r/Mortgages

So my mother has not made the greatest financial decisions in life. She depended heavily on my grandparents for financial support. It was a to a point where they ran out of their own money.

My mom took out a reverse mortgage and everything was fine until it wasn’t. The interest keeps building. She’s 72 years old and she has a lot of health issues. I want her so badly to go to independent living but she refuses and she can’t afford it.

She’s also a hoarder and the house is in absolutely terrible shape. Hasn’t been updated since the 90s.
Zillow says it’s worth $450,000 but that’s simply location. I’d be shocked if we got $100,000 for it.

I have zero knowledge in this area. Either she says here until she passes and the interest sky rockets then I have to figure it out, or we sell the house. I have no clue what to do. And my mom is putting her head in the sand. This should have been done years ago but I can’t force her to do anything. I’ve tried and tried.

Please help.

Edit for more info: my point with selling the house is to give my mom left over money. So we pay back the reverse mortgage and what ever money we have left over is for her to live off of the rest of her life. My fear is we cannot sell the house at that amount to where we would get extra money. Unless this has nothing to do with it. I have zero knowledge with this so forgive me if this is all stupid sounding.

We just moved in 2025 and left a 2.75% interest rate. We now are at 5.75% (which i know isn't awful), but I'm trying desperately to lower our monthly payments. It went up over $200/month this year for escrow. My home value has dropped below purchasing price. Are there any companies worth looking into for a better rate/monthly payment? Or am I just stuck for now?

Credit score it the mid to high 700s.

Everyone keeps saying affordability will improve when mortgage rates come down. But I was curious how much lower they would actually need to go.

A Ziffy analysis looked at 364 metros using local home prices and incomes to see what mortgage rate a median-income household would need to afford a median-priced home. In 42 metros even a 0% mortgage wouldn't close the affordability gap under the study's assumptions.

If rates fell to 4% but home prices stayed where they are would that actually bring buyers back or are prices vs incomes the bigger problem now?

I've had a mortgage since 2023. ~470K @ 6.75%. I always get targeted flyers in the mail about new mortgages with better rates with other lenders.

Why do people change mortgages? What are the advantages/disadvantages? Should I consider other mortgages?

is it possible to get anything below 6.5% for 30 year conventional loan with no points? It’ll be for primary residence.

400k loan
6.5%
390089 left
Almost 2 years

Spoke with agent about eligible irrrl from my mortgage co. He explained that they do a flat fee of about $3,130 and that would be rolled into loan. My rate would go from 6.5 to 6.0 and showed that I would be saving approx $200. He sent over the forms to “lock in” They showed the cost would be 9800 and save $80 and break even was like 132 months. What’s crazy is this is the second time we looked into this and the same thing happened. Am I missing something, I don’t understand? Has this happened to anyone else? Thanks for any advice

I know everything is just a rule of thumb and different specifics can change person to person, but some of these rules don’t make sense to me- OR they conflict with each other. One rule knocks out a price range because my net is too low, but then others say I can afford $150k higher because of my gross. Everything feels like fake money.

I have 0 debts, planning on up to $175k down with plenty left on a $5300 net, and some of these rules say I can only afford the mortgage on a $325k house. I can almost buy that house outright. Next, I talk with lenders and they tell me I can be approved for somewhere in the $600k range, which is totally unrealistic for me when I write up a budget.

I’ve worked hard, but have also been very blessed to be in the position I’m in now with the opportunities that I know I have (even if I don’t fully understand or see them), but nothing makes sense so I can’t even figure out where to begin. It’s so frustrating.

I just came here to rant about Chase Lending and see if anyone has any advice. I am scheduled to close in less than 48 hours and Chase has still not honored the relationship pricing discount they advertise. I specifically went with them and moved over a substantial amount of assets to qualify for this discount.

The last update I heard was 2 days ago the “Relationship Pricing Review Team” wanted to know which account I was paying closing costs and down payment out of (its not Chase account so those assets won’t be touched). I sent it to loan officer along with a statement balance.

Since then nothing. My loan officer has tried escalating to her supervisor. I am pissed off and stressed out. They have all my money! This should literally involve someone looking at my account and checking a box. It’s some internal team so there is nobody I can speak to directly. I feel like it’s been a horrible experience and I have no recourse.

