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People don't call us because they need a mortgage. They call us because they need help making a housing decision.
Mortgage Matters is a Las Vegas, Nevada-based radio show and podcast hosted by mortgage advisors Roland Daniels (NMLS 355859) and Heidi Griffith (NMLS 2247754) with Geneva Financial. Airing every Sunday at 7:30 AM on KUNV 91.5 and available wherever you listen to podcasts, the show explores the real-life decisions, opportunities, challenges, and financial realities that shape where and how we live.
Every week, Roland and Heidi tackle the housing conversations people are already having around kitchen tables, at family gatherings, and on social media. Should I buy or wait? Is my first home supposed to be my dream home? Should I move up, downsize, invest, or stay put? How do I build wealth through real estate? What's the smartest use of my money? Through honest conversations and practical guidance, they help listeners make sense of the choices involved in renting, buying, selling, investing, and planning for the future.
Drawing on decades of mortgage and housing experience, Roland and Heidi break down real mortgage questions, homeownership strategies, down payment assistance programs, FHA loans, VA loans, conventional financing, housing affordability, wealth-building opportunities, and the financial realities that influence housing decisions.
Mortgage Matters also shines a spotlight on the people and organizations working to strengthen communities across Las Vegas and Nevada. Through conversations with housing advocates, nonprofit leaders, educators, elected officials, and local changemakers, the show explores the issues that affect housing, opportunity, economic mobility, fair housing, and homeownership throughout Southern Nevada.
Roland and Heidi are active community educators who lead free homebuyer workshops across Nevada in partnership with organizations including the Nevada Housing Division, Chicanos Por La Causa (CPLC), and Nevada Rural Housing Authority. Roland serves as a director with the local chapter of the National Association of Real Estate Brokers (NAREB), and Heidi serves as President of the Silver State Fair Housing Council, where Roland is also a board member. Together, they bring mortgage expertise, housing advocacy, community involvement, and a passion for helping people make informed housing decisions to every episode.
Announcer 0:00
This is a KUNV Studios original program. The
Heidi Griffith 0:04
content of this program does not reflect the views or opinions of 91.5 Jazz and more, the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, or the Board of Regents of the Nevada System of Higher Education.
Music 0:22
Go back, so.
Roland Daniels 0:43
Good morning, Las Vegas. Welcome to Mortgage Matters. I'm Roland Daniels, a certified mortgage advisor with Geneva Financial. My NMLS number is 355859. Our company NMLS number is 42056, and I'm here this morning, as always, with my fantastic co-host Heidi Griffith. Good morning, Heidi.
Heidi Griffith 1:06
Well, good morning, Roland.
Roland Daniels 1:07
Good morning.
Heidi Griffith 1:08
Happy Sunday.
Roland Daniels 1:09
Happy Sunday. Good
Heidi Griffith 1:10
morning, everyone. I'm Heidi Griffith. I'm also a mortgage advisor and your director of client services. My animals number is 2247754. So I I looked up some interesting data.
Roland Daniels 1:24
Let's hear it.
Heidi Griffith 1:24
Yeah, American households are carrying nearly $19 trillion in debt.
Roland Daniels 1:31
That's a lot of money.
Heidi Griffith 1:32
That's a lot of money.
Roland Daniels 1:34
I think it's an all time high. Actually,
Heidi Griffith 1:36
that is a lot of money. 19 trillion in debt in credit card interest rates. They're hovering around 21% but we're seeing
Roland Daniels 1:43
anywhere between 24 and like 35% Yeah,
Heidi Griffith 1:47
I see 30 or 29 pretty regularly. Because I think
Roland Daniels 1:51
I only have one card below 21% Everything else is anywhere between 24 and 30, depending on the credit card issuer.
Heidi Griffith 1:58
Yeah, so that 21% is the national average on that? And the national debt is approaching. Are you ready for this number? $40 trillion.
Roland Daniels 2:08
Can you say that number again? National debt of money.
Heidi Griffith 2:10
$40 trillion. It's crazy, isn't it?
Roland Daniels 2:13
It is absolutely.
Heidi Griffith 2:14
And we still have wars going on, geopolitical uncertainty that affects markets around the world.
