you know, sometimes maybe it's they don't want to pay the extra taxes, which sometimes that might be required. In which case we say, okay, let's pivot over to the DSCR options. In which case, by the way, just as a quick sidebar, I'm finding that gap is starting to narrow a little bit to the point that it's a lot more affordable in terms of the investment property and what cash flow is expected than it used to be. The differences between a Fannie Freddie rate and a DSCR rate is starting to narrow a little bit. So if you have to be DSCR, I would not shy away from that just because you assume I think it's going to be more reasonable for cash flow properties.
Keith Weinhold 31:52
Yeah, I'll tell you, when I was an employee as a day job worker grinding in my eight by 10 cubicle, as it was back in the day, and I was buying income properties. Yeah, the main thing I would get held up on is that my debt to income ratio, my DTI, was too high, and my salary was pretty strong, although not fantastic, not astronomically high, but I felt like I was a guy that was pretty good, pretty prudent with my finances. And yeah, it didn't feel good to be told hey, Keith, to lower your DTI. You need to pay off your 3% automobile loan that's at a nice fixed interest rate. I didn't want to have to do that, but I was willing to do that to retire the small loan in order to qualify for the big loan.
Caeli Ridge 32:36
That makes sense. I might just offer a comment in that regard. What you may have experienced at that time could have been what we call an overlay in the industry. So, yes, like anything, right? Lenders aren't created equal. Because we're so investor friendly and focused, we are going to go by the purest form of those Fannie Freddie guidelines. It's called a seller's guide. And as an example, let's just say that Fannie Freddie gives you 75% of the subject properties, gross rents, whereas B of A or I'm just picking on B of I don't know why, but some other lender may impose an overlay. It's like layers of risk and saying, No, we're not going to give you any rental income credit whatsoever, even though the guideline says that we can do it, our overlay says, No, we can't. So depending on who you're working with, credit unions are a little notorious for that being a little bit more restrictive in their box of guideline. So it may not always be what you think. So if you've had a lender, tell you DTI wise, you don't qualify, but you feel like this is not quite right. You should double check that, because it may be an overlay.
Keith Weinhold 33:34
Everyone is interested in interest rates. It's been so interesting with what's happened the past few years, ever really, since the covid Emergency cut took place in 2020 and the volatility that we've seen in interest rates, then we saw interest rates max out in this cycle at about 8% almost a year ago. What does this declining interest rate environment mean at a mortgage loan company? And what do you see for the future of rates there?
Caeli Ridge 34:02
Well, rates have been coming down. If you guys are watching the headlines, you're seeing those sound bites. We have started to see some more refinance activity than we were seeing before, certainly additional purchases as we start to see interest rates come down, I am of the opinion that we're going to continue to see some improvement in the rate department, dependent on some of the jobs reports that we'll be getting soon, so we'll see. But My money is on that, we'll continue to see some nice tailwind in the rate department throughout the rest of the year, and who knows what's going to happen? I mean, this is our election year, etc. We'll see how the rest of it plays out.
Keith Weinhold 34:33
How does a prospective borrower get their financial house in order themselves before getting a hold of you and your team there, what are some of those checklist items that they should do themselves at home first?
Caeli Ridge 34:47
like I said a bit ago, so you've got those three primary criteria. If you're wanting to qualify for those conventional full doc loans, think about your credit Do you know what that credit score is? Now, depending on some other variables, it doesn't have to be 800 Credit scores to qualify. I mean, we've got clients as low as 650 that are able to get financing conventionally, because they've got compensating factors, similarly for assets on the investment property side, the down payment and the closing costs and the reserves, none of those things can be borrowed or gifted. And that's very different than if it was an owner occupied, gifted and borrowed funds are okay for an owner occupied, for an investment property, they have to be sourced and seasoned, meaning your own funds over the last 60 days. So think about that. What your down payment is going to be an estimate of closing costs and make sure that you have the appropriate amount of capital. And then finally, that debt to income ratio. That's a slippery or one to try and calculate that for yourselves. But if you think about your minimum payments on your credit report. That's really all that goes into it. Minimum payments, not the debt load. The minimum payments on the credit report divided by the monthly income, gross income, you should be able to come up with a number, and 50% is that threshold. So if you can kind of just take that kind of mental back of the napkin of your own, you should have a pretty good gage on whether or not you think you're going to be in this box, or if getting into the game, or continuing to be in the game, is going to require some alternative loan types.
Keith Weinhold 36:05
Inflation has been such a story for the past three or four years, but some people aren't aware that there's actually been credit score inflation. Last time I checked, the average credit score had been slowly rising in the United States. What's the highest credit score that gets one the lowest rate.
