Update 11/11/2008:  This is post is more of a reflection of the times.  Zero down loans are not available with convetional financing at this time.  Private or hard money may have zero down loans available.   FHA with a loan from family members is the closest to 100% financing that I’m aware of.   As with any posts about mortgage guidelines, be mindful of when they were written as guidelines have (and will continue to) change.

I’ve been working on a zero down rate quote for Jillayne, since she requested that two weeks ago when I did my posted my first Friday rate’s on RCG.   She was curious how 100% loan to value mortgages compare based on different credit scores.   At the company I work for, we have around 80 (woops…make that 78 now) lenders we work with.   A majority of our business is handled in our credit line (Mortgage Master is a Correspondent Lender) and some business is “brokered”.  Typically this is subprime or unique loans with added risk.   As a Loan Originator, you wind up selecting 3-5 of your favorite “a money” sources, a few “alt a” lenders and of course, and I like to have around 3-5 sub-prime lenders.   These are the lenders and representatives you rely on, get to know their products and trust their underwriting.   

Back to Jillayne’s request, last night I called my three preferred subprime resources for my rate quotes…what’s the lowest credit score they will lend to at 100% ltv and is the rate and program?  Thanks to RCG’s Tim, I’ve just learned that one of those resources I’ve relied on, New Century…and the only one that I work with who did quote yesterday an 80/20 with a 600 mid-score is facing troubling times to say the least.

“New Century Financial Corp. said it’s the subject of a criminal probe and Fremont General Corp. agreed to a cease-and-desist order with bank regulators in the biggest regulatory actions to emerge from the subprime mortgage meltdown.”   To read the entire article on Bloomberg, click here.

Every day I’m receiving memos from various subprime lenders with details of (much needed) tightening guidelines.  If you currently have clients shopping for a new home and they are using subprime financing (you might know this if they’ve told you their credit is not great, if the mortgage is a 80/20 with a prepayment penalty, etc.) you just might want to contact the Loan Originator to make sure the preapproval is still valid.  If that client has a credit score below 620, they may (1) not be approved any longer or (2) be approved for an entirely different rate (much higher). 

Subprime lenders are either eliminating their zero down products all together or are raising the credit score requirements.  Previously, a 580 – 600 mid-credit score was no problem for 100% financing.   They were beating down our doors to do these loans!  Now, the new standards for mid-score (with the lenders I work with) seems to be 620.  This is a significant jump that will delay some rentsers from buying homes until they improve their credit.   Which again, I think this is good.

I’ve mentioned this before, but this is so important.  If you have clients who have used subprime financing who have purchased homes in the past 1-2 years, this could be a good reason to pick up the phone and call them.   Hopefully they received good counseling from their Mortgage Planner AND they took the advice to heart…working on cleaning up their credit usage, managing their spending, etc.  With the subprime market tightening, if those subprime borrowers have credit scores below 620 when their prepayement penalty is up and their fixed payment is adjusting towards the sky, they may be are in a very tough situation.

Jillayne, this post is all ready a bit long… I promise I’ll have your zero down rates posted soon!