Roland Daniels 2:19
It does.
Heidi Griffith 2:20
And while all of that is happening, we still have this conversation on the regular. Folks are waiting for interest rates to come down.
Roland Daniels 2:29
Unfortunately, every single week
Heidi Griffith 2:31
they might be waiting a while.
Roland Daniels 2:32
I think so.
Heidi Griffith 2:33
They might would be waiting. So I thought let let's do something a little different today because you know we we sit here week in and week out, and we talk about maybe what people should or shouldn't do.
Roland Daniels 2:44
We do.
Heidi Griffith 2:45
Let's make it a little bit more personal. Let's talk about if we were out looking to purchase right now.
Roland Daniels 2:51
You and I.
Heidi Griffith 2:52
You and me.
Roland Daniels 2:52
Okay.
Heidi Griffith 2:53
We're gonna go buy a house. You ready?
Roland Daniels 2:54
Let's do it.
Heidi Griffith 2:55
If we were buying a house, what would we
Roland Daniels 2:58
do? Ah, what would we do? Yeah.
Heidi Griffith 3:00
So, so we'll make it real. We need to finance. We need a mortgage. We care about our monthly payment as we should because the monthly payment is important. It is. We've got some savings, but we're not sitting on unlimited cash. We're not putting 20% down. We don't have you know 100,000 in the bank. We don't have 50,000 in the bank. Right,
Roland Daniels 3:18
or $400,000 to pay cash, pay cash, to
Heidi Griffith 3:22
pay cash.
Roland Daniels 3:22
Even if we did, we still wouldn't pay cash. So,
Heidi Griffith 3:24
with all of that being said, with what we know about the consumer debt, with what we know about the national debt, with what we know about interest rates, because it does not appear rates are coming down anytime soon.
Roland Daniels 3:37
I don't see it. We don't have that crystal ball, but I don't see
Heidi Griffith 3:41
all of the indicators say no time soon,
Roland Daniels 3:43
right?
Heidi Griffith 3:44
Are we buying a house, or are we going to wait?
Roland Daniels 3:46
Let's see. Yes, we are.
Heidi Griffith 3:48
We're buying a house.
Roland Daniels 3:49
We're buying a house. Let's
Heidi Griffith 3:50
do it. Let's do it. So what we know as of right now, rates probably not going to see any movement downward anytime soon.
Roland Daniels 3:58
Not anything that's significant.
Heidi Griffith 4:00
No, they they meet again in September.
Roland Daniels 4:03
They do.
Heidi Griffith 4:03
I think it's they they meet september 15 and 16th.
Roland Daniels 4:06
Right, during that week, so that Wednesday and Thursday, when the new federal chairman will speak again.
Heidi Griffith 4:11
And it's already been said by a lot of analysts that there's not going to be a rate cut this go.
Roland Daniels 4:18
And they may be looking at increasing rates.
Heidi Griffith 4:21
There's definitely that possibility, and we have to understand that mortgage rates are not directly tied with the Fed rate. Those are short-term rates, right?
Roland Daniels 4:28
Yep, like HELOCs, credit cards, or loans that you're going to get at your local bank or credit. Right,
Heidi Griffith 4:35
right. But but they do have some
Roland Daniels 4:38
some effect.
Heidi Griffith 4:38
Some effect, right?
Roland Daniels 4:40
But if you remember the last six times that they cut rates, the interest rates actually went up. They went down. They went
Heidi Griffith 4:47
up, and a lot of times the mortgage industry. I mean, obviously we're watching what's happening, and they kind of bake that in in advance because there are indicators stating what they believe the Fed is going to do when. They publicly give their opinion and what they're going to do moving forward. Make
Roland Daniels 5:04
that announced, right? Yes.
Heidi Griffith 5:05
And we we did see a dip this year. We saw a dip in interest rates this year. I back in February. It was a very short dip and a very small dip, but it went under 6% just for a small, very short
Roland Daniels 5:18
time.
Heidi Griffith 5:18
Very short time, didn't it? It did. Okay, so let's get back. We're going to buy a house. Let's look at what's happening right here in our city, right here in Vegas.
Roland Daniels 5:27
Okay.
