{"id":11,"date":"2019-02-13T17:42:21","date_gmt":"2019-02-13T17:42:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.halcommarketing.com\/blog\/?p=11"},"modified":"2019-02-13T17:44:08","modified_gmt":"2019-02-13T17:44:08","slug":"how-much-can-you-afford-to-borrow","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.halcommarketing.com\/blog\/how-much-can-you-afford-to-borrow\/","title":{"rendered":"How much can you afford to borrow?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>Looking at homes is\nalways the fun part of buying a home. But there are a lot of things you need to\ndo before that. One of the important things to do is to get an idea of how much\nyou can afford to borrow. Not only will it save you time, it will also help you look for houses in the right price range.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Many mortgage lenders\nwho come to you through mortgage leads may tell you how much you can borrow.\nHowever, doing your own evaluation of the amount you can afford to borrow is\nalways beneficial if you want a clear picture.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>There are three things\nyou need to focus on while finding out how much you can afford to borrow for a\nhome:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li>Your gross monthly income<\/li><li>your long-term debts<\/li><li>The amount that you can accumulate to\npay up for the down payment and closing costs<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Monthly\nIncome<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Ideally your housing\nexpenses should not be more than 25 to 28 percent of your gross monthly income.\nApart from your monthly mortgage payments, these housing expenses include the\npayments towards your property taxes and homeowner\u2019s insurance. While taking\ninto account your monthly income, you should consider the following things\napart from&nbsp; your steady employment\nsalary:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li>Any commissions and overtime bonuses\n(take an average of about one to two years)<\/li><li>Social security or veteran\u2019s benefits\nand retirement<\/li><li>Child support money, Alimony, or income\nfrom any of the public assistance programs<\/li><li>Rental income (after deducting debt\npayments and expenses), Interest and dividend income<\/li><li>Workman\u2019s Compensation or permanent\ndisability payments if any <\/li><li>net income from self-employment<\/li><li>Income from any professional\ncorporations, trusts or partnerships<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Long\nTerm Debts<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Apart from your monthly\nincome, your debts and obligations are things that lenders take into\nconsideration while deciding on the amount that can be lent to you. These debts\nand obligations include installment loans, real estate loans, alimony and child\nsupport, and revolving accounts that extend for more than ten months into the\nfuture. Your long term debts added to your housing expenses should not exceed\n36 percent of your gross monthly income. One of the best things you can do is\nto pay off as many debts as you can, before applying for a mortgage. This will\nnot only increase your chances of getting a lower interest rate, it will also\nmake you eligible to borrow more.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Down\nPayment and closing costs<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The more the down\npayment you can make the better will be the interest rate you can get. Lenders\nwho come to you through mortgage leads will usually expect you to pay up about\n20 percent of the asking price as down payment, apart from the closing costs,\nwhich will amount to about 3 to 6 percent of your loan amount. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>While accumulating\nmoney for a down payment consider sources such as savings, mutual funds,\nindividual retirement accounts, employee savings plans, and stocks and bonds.\nIf you can\u2019t afford to make 20 percent down payment, try getting a private\nmortgage insurance. This will help you borrow money against a down payment that\nis as low as 5 percent. Alternatively you can also try applying for an FHA\nloan, a VA loan, or an RHS program. While RHS and VA loans don\u2019t require any\ndown payment, FHA loans are available at as low as 3 percent down payment. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Before finalizing on\nthe mortgage lenders who might contact you through <strong><em>mortgage leads<\/em><\/strong>, it\nis always better to explore your options and find out where you can get more\nmoney from. If conventional mortgage is your best option, make sure you compare\nthe rates and terms of a few lenders before deciding on one.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Looking at homes is always the fun part of buying a home. But there are a lot of things you need to do before&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":14,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[4],"class_list":["post-11","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-blog","tag-mortgage-leads"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.halcommarketing.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.halcommarketing.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.halcommarketing.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.halcommarketing.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.halcommarketing.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.halcommarketing.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12,"href":"https:\/\/www.halcommarketing.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11\/revisions\/12"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.halcommarketing.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/14"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.halcommarketing.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.halcommarketing.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.halcommarketing.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}