Jumbo Loan - 7 Year Arm - 5.500%

Good/Bad/Thoughts!?

I (50F) helped my sister (48f) buy a home in 2020. I didn't co-sign, but I added her to my credit cards to help fix her credit and paid off her collections. We eventually got her credit score from low 500's to over 620 and she bought a house for 160k at 3.5% for 30 years. Literally a dream. With her new decent credit score, she then took out a bunch of dept store cards and credit cards and maxed them out and never paid them back. By 2024 her kids were all grown so I stopped helping her with anything financially. She's been 120 days or more late on her mortgage every single year since 2020. I know because I still have access to a credit app we used when we were repairing her score. So every time she is 120-150 days late, Pennymac lets her refinance for a higher mortgage for a longer term and a higher APR. On her credit report, she now shows a balance of 196k for the home with her mortgage payment being $1790 for 45 years. I'm not exactly sure how much the home is worth, but Zillow says 217k. I'm just wondering how many more times they will let her refinance until they foreclose and I get the call begging me for help. She has herself, her boyfriend, her boyfriends brother, 2 adult sons, and adult daughter living there. They are all just irresponsible with money, and I work 2 jobs. Her credit score is now in the low 400's so if she does get foreclosed on she wouldn't even be able to find a place to rent. I feel bad if this happens. And I've thought of even purchasing her home from her and charging her rent, but I know she will not pay me or will constantly be behind, while I see her and her family on social media out traveling, buying exotic pets, or hosting parties. This seems very predatory of Pennymac to do, it's like they know she will eventually go into foreclosure, and they are trying to suck every penny of interest out of her while giving her the false belief that she can just keep refinancing every year. If you do the math, only $12 goes towards her principal payment every month.

I’m in Massachusetts and I’ve been going back and forth on whether I should try to buy my first home around May 2027. I’d love some honest opinions from people who have gone through the mortgage process. I’ll be moving in May 2027 and wanted to see if buying a house would actually in the long run save me money than to keep renting.

I’m a nurse and make around $115K gross. My credit score is currently about 671. I have around $45K in total debt, with about $600/month in required payments. The biggest issue is that I don’t have savings right now, but my plan is to save aggressively between now and April so I have enough for the down payment and closing costs.
I’m hoping to stay around $350K, although I’m open to adjusting that based on what I can actually qualify for. I’m looking mostly in Massachusetts and southern New Hampshire.

The complicated part is that I’m already on a mortgage for my sister’s house. The house is around $900k and there’s ~700k left on the mortgage and the mortgage is in my name, but I don’t live there. My sister lives there and makes the mortgage payments. I’m trying to figure out if a lender would still count that entire mortgage against me when calculating my debt-to-income ratio, or if there’s a way to document that she’s making the payments and have it excluded.
I’m also looking into FHA, MassHousing, ONE Mortgage and other first-time buyer programs. My credit isn’t perfect, so I’m not sure what I’d realistically qualify for. 680 on transunion
I have a boyfriend, but we aren’t married and don’t live together. I’m thinking about buying the house in my name. We do plan to live together in the fall where he would contribute to the mortgage without his name being on the mortgage. We do plan on getting married in 2028 or 29 my thinking process is after five years of owning the home we can sell it or rent it and use the equity to buy our next house.

One other thing I’m considering is working with someone who buys houses at auction, renovates them and then sells them. She basically told me that if my budget were $350K, she could potentially buy a house at auction for around $150K, put $100K-$150K into a full renovation, and then sell it to me for around $350K. I’m interested in the idea because I could potentially get a completely renovated house, but I’m wondering if a mortgage lender would even finance a transaction like that.
So I guess my main questions are: Is buying a $350K house next spring realistic for me? Would the $700K mortgage that’s already in my name prevent me from getting another mortgage even though my sister makes the payments? And should I start talking to lenders now to see what I could qualify for?
I’m trying to be realistic and don’t want to become house poor. I’d appreciate any advice, especially from people who have dealt with a similar situation with a mortgage that someone else is actually paying.

My dad recently got a conventional loan on a home. Around 2 months later, we came into an unexpected inheritance from a family death that allowed him to pay off the mortgage and become finally debt free.