Heidi Griffith 5:27
Okay. Recent market daddy as of July. So these are going to be based on July numbers. They show active listings are up from a year ago. The headlines can sway either way on this because we've talked about headlines before. Sometimes they say where you know we we need more housing supply and we do need more we need more affordable housing supply, but you can also hear that you know the market's getting ready to crash because there's more homes on the market. The amount of homes on the market is nominal. It's not a big amount.
Roland Daniels 5:57
No,
Heidi Griffith 5:58
it's not a big amount. But we do have more homes on the market today than we did one year ago.
Roland Daniels 6:02
We do headlines sell news
Heidi Griffith 6:04
absolutely, and almost one out of every four active listings has had a price reduction. Now, could that be they reduce the price by $1,000, or did they do a substantial reduction by you know $20,000 or whatever that looks like? That one out of four homes that's on the market has had a price reduction,
Roland Daniels 6:22
right? And each home looks different,
Heidi Griffith 6:23
right? Of course, and homes aren't necessarily selling like they were when it was crazy out there the first weekend that they're listed,
Roland Daniels 6:31
right?
Heidi Griffith 6:32
So we've got some stuff to look at. We understand the market that we're going into.
Roland Daniels 6:37
We do,
Heidi Griffith 6:37
and I think the market that we're in today gives us as buyers something we haven't seen in a very long time.
Roland Daniels 6:44
Okay,
Heidi Griffith 6:45
room to negotiate.
Roland Daniels 6:46
Wow, room to negotiate,
Heidi Griffith 6:48
and that's a good thing.
Roland Daniels 6:48
It is. That's a good thing for us. It is
Heidi Griffith 6:50
because I'm a negotiator. You are. I'm gonna get out there and negotiate. When you purchased your your car before your current car, you brought me in to negotiate.
Roland Daniels 7:01
That's funny. We did get a good, a great price for it, though.
Heidi Griffith 7:06
You did. We
Roland Daniels 7:06
did.
Heidi Griffith 7:07
Why?
Roland Daniels 7:07
Because of your negotiating skills. Even though I think we could have went a little bit lower, but that's for another day.
Heidi Griffith 7:14
That's another conversation. That's another. So, if you and I are going shopping right now, and we are, we're pre-approved.
Roland Daniels 7:21
Yes,
Heidi Griffith 7:21
we we know a great mortgage professional. We sat down. We we got all of the facts. We got pre-approved. We're going shopping. What are we looking for aside from the actual price on the listing?
Roland Daniels 7:34
Let's see. What about days on market?
Heidi Griffith 7:37
How long has it been listed? Right.
Roland Daniels 7:38
Yes.
Heidi Griffith 7:39
Because that's a big one, and a lot of people make the assumption, and I'm putting on my my real estate cap right now. But a lot of people will make the assumption that if it's been listed a long time, there's something wrong with it. That's not even necessarily true. It could be that the property is overvalued. It's overpriced. It takes
Roland Daniels 7:59
a long time.
Heidi Griffith 8:00
Well, it just and again, that's going to be based on what your belief of a long time is. Is you know, 30 days a long time is 120 days a long time, and the longer a home sits on the market, the staler the listing becomes because people then do start to wonder what's wrong with this property, and in so many instances, it just really boils down to price. It just it's it's overpriced, and the market determines what value that home is going to sell for. Right. So I know as a seller in the past that we have a tendency to believe that we have the best house. Maybe I put in a new hot water heater, and I think because I put in that new hot water heater, I should get $5,000 more for my property than the neighbor got for theirs. When, in all reality, does a new hot water heater add value? Well, sure, it's a new hot water heater, but is it going to add enough value to see it significantly? And you know, if if you had an old hot water heater or a hot water heater that wasn't working properly, well, then what does that do? That now we need a new hot water heater. So I personally, when we get in the car and we go looking at these houses, Roland, want to make sure the hot water heater is working. Got
Roland Daniels 9:09
it? Yes.
Heidi Griffith 9:10
And then you know we want to take a look where there previous price reductions on the property, right? Because when we're working with our real estate professional, because we have a great realtor,
Roland Daniels 9:20
we do.
