Buying your first home is a great moment in life that will lead you to form lasting relationships with your community and neighbors. There are lots of exciting choices to make, City Center vs. Suburbs or you be more inclined to live in a rural area. Whichever you choose SunnyHill Financial can help you meet that goal, through our lending partnerships. Based our our many many years of collective experience, here are SunnyHill Financials' tips on how to approach the first time home buying process.

Figure Out What Type of Home You Are Looking to Buy

Dreaming about and touring homes is a very exciting time in your life. It is important for you to identify which features are most important to you in your first home. Items like the number of bedrooms and bathrooms, how much outdoor or indoor space you need (Puppy?), types of appliances and the overall flow of the house are all important criteria. Use this criteria to narrow down the search for the property and work with your Mortgage Advisor to ensure...

Are you one of the ~40 million American households who rent and would like to purchase a home in the near future? Do you already own a home and want to purchase another one? Are you thinking about refinancing your existing loan?

Yes...maybe...someday? Read on!

FICO is king! In today's mortgage market, your FICO score and loan-to-value are the main factors that determine your rate and price for a Conforming loan, which is a home loan that meets Fannie Mae & Freddie Mac guidelines and has a loan amount of up to $453,100 (or up to $679,650 in certain high cost areas of the U.S.). Contrary to popular belief, having extra money in the bank or a low debt-to-income ratio have NO impact on the rate or pricing for a Conforming loan. These are however, compensating factors that can help you qualify for a riskier loan (e.g., investment/rental property, cash-out refinance, high loan-to-value, etc.).

Fair Isaac Corporation, the company that produces FICO scores, has a consumer website called...

Have you ever attempted to obtain a mortgage loan for the purchase of a home and wondered why your lender cares so much about the source of your down payment? An applicant recently said to me, "It's my money, it shouldn't matter to you!"

That applicant's sentiment is not alone...

One of the most frustrating aspects for homebuyers during the mortgage process continues to be the documentation of assets for loan approval. With a little preparation, however, this part of the loan approval process can be simplified.

Home purchase loan applicants must show the source(s) of their down payment to the lender by providing their complete bank or financial account statement for the most recent one, or two months in some cases. ALL pages of the statement(s) are required showing at least a 30-day transactional history of the account. Most applicants don’t realize, however, that providing a copy of their bank or financial statement is often just the beginning of the asset documentation process because the majority of applicants do not have their entire down payment...

Picture this scenario: you’ve worked hard for years stashing as much of your hard earned pay check in the bank along the way as possible. You’ve managed your credit wisely and built up an 800 FICO score. Instead of dining at fancy restaurants or spending nights out on the town with friends, you’ve opted for home cooked meals, nature walks, and snuggling up with your significant other watching the latest hit movie on Netflix. Finally, you have accumulated enough savings for a down payment on a home without having to raid your emergency savings funds. You select a realtor and he/she asks you to get pre-approved for a loan first. So you contact a lender and after answering just a few questions about your income, assets, credit and liabilities, the lender issues you the a pre-approval letter. You give it to your realtor and think you’re all set. The perfect home comes on the market so you rush to submit an offer and cross your fingers! The next day your realtor calls with bad news: the seller has already selected another “more qualified” buyer. Feeling disappointed and...