Listen: What Mortgage Loan Officers Need You to Know

Please consult with a qualified professional for any investment or financial advice.

Welcome to Play That Back, where we spotlight conversations from our main show that are worth a second look.

When most people think about buying a home, they picture open houses, for-sale signs, and getting the keys. What they don't always think about is everything that has to happen behind the scenes to actually make that purchase possible.

That's what made our conversation with home loans expert, Candice, so valuable. She shares what mortgage loan officers really do, why it's important to start planning long before you're ready to buy, and how things like credit, savings, and debt can impact your path to homeownership. She even shares some resources that can help out first-time buyers. 

There’s a lot to learn here, whether you're hoping to buy your first home or just curious about how the financing side of the process works. So enough from me. Let's play that back.

Hey there. It's Sabrina, and today I'm here with friend of the show, Candice. Candice, how are you doing? Good, thank you.

So tell our listeners who you are and a little bit of your history here at Virginia Credit Union.

Thank you so much for having me, Sabrina. My name is Candice Shelor. I am an area sales manager with Virginia Credit Union Home Loans. I've been in the mortgage industry now for nearly thirty years. I've been with Credit Union since nineteen ninety five. I started as a teller and then worked my way over into the financial pieces of Virginia Credit Union, and I love what I do in the mortgage world.

That's amazing. I also always love a journey through the Credit Union career story. Yes. Very similar.

Yes. You know, it feels like realtors are the stars of the show. They're walking you through properties, they're helping you find your dream home. But mortgage loan officers, or MLOs, are really the unsung heroes.

For anyone unfamiliar with a mortgage loan officer, what do they do and how do they help you through the homebuying process?

Well, thank you for giving them a shout out because sometimes it does feel like we are the unsung heroes, but we do have a very important role. The realtors are the ones, of course, as you mentioned, that are gonna help you secure the property, help you negotiate, but the loan officers are the ones that handle all the finances. I mean, they're kind of the gatekeepers, I guess, so to speak, to getting into the home. Right? So the loan officers have a really important job of working with the borrowers, many times, months to years before they're ready to qualify for homebuying. And, you know, they will work with through with the member through the entire process from beginning to closing on how to finance a home and be their best guide and best resource for that.

You know, you have a wealth of information about financing homes and now more than ever, it really does feel like to many that homeownership is unobtainable.

So what kind of resources are available for folks to help maybe lighten that financial load throughout the home buying process? 

Yeah. We really are in somewhat of a homeownership crisis right now in the country in general.

And what we have found to be a key to our success at Virginia Credit Union is to be able to offer as many resources as we possibly can to our homebuyers. Anything from the education piece, which is a part of what we're doing, all the way up through financing and what that looks like. 

So, we partner with a lot of grant agencies, especially for our first-time homebuyers that, you know, have modest income that really need that extra boost to help them get into homeownership. We do have some hundred-percent financing options for first-time homebuyers, and we work with subsequent buyers, you know, that maybe have not been in the market for a new mortgage for quite some time and helping to guide them on what the latest products are and what their best financing terms are gonna look like.

Right. You know, there is a lot of things that go into financing a home, like you mentioned, grant programs, getting qualified, even walking through the process in general can be overwhelming. So based on your experience, when it comes down to purchasing a home, what are some things that people often overlook?

There's a few things that play major factors and I would say one of the more important factors is credit, and what their credit profile looks like. When I talked about, you know, borrowers working with us for months to sometimes years ahead of time, we have worked with borrowers that really had some credit challenges early on in their homebuying phase, and we worked closely with them, helping to give them guidance on things that they can look to do on their credit profiles to help bring them to the point that they not only qualify for homeownership, but that they can qualify for better interest rates and better products.

That, along with what their income looks like compared to what debt they have, and then what their overall asset picture looks like too. There are a lot of times where I talk to potential first time home buyers that maybe are renting right now. Maybe they're renting for about twelve hundred dollars a month, and the purchase market would put them in a mortgage payment of about two thousand dollars a month. Sometimes that seems unattainable for people.

So we work closely with them upfront to say, “Hey, maybe go ahead and start paying that two thousand dollars. That way the twelve hundred is still going to your rent, but the eight hundred is working in your favor a couple different ways. That eight hundred can help you get adjusted to making that two thousand dollar a month payment, but it also can help build a nest egg for your down payment and closing costs.”

Right. I love how you mentioned checking your credit is gonna be, like, that first step. Yeah. And for those who have never seen their credit reports, annual credit report dot com is definitely a great place to check. You can do all three of your credit reports there. Yes. So what other strategies or insights could you share with our listeners that could make the financing process of homebuying just a little bit easier to navigate?

Well, you want to, first, look at your overall profile and you wanna get in touch with a loan officer as soon as possible. Many times, we don't hear from borrowers until they're actually ready to make that step, and then sadly they're disappointed if we've uncovered some things that still need to be worked on. Right. Whether it's their credit, income, or debts.

And so, working with a loan officer early on can help. We also can help sometimes to refer them over to a qualified realtor that might work best with their particular profile, where they're looking, things of that nature. So it's very important to engage early on.

Yeah. I totally agree. You know, it can be disappointing if you start the process and you start looking and you maybe you're looking through the online listings and you find that dream house and, you know, you wanna be in the best position to make an offer and make that move so… Right. That's excellent.

So let's dream big for a second.

You hear folks talking about purchasing investment properties for additional income.

How does that affect the process with working with an MLO, or is it different than purchasing a primary residence?

And that's an incredible question because we do have a lot of folks that are looking to capitalize on their overall financial wealth. Maybe it — they're trying to set up better funds for their retirement as they build. Maybe they're looking for generational wealth to be able to hand down to their children.

So when they're looking at purchasing investment properties, there are a couple things to keep in mind. One, we're gonna qualify them with all of their payments. And what I mean by that is if they own their current house, they have a mortgage on it, they have other debts, we're always gonna qualify them with all of those payments plus the new house payment.

Whether or not they're gonna have a renter in that house is kind of an unknown when you're buying an investment property because it may be a vacant property that they're going into. And so it's important for the borrower and for the lender to qualify based on all the payments.

Right.

Right?

And so what we do find is a lot of buyers that are going into the rental space are very appreciative for the guidance that we give them on that because they don't know ahead of that time. Many borrowers that we talk to in that space, this is their first investment property. And then they come back to us subsequently to keep building on that, and buying the second or third investment property.

Well, thank you for sharing that knowledge with us. Candice, it definitely has been a great time sitting down talking to you today. I hope our listeners have gained some insights on navigating the homebuying process from working with a mortgage loan officer. So one, I just wanna say thank you for sitting down and talking to us and sharing your knowledge and experience with our listeners.

Thank you so much.

Pay That Bill is a podcast designed to entertain and, more importantly, educate. The show is produced by Virginia Credit Union and is developed alongside our award-winning financial education team. We have a library full of free resources available online that can help you on your journey to financial success.

If you want to learn more about what we talked about today, check out the links we have in the description of this episode. The information provided in Pay That Bill is for educational and informational purposes only and should not be considered financial advice.

While we aim to share helpful insights and general strategies, every listener's financial situation is unique. Please consult with a qualified professional for any investment or financial advice. The hosts and guests of this podcast are not responsible for any outcomes resulting from actions taken based on the content discussed.