Heidi Griffith 9:21
We're working with them, and they're going to look at the comps. They're going to go back and see what's going on with this property. They're going to look at the full market snapshot, and when they look at this property, they're going to be able to see in the MLS from their end. They're going to be able to see was there any price reductions? Did the seller reduce price at any point since this property has been listed, and we can then see maybe you know the conversation that the seller had with their agent was we'll list at this price, but if we don't get any offers in the first two weeks, we're going to reduce, or the first 30 days, or whatever they agreed to, and it's going to boil down to the seller's motivation, isn't it?
Roland Daniels 9:59
It is. Definitely.
Heidi Griffith 10:00
So, if you've really got to move for one reason or another, versus I just want to see if I can sell my house, right? That looks completely different
Roland Daniels 10:09
because that does happen sometimes, right?
Heidi Griffith 10:11
Not as often today as it has in the past. You know, when the market was hot and heavy, when people were lined up 4050, people deep just to look at a house, then yeah, people were they they were dipping their toes in the water, right? Because they were going to see what they could get. Well, shoot, let's just put it on the market and see how much we can get, and you know if we can get I don't know whatever that number is. Well, maybe we think about
Roland Daniels 10:34
it extra 50,000 or so.
Heidi Griffith 10:36
That that's not happening as frequently, and I think we today's
Roland Daniels 10:39
market. Yeah,
Heidi Griffith 10:40
and we'll touch on that, but you know,
Roland Daniels 10:42
what about property condition?
Heidi Griffith 10:43
That's a big one for me, right? So I, we're it's us. I have to think of this first person. This is us. We're buying a house. Do I want to buy something that needs work? Um, it depends on the work. I think that we could make some improvements to a property, but I personally don't want to fix her upper. I don't want to have to go in and gut the entire house and re. I've done that, been there and done that, and it's a lot of work. But it's right for a lot of people, especially if you're going to get a great deal. What about you? Do you want to fix her upper for
Roland Daniels 11:15
you, except for countertops? That's a big deal. I know, I know how important it is for you to have the right countertops. You're right.
Heidi Griffith 11:22
I'm serious about countertops. That just happens to be my thing. And then also, we're going to look at. So I think you know we're going to be looking at you know how much is the property valued at it. Is it a good? I'm doing air quotes. Is it a good deal? Right. Is the seller serious? What condition is this property in, and can we get seller credits? And because we're in this industry, we will always ask for seller credits,
Roland Daniels 11:47
and we want seller credits.
Heidi Griffith 11:49
In today's world, we definitely want seller credits because we've watched every client that we've closed a transaction on this year get at least some seller credits, if not
Roland Daniels 11:59
actually 10s of 1000s of
Heidi Griffith 12:01
dollars. Yes. So yeah, we want to make sure that this seller's ready to negotiate because we're coming to negotiate.
Roland Daniels 12:08
We are.
Heidi Griffith 12:09
And here's something I've been thinking about while we're out here looking at these houses.
Roland Daniels 12:13
Tell me,
Heidi Griffith 12:13
why is the seller selling?
Roland Daniels 12:15
That is a great question. Has to be a reason, right?
Heidi Griffith 12:18
Well, in today's world, so there's homeowners. Remember, there's homeowners that are sitting on 2% 3% you know, under 4% interest rates on their mortgages.
Roland Daniels 12:31
Well, I've heard that right here in the Las Vegas Valley, over 60% of the people have a rate at 4% or below.
Heidi Griffith 12:39
60%
Roland Daniels 12:40
60%
Heidi Griffith 12:41
So 4% are low. 60% of homeowners in the valley have an interest rate of four. Wow, wow. So I would believe, and I know it as a fact, that you know there's a lot of homeowners. So if 60% of them have less, or yeah, less 4% or less, then many of those homeowners are clutching that interest rate like pearls,
Roland Daniels 13:05
right? Because if I had a two and a half or 3% interest rate, I'm not. You
Heidi Griffith 13:09
think long and hard,
Roland Daniels 13:11
really? You
Heidi Griffith 13:11
think long and hard because we want to give
Roland Daniels 13:13
it up?