He recently received an angry text message from the local mortgage lender who is associated to Atlantic Bay. He stated that he received a YSP (yield spread premium) clawback demand for the profits that he made when selling our mortgage to an investor. He still collected fixed fees like underwriting and processing that he doesn’t have to pay back. This was around 4,700. He stated he intended to collect on this and would send us to collections if he had to.

I reviewed our note and our closing disclosure. The prepayment penalty is check no.

Is this allowed? Wouldn’t this be the agreement between the investor and the originator since it is not in our loan documents?

For reference, we basically used the entire inheritance to get him debt free (strictly just his mortgage). Another 5k would be tough to pay and the aggressive messages he sent makes it harder to just want to pay the guy.

Posted this in another sub but thought i’d try here. I am planning on using funds in a money market for my down payment. I wasn’t sure how long the closing process would be, so I had those funds transferred to my main bank account pretty much after we made an offer, that way I could sleep better knowing I had access to them immediately and didn’t want to risk holding anything up…

When we first applied for pre approval, Mortgage broker sent me a flyer with a list of things NOT to do and one of those things was “transferring from accounts i.e checking to savings” and just other misc things to be aware of.

I didn’t consider this at all and figured the funds would need to be transferred anyways and didn’t want to risk not having them, knowing there was a 3-4 day transfer period…

This was done prior to signing loan agreement, but after getting approval and providing assets and financials etc.

Is this something I need to be worried about or am I freaking out over nothing?

Hello,

I bought my house for $80k in 2017 and I have been slowly fixing it up. Right now I owe $58k on it and I have been thinking of moving to a different city (I work remotely and my job would not be affected).

According to Zillow (no idea how accurate that is), the market value of my home is around $235k and the house I am looking at is $175k.

If I use HELOC or a home equity loan, could I buy the new house and then pay off both mortgages with the sale of the old house? Thus living in a new place with no mortgage?

Or am I missing something or being delusional?

Any advice is appreciated!

Hello all, I apologize in advance if questions like this get asked too frequently in this sub but I’m trying to make it as personalized as I can for my situation. A little about my situation: I’m 23 and currently living with my parents who are awesome enough to allow me to save aggressively (which I have been since I was 14). I gross $107k per year, have $150k in savings, $73k in retirement. Only recurring monthly expense is my car insurance which is $250.
I’ve been eyeing homes in the $250-300k price range (single family townhomes in FL). I’d like to put at least 20% down to avoid PMI.
I don’t really know of any good financial advisors in my life and have been doing some research online so I figured I’d put the feelers out to other likeminded individuals. A few questions:

•Given my situational information above, is it necessary to put down more than 20%?

•For other first time home buyers, what is your monthly mortgage payment compared to your monthly household income and do things feel tight with said numbers? Is there anything you’d wish you had done differently during the buying process?

I thank you all in advance!

I am just finishing up my masters degree and finally joining work force. I am terrified as I was hoping to buy a house in a year however I just found out I had a 30 day delinquency report for a car payment. I will send goodwill letter (with little hope) as I was not notified about the payment not going through until 45 days after due date. Regardless, if the GW letter does not get approved, how big of a situation will I be in for getting a mortgage in 12+ months from now? Appreciate any advice.

Edit: credit score was 730 prior to this event. Not sure where it will land. Wife with clean credit around 720. Combined income $230k. Looking for $400-500k house.

Hi!

My wife and I are looking to buy in southeast Michigan, and I’m trying to figure out which first-time homebuyer program would actually save us the most money long term. My wife is a teacher and I know there are plenty of 1% or 0% down no PMI programs for teachers.

However, I also know there are plenty of other options for first time home buyers, including something like the MSHDA Mortgage Credit Certificate (MCC).

This leads to my question: has anyone in Michigan successfully paired an MCC with a low or zero down mortgage that also had no PMI?

I reached out to a couple of lenders, and they personally did not pair them together, but I am not sure if that is the case for everyone.

I’m not necessarily trying to put $0 down just because I can. We have savings. I’m more interested in figuring out which option gives us the lowest overall cost when you factor in the interest rate, PMI, down payment, closing costs, lender fees, grants/assistance, and the long-term MCC tax credit.

I’d especially love to hear from anyone who has actually used the Michigan MCC recently. Was it worth it? Did your lender offer a higher interest rate in exchange for the MCC? Were you able to combine it with any other first-time-buyer assistance?

