Money Matters
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Lurker with a Mortgage Question

Hi everyone.

I read posts here often and you all offer great advice.  Tomorrow H and I have an appt at the bank to talk mortgage approval.  We were in on Saturday refinancing one of our vehicles and happened to run in to the Mortgage guy and here we are, somewhat unexpected.  We are first time home buyers and my question is about down payments.  We are planning on using part of our tax return towards what we already have saved for the down payment.  A friend of ours said his bank was not thrilled about that idea when he purchased a home.  Is this truly an issue?  I'm guessing it has to do with the short time period of having the money in our account.  Thoughts?
CafeMom Tickers

Re: Lurker with a Mortgage Question

  • probably has to do with the short amout of time the money is in your account. Your Downpayment is your way of showing the bank that you've been able to manage your money over time to put the downpayment together.  I think with our bank any deposits over a certain amount that weren't paychecks had to have been in our account for at least 3 months to be used for the downpayment. 

    I'm also not sure how they'd feel about refinancing your car...that could affect your credit score (the bank financing your car checking your score and then the bank financing your mortgage checking your score can actually lower your score because of the number of times creditors check it).  The woman handling our mortgage basically told us to avoid doing anything that involved financing until after we closed, if we could avoid it. you may have already checked on that one, but if you haven't I'd check in with the bank that refinancing your car isn't going to affect your mortgage approval. 
    Me: 28 H: 30
    Married 07/14/2012
    TTC #1 January 2015
    BFP! 3/27/15 Baby Girl!! EDD:12/7/2015
  • I am was banker pre SAHMhood. The PP is correct, with the credit score idea. However, the caveat is that you didn't open to take on any new debt by doing the car refi. The concern for lenders is NEW debt. Your refi will save you money (hopefully, it should or why else would you do it). So, if you got to the same lander for the mortgage as you did the car, they can communicate with one another. Doing a refi on a loan you already have is way different than buying a car or racking up credit card debt prior to a mortgage approval. Yes, your credit score may be dinged some points, but the score is only one piece of a credit application.
  • Hi everyone.

    I read posts here often and you all offer great advice.  Tomorrow H and I have an appt at the bank to talk mortgage approval.  We were in on Saturday refinancing one of our vehicles and happened to run in to the Mortgage guy and here we are, somewhat unexpected.  We are first time home buyers and my question is about down payments.  We are planning on using part of our tax return towards what we already have saved for the down payment.  A friend of ours said his bank was not thrilled about that idea when he purchased a home.  Is this truly an issue?  I'm guessing it has to do with the short time period of having the money in our account.  Thoughts?
    I think the important thing the banks look for is that the money is yours free and clear, and not a "loan" from a friend or family member that needs to be paid back.  I don't see why a tax refund would be a problem.  We had an influx of money from our wedding and bought a house shortly after and had no problems.  
  • My understanding is similar to PPs-they want to see that you've had that money for a while when deciding whether or not to approve you (with the exception of some small DP loans that allow full or partial family gift DPs). If you have plenty of money in the bank to get approved as-is, I don't think they care if you add the refund to that just to put down extra. KWIM?
  • I've never heard of that but i'd imagine its because its all through the same bank. I'd try a different bank/ mortgage broker then. If you have everything through the same bank they have more say over those kind of things. I like to keep those accounts stored at separate places. I don't want my loan company to know how much money i have or to have access to my money because legally if you miss a payment or something they can actually go in and take that money from your checking account. We'd all hope that would never happen but i'd rather be safe then sorry.

    When we applied for our mortgage they asked how much cash we had and wanted to see our last bank statement - you could always just say you have that amount in cash already and have the irs send you a check instead of doing direct deposit. But most mortgage companies aren't going to care where that money is coming from. They just want to make sure that large deposits arent' a form of income. thats all.

    Baby Birthday Ticker Ticker
  • In my experience, it's true that banks will scrutinize your savings and are suspicious of recent deposits (large and small) because they want to make sure you haven't received a personal loan to cover part of your down payment.  If you had to pay back a personal loan in addition to your mortgage, that would affect how large of a mortgage you would quality for.

    While in the middle of going through our loan application, I received some money as an inheritance.  All I had to do was write a letter explaining the recent deposit and provide some paperwork to verify that it was an inheritance.  It might be possible to do something similar with a tax refund.  I'm sure banks run into this all the time at this time of year.
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