Heidi Griffith 13:13
Yeah, because maybe these people planned, you know, a few years ago on hey, we'll wait a year and then we're gonna move into a bigger place, or maybe the kids are gonna be in college in two years, and we're gonna downsize, or maybe we're going to move to wherever it is we're gonna move. Or I want to live in Summerlin, so we'll sell this place and we'll move to Summerlin. But rates didn't do what people thought rates were gonna do. Then they look at their 2.75, their three and a quarter, whatever that is, and think you know what, we're good. A lot,
Roland Daniels 13:46
a lot has changed since they purchased their property. A lot has changed within the last year,
Heidi Griffith 13:50
and so you know the likelihood of them moving just to move is a lot less right now,
Roland Daniels 13:58
right? Especially if you have those low locked-in rates compared to today to today's rates. Yeah,
Heidi Griffith 14:03
they're like, we're good. We'll stay here. We'll suffer. We don't really need that craft room,
Roland Daniels 14:08
right?
Heidi Griffith 14:09
We'll make it work. We'll make it work. And it it's actually something that's been coined. It's called the lock-in effect.
Roland Daniels 14:15
It
Heidi Griffith 14:15
is. And so that's what we're seeing. That's why the inventory has not flooded the market. Everybody was waiting for this crash. We talk about it week after week after week. The crash, you know, we don't have a crystal ball. I'm not going to tell you that the market will never crash. But what I'm going to tell you is, based on based on patterns from the past, the market should have already done some sort of correction.
Roland Daniels 14:39
Right.
Heidi Griffith 14:40
A lot of things kind of happened though, and COVID was kind of the leader of that and changed things. And a lot of homeowners aren't selling when they might have moved because of those interest rates.
Roland Daniels 14:53
I agree, because right now the rates now are pretty much double and sometimes triple compared to that locked in. So.
Heidi Griffith 15:00
Yeah. Well, yeah. They they kind of feel like they're stuck in their mortgage
Roland Daniels 15:04
because your mortgage payment will at least double.
Heidi Griffith 15:07
Well, yeah. And if you if you were to go get a like property today
Roland Daniels 15:12
in today's market,
Heidi Griffith 15:13
you know, even if prices hadn't gone up, but they have,
Roland Daniels 15:15
they
Heidi Griffith 15:16
prices didn't come down. No, they or or they
Roland Daniels 15:18
didn't stay the same either.
Heidi Griffith 15:20
No, they continue to go up, and so you purchased your home. Even you're going to go get an apples to apples property. It's going to cost you a whole lot more today than when you got that house, right? Yes. So the people who are listing, because we're buying, so we need to work with the people that are listing their homes. Maybe they're not desperate. I don't, you know, I'm not trying to say that these people oh they have to sell right now, but
Roland Daniels 15:44
there's a reason.
Heidi Griffith 15:44
They've got a reason. There's something important enough that's happening in their life that they have to walk away from that. Right?
Roland Daniels 15:51
They be going through a divorce. Maybe they needed to move be due to having knee surgery and have to be in a single story, or maybe they're moving out of town.
Heidi Griffith 16:00
Yep, and that's exactly it. So there's going to be a reason someone selling. People aren't just dipping their toes in the water to see how much their house is. In most instances, there's probably one seller out there that's doing that. But in most instances, that's not happening. But life does happen. It
Roland Daniels 16:16
does.
Heidi Griffith 16:17
So here we are. We're looking for our house. We found a property. It's cute. And how much is it? We we're gonna negotiate. So let's just say this imaginary house that we're buying,
Roland Daniels 16:27
okay, is
Heidi Griffith 16:27
we'll use 400,000.
Roland Daniels 16:30
Sounds good. We're buying 400.
Heidi Griffith 16:32
We're buying a $400,000 house. It's nothing extravagant. You know, it's got it's got four bedrooms. This house that we're looking at.
Roland Daniels 16:39
Okay,
Heidi Griffith 16:39
because you need your own office?
Roland Daniels 16:41
Do I?
Heidi Griffith 16:41
You need your own office.
Roland Daniels 16:43
What are you trying to say?
Heidi Griffith 16:45
I'll save that for off radio. You need your own office. It's a four bedroom. You know, it's under 2000 square feet, but it's a nice house, right?