Also open to recommendations for Michigan lenders/credit unions that are really knowledgeable about stacking these programs instead of just pushing one product.

Also, if there is a better forum I should direct this question to, let me know!

Thanks!

I am 23 and looking at a 320k house. I have 70k savings and make about 87k-93k gross a year with a 6.375% interest rate. I am looking to put some where between 50k-55k down and save rest for closing and other expenses. I am just trying to see is this is even doable. I have no debt at all. Best guess is mortgage would be around 2,450 a month. All the calculators online say its no problem/fit comfortably on just me.

On top of this my girlfriend would move in with me and she makes about 40-45k gross a year. She would be willing to help with paying some utilities and around the house stuff like groceries etc. Obviously this makes it easier I just don't want to get both of us in a shitty situation.

I just want to ask people and see if this is too much of a stretch or if this is realistic.

Thank you

Good morning, I am in the process of buying house,approaching closing soon. My lender is ready to lock in 6.25 rate for me today, should I accept it or wait more in hope to see the rates go low? I am the first time home buyer and this rate is ifor FHA loan! Thanks

I’m a grown adult but sometimes it is still very hard for me to come to terms with how the system is so rigged and how companies like Cenlar, which we used for our second mortgage, feed on people.

When we bought our house, between the real estate agents and the title company and God knows what other agents were floating around at the time it was just a given that we were going to need to get a second mortgage with CENLAR.

We paid and paid and paid and paid and paid and paid and paid and barely made a debt because of course it’s perfectly legal that they frontload all of the interest so that you are just paying your debt to the company and not touching your actual Principal. That isn’t specific to CENLAR that’s just the American way.

What is specific to CENLAR is terrible customer service. I never received any communication from the company by mail, and came to find out that they were sending it to a completely garbled address— a series of typos clearly created on their side when they set up the loan so that my statements were never going to reach me. Once I figured that out I called to have the address corrected, only to be told by an incredibly rude woman who I believe was half asleep when she spoke to me that you can’t change that address (even though it’s the address of the house they have the Mortgage on) except by writing a physical letter to them to ask them to change that address.

I did that and they ignored that too.

I called back and was hung up on while being transferred. So I looked into how to change the situation from a variable interest loan that fluctuated wildly every month between something like $700 and well over $1000. I got a personal loan through another company for a fixed interest amount with a loan that actually lets me pay down my Principal rather than just line the loan companies pockets and transferred the remaining debt, paying off CENLAR in full.

That was in December 2025.

Then in July I was surprised when looking at my bank account to see that CENLAR had pulled out $332. I HAVE ASSUMED THAT SINCE THE LOAN WAS PAID IN FULL AND I WAS DOING BUSINESS WITH ANOTHER COMPANY THAT MY RELATIONSHIP WITH CENLAR WAS OVER.

I called and was told that just because you pay off your loan it doesn’t mean that your account is closed. And how do you close your account? Well, you have to FAX a specific form requesting to close your account to CENLAR.

Fax? It’s 2026. There is no other acceptable way to close a CENLAR loan. You can’t write a letter. You can’t email. You can’t call. You can’t send a carrier pigeon—you have to go find a fax machine. The rep told me that you could fax from Staples. Since I live in a small town, I took part of the day off so I could go to a neighboring town to the Staples and stand in line to Fax CENLAR what I learned was the third page of a series of pages of paperwork that had been sent to either me or my new lender back in November. Meanwhile CENLAR was going to keep charging me for my zeroed-out account.

The ironic part of this is that CENLAR doesn’t hold the loan they ONLY exist to manage it—to do the administrative work that they’re, in my experience, incompetent at executing.

What all the people helping you buy your home when you need a second Mortgage don’t tell you is: you can and should refinance that second mortgage after a fairly short (often six months) waiting period.

Of course it’s no doubt buried in the reams of legal language, but while they are taking your money month after month after month after month after month after month and your original Principal isn’t going down or is going down in minuscule units you can get out from under that by refinancing with a company that allows you to pay against the Principal while you’re also paying interest.

I was just letting that second Mortgage ride paying thousands and thousands of my hard-earned dollars a year into somebody’s pocket without it putting much of a dent in my Principal. I have changed that situationk and I hope that somebody can benefit from my experience.