Caeli Ridge 36:22
We're staying in the Fannie Freddie department, 760 and above is all the same bucket, if the individual qualifications are identical, if this one has an 850 credit and this one has a 760 credit, exactly the same in the interest rate department.
Keith Weinhold 36:35
And then, once they've engaged with you, what about locking in their interest rate. What duration did they have prior to closing? Tell us about that timeline.
Caeli Ridge 36:45
So an interest rate can be locked on a 15 day lock, a 30 day lock, a 45 day lock, even a 60 or 90 day lock, typically it's a 30 day lock that's the average. The shorter the period of lock, the better the rate and or points that you would pay. And the longer is the adverse right? The higher the rate of the higher the points. I like to look at locking an interest rate, usually when we get the appraisal back, because an appraisal can be the piece that might delay or there may be some issues. So I generally like to see the appraisal first. We've been in such a volatile area with interest rates and what might be happening in the ups and downs, etc. I've broken that rule quite a few times over the last couple of years, I would say today, floating may be to our advantage, just because we feel like rates are on the run and that they may continue to improve. Keeping in mind, once you lock in your interest rate, it is locked. Ridge does have a policy that if interest rates were to fall five, eight of a percentage point or point 625, you would have a one time automatic float down option. It's highly unlikely, and that's why we can kind of put that in there. But if it happened, we would honor that. Otherwise, when you're locked, you're stuck with that rate. You can't expect that if an eight through a quarter point comes off of or rates come down that much, that you're going to get a different rate. The only way to do that would be to let the existing one expire for 30 days and then relock market, which is not advisable.
Keith Weinhold 37:59
Yeah, you the investor, has to think about how important a lock really is to you in this declining interest rate environment, almost everyone expects mortgage rates to fall more slowly than they rose. They spiked up so fast in 2022 Caeli, how does our audience engage with you? Get Started and go on their path to getting investment property loans.
Caeli Ridge 38:24
Three ways to reach us. Obviously, we've got our website. Please check us out there. There's a lot of good information, ridgelendinggroup.com you can email us at info@ridgelendinggroup.com, and then finally, toll free is 855-747-4343 855-74RIDGE is that easy way to remember, and we'll be here on standby. Thanks, Keith.
Keith Weinhold 38:43
Ridge is the same place where I get my income property loans. It's been great having you back on the show. Thank you. Yeah, strong. Well laid out material from cheyley here, as always, let me give us a perspective on creating value by having a good loan rather than not having the debt. Remember that just four weeks ago, here on Episode 516 it was the episode about is every debt worth paying off? And the short answer is no. I got a couple questions from listeners of that episode basically asking the same thing. Well, just say that interest rates are 6% and basically they're asking, well, if I pay all cash for a property or for a car, it doesn't matter what it is, then I avoid paying 6% interest. So right there is my six points of arbitrage. Well, to that, I say, okay, but look what if you think you can achieve a 12% investment return? Borrowing at six to invested 12 is a 6% spread. That's 6% arbitrage as well. But here's the thing, you've got a big advantage of doing this with the loan rather than the paid off condition. This is because. With the loan, you still have the use of your money. You haven't given it away. You still have your money, plus the six points of arbitrage in the paid off condition. You've got six points of arbitrage and you don't have the use of the money any longer. That's the big difference, and that's the value of having a loan, as long as you can service the payments. Getting back to mortgage loans, in today's episode, there are so many loan types for property, conventional, Fannie, Freddie's, dscrs, Portfolio loans, bridge loans, rehab loans, recourse and non recourse loan types, balloon loans, arms and a lot more. Caeli and I didn't discuss their all in one loan, which is like a big, flexible HELOC that you can put on your property. It's such a good product that can help you. You can ask about their all in one loan. When it comes down to what are the factors you need to be most attentive to? They are your assets, reserves, credit, income and debt to income ratio, unless dependent on the loan type that you want. So much attention is paid to interest rates, and some attention is warranted. They surely matter. Be mindful, though, that a quarter of a percent interest rate change on a 30 year loan per 100k borrowed that is just a difference of about $15 in monthly payment, $15 if you go from, say, 6% down to five and three quarters percent, so it takes a rate drop of a full 1% for a savings of about $60 then once you have some of Your finances in order, you can go ahead and do just what I've done for my own properties. For your next income property loan, you can give them a call or start at Ridgelendinggroup.com Until next week, I'm your host. Keith Weinhold, Don't Quit Your Daydream.
41:58
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Keith Weinhold 42:18
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