Roland Daniels 16:54
Yep.
Heidi Griffith 16:55
I like it. I like it. Seller's ready to sell. We have a great realtor, and they actually told me that the seller might be willing to give us $10,000.
Roland Daniels 17:05
Now that $10,000 is it off of the price or is it seller credit?
Heidi Griffith 17:10
Well, let's make it easy. Would you rather have 10,000 off the price or would you rather have $10,000 in seller concessions?
Roland Daniels 17:16
For us, I'm going to take the $10,000 seller credits every day of the week.
Heidi Griffith 17:23
Are you?
Roland Daniels 17:23
I am.
Heidi Griffith 17:24
Okay. Well, let's talk about this. If seller's given us $10,000, we are buying a $400,000 house.
Roland Daniels 17:30
Okay.
Heidi Griffith 17:31
If we took it off the sales price, then we would be paying 390 for the 390. But the monthly payment difference is it going to be big?
Roland Daniels 17:38
No, maybe like I don't know 30 or 40 bucks, depending on the rate,
Heidi Griffith 17:41
depending on the rate, depending on taxes, and our full picture. So, call it. We'll call it. We'll go high. Let's
Roland Daniels 17:47
go. Let's go. 40 bucks a month. Okay.
Heidi Griffith 17:49
Okay. We'll go. We're going to save 50 bucks a month by reducing the sales price by $10,000. Yes. 50 bucks could do something with 50 bucks,
Roland Daniels 17:57
which is only $600 a year.
Heidi Griffith 17:58
Oh, okay. So we're getting $10,000, but we're only recouping $600 a year. How long is that going to take us to recoup that 10?
Roland Daniels 18:06
About 16 and a half years.
Heidi Griffith 18:10
16. Okay, so it's going to take us 16 and a half years to to gain from that $10,000 price reduction. Okay, okay, but maybe we still want a lower price. But if we got seller credits, seller you know credits, concessions, we we use both. It's the same thing. So that's just basically the seller gives you a credit. They're not giving you dollars that you put in your pocket, but they basically are because they give you a credit. They and it's going
Roland Daniels 18:36
towards my closing costs, right?
Heidi Griffith 18:38
Right. So instead of you having to pay your closing costs. The seller's at least paying a portion.
Roland Daniels 18:42
Yes, so sellers keep that $10,000 in our pocket.
Heidi Griffith 18:46
I like that.
Roland Daniels 18:47
That's right. I
Heidi Griffith 18:48
want to keep money. That's for sure. So, so we're going seller credits
Roland Daniels 18:52
dollar for dollar all day long, and
Heidi Griffith 18:54
we're going to ask for a price reduction too.
Roland Daniels 18:56
Yeah, because why not?
Heidi Griffith 18:58
Worst thing that could happen,
Roland Daniels 19:00
they say no. They
Heidi Griffith 19:01
say no. If
Roland Daniels 19:01
you don't ask,
Heidi Griffith 19:02
you don't know.
Roland Daniels 19:03
That's correct.
Heidi Griffith 19:04
If you don't ask, you don't know. So hopefully we get down to 390. That's what I'm looking for. And remember, with depending on the loan type that you're doing, that's going to limit the seller credits you can get. So for example, with FHA, you can get up to 6% of the purchase price in seller credits, and we've actually seen it happen.
Roland Daniels 19:24
Right, and that's $24,000.
Heidi Griffith 19:25
$24,000 on our $400,000 house. Right, and we see it happen. We
Roland Daniels 19:30
do.
Heidi Griffith 19:30
We see it happen, and usually it's not exactly that 6% but we see a lot that are close.
Roland Daniels 19:35
It
Heidi Griffith 19:36
is. You know, it's not uncommon for us to see 1012, $14,000 in seller credits.
Roland Daniels 19:42
Yes,
Heidi Griffith 19:42
and
Roland Daniels 19:43
what if it's a conventional loan? If it's a conventional
Heidi Griffith 19:46
loan, if we're putting less than 10% down,
Roland Daniels 19:49
right?
Heidi Griffith 19:49
It's going to be 3% of the of the purchase price.
