Mortgage Discussion for the Panhandle area

I was reading our local Pensacola "liberal" News Journal today and found out our home sales are up. It is about time the media prints some good news about the real estate market. This should be good news to all consumers who have been on the fence thinking about a new home. The question is with all the tightening in the mortgage market how do we get these folks to qualify for a mortgage? The answer may be as simple as having them complete an application.

For those of you who do not know already, banks and mortgage companies have limited the credit score minimums to 620 or more. I heard from a local credit union recently their minimum credit score for all real estate loans is 700. That makes qualifying for a mortgage very difficult for the lower and middle income earners.

We have a new and exciting FHA program for those people who have not met the minimum credit score requirements lately. The new program allows credit scores down to 530. Now I know most of you say "thats what got us into this mess" and in some respects you are correct. Let me explain, this program is not the rubber stamp approval of yesteryear but a hard look into the credit file and what circumstances caused the lower score. The simple way of looking at this is the credit score alone is not a reason in itself to deny a good home purchase. That is very good news as it will help us all move some of the inventory we have on the market.

I realize everyone has that loyal mortgage banker they use but for files that banker cannot approve you might want to consider America's Mortgage Experts and close that sale.