When you're looking to buy a home, you have to pay for an appraisal to justify the value of that home. Usually, an appraisal is going to cost anywhere from 500 to around $700 most of the time.
There's a company that now is giving away, basically free appraisals up to $600. This company is called UWM or United Wholesale Mortgage.
So they're doing this for the next two months, until the end of March 31, 2022.
This is up to $600, and if you're in an extremely competitive market, it's possible the cost of the appraisal might be higher. And if so, you would just pay the difference. So then, if the appraisal came in at $800, which would be rare, but as possible, you'd only pay $200. So you'd have $600 to cover that cost. So it should cover the whole thing for you.
Now, this is available on any loan, as long as it's a primary home, even a Jumbo loan. So you can do Conventional FHA, VA, USDA, as long as you're going to live in the home.
On average, this is going to save eight days because they're doing the closing disclosure process slightly differently.
What they're seeing with this is loans closing around 19 or less.
Now, United wholesale mortgage. They are a wholesale lender. So what they do is they work with independent mortgage brokers. So you don't go directly to UWM. You have to find an independent mortgage broker who then works with UWM on your behalf. So don't call UWM. It doesn't really work that way. You'll work with an independent mortgage. Who will then connect you with UWM and really quickly do you want to make a quick aside?
UWM is fantastic. They are incredibly fast and usually have really competitive rates.
The only issue that you may run into here is if you have a low, lower credit score on conventional loans, they require at least a 640, and on government loans like FHA VA and USDA, they will require a 620 or higher.
Let's talk about the why and how this, because it is a little not super complex, but it's not just, Hey, work with us and you get a free appraisal kind of deal.
The reason that they're doing this is this is an incentive for brokers to use United wholesale mortgage. Independent mortgage brokerages.
They have an option to use hundreds of different wholesale lenders. And so all these wholesale lenders are then competing for the business of the mortgage brokers who are then competing for your business. So the more competitive that wholesale lenders become the more competitive that mortgage brokers become.
So that's why they're doing this. They want mortgage brokers to send their loans to UWM and not to other companies, which is why they're offering a credit like this. And they'd done credits like this in the past as well.
What's a little bit interesting here is this is only going to work. If you're working with an independent mortgage broker who places your loan with UWM, and also they have to do a process that triggers what's called a CD at initial underwriting.
For you, this isn't going to be a huge deal. It's just something that your mortgage broker is going to have to do. So basically what this is doing is they're going to send the closing disclosure when an underwriter looks at your loan instead of when the underwriter is done with your loan.
So this is where kind of eight days of worth of savings of time can come in is because that closing disclosure that you get starts a three-day business day waiting period before you can actually close. So this can help the timeline of your loan actually shrink a little bit more.
Talk with your loan officer, if they are working with UWM on if that can actually help you with your offer. If you can shorten the timeline for closing, because often if you can close quicker than other offers that can help your offer be more attractive to. So the way that you're a mortgage broker is going to help you stand out with this is they need these four things for a CD at initial to underwrite to be triggered.
The sales contract, which they're going to have already.
They need an MLS listing for the taxes or a home value estimator that is inside of UWM that the mortgage broker has access to.
They also need a Homeowner's Insurance Quote. So either you need to find a homeowner's insurance quote or a UWM does connect with a company called turbo for a quick quote. You don't have to work with them, but it can be a quote that you use just to get that CD at the initial rate.
The rate does have to be locked. So this could be a really great way for you to save a little bit of money on the appraisal. If that's something you're looking to do, and if you're exploring, working with an independent mortgage broker as well, who's connecting with UWM.
Now really quickly, I do want to mention, I have connected with a fantastic agent referral program. So if you're looking for an agent in your city to be able to connect with who's helpful and will guide you through the process, you can click here: Home Buying Program. It's a referral program with home and money and they're fantastic.
So they're gonna stay in touch with you, stay in touch with your agent and make sure everything is going fine and smoothly. And so you can add that as an agent to your rotation that you're interviewing, as you're looking at moving through the home buying process.
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