Roland Daniels 19:53
Well, that's still $12,000. It's still
Heidi Griffith 19:54
$12,000.
Roland Daniels 19:55
So maybe we should ask for at least 12,000 instead of the 10.
Heidi Griffith 19:58
Well, in our in. Scenario: We've negotiated really well, and we're getting 10.
Roland Daniels 20:03
Okay,
Heidi Griffith 20:03
I'm good with that. I'm happy with 10 grand.
Roland Daniels 20:05
You're happy. I'm happy.
Heidi Griffith 20:08
And so, when I take a look at that, you know, I think I don't want to just know what we paid for the house. I want to know what does this deal look like for
Roland Daniels 20:19
us. Right.
Heidi Griffith 20:20
Don't just negotiate the price. Negotiate the best deal for our situation.
Roland Daniels 20:25
I agree.
Heidi Griffith 20:25
And our situation is we want to negotiate. We want the best deal.
Roland Daniels 20:29
We do, and you do want those countertops.
Heidi Griffith 20:31
Okay, so we got the. I do. It's okay. I like nice countertops.
Roland Daniels 20:37
I know.
Heidi Griffith 20:39
So we negotiated. We did a good job. Our realtor did an exceptional job, and our offer has been accepted. Are you excited?
Roland Daniels 20:46
I am.
Heidi Griffith 20:47
Okay, so let's just say that we're buying this house. We've got pre-approved. It's 400,000. We got 10,000 from the seller. We got $30,000 in the bank.
Roland Daniels 20:56
Do we spend the entire 30,000?
Heidi Griffith 20:58
Well, let's let's talk about it for a second. So we've got 30 grand in the bank. We're buying a $400,000 house. We'll just we're going FHA. We're going to use FHA. We're going to just do minimum down. We've decided that we're going to do minimum down. That's three and a half percent down. So with down payment and closing costs, because remember, there's not only your down payment. There's your closing costs. That's the cost associated with closing. That's your your prepaid interest and your taxes and your escrow fees and your processing and underwriting fees-that's your closing cost, right? Yeah. So what's that going to cost us on a $400,000 house?
Roland Daniels 21:33
Well, we like to give what's like a ballpark. If you multiply that by 7% which includes for an FHA, you're three and a half percent down for your FHA down payment, and then plus closing costs another three and a half percent. So we'll round out. Let's say 7% So it's going to
Heidi Griffith 21:50
cost us 7% of the of the sales price to close. Yeah.
Roland Daniels 21:54
So 400,000 times 7% is $28,000. And we
Heidi Griffith 21:58
got 30,000.
Roland Daniels 21:59
And we have 30. And
Heidi Griffith 22:00
we got 30,000, so we need to think about this. We need to sit down and talk. Maybe we need reserves. Maybe we need to have money put aside. Maybe we want to update the countertops because we found this great house for $400,000, but I don't like the countertops.
Roland Daniels 22:15
Okay. What about an emergency fund?
Heidi Griffith 22:18
I still don't like the countertops. Can we put some money aside to fix the countertops?
Roland Daniels 22:22
We can do that.
Heidi Griffith 22:23
Okay. Can we really do it? Are we really going to fix the? Are we going to replace those countertops?
Roland Daniels 22:27
We are.
Heidi Griffith 22:28
I want quartz.
Roland Daniels 22:29
Okay.
Heidi Griffith 22:29
Okay.
Roland Daniels 22:30
I got.
Heidi Griffith 22:30
Yeah. And so rainy day funds. Yeah. Rainy day funds are important because we need to remember when we become homeowners, especially if we've never owned a home before. We need to understand that when the air conditioning goes out in July, the AC there's nobody to pick up the phone and call except for the AC repair guy. You're not calling the landlord. We faced that this year.
Roland Daniels 22:51
We are, and who's responsible for those payments?
Heidi Griffith 22:53
Us.
Roland Daniels 22:54
We are as homeowners. Us.
Heidi Griffith 22:55
Us. We are responsible. We've been very fortunate with our air conditioner. We
Roland Daniels 22:59
continue. We
Heidi Griffith 23:00
keep putting band-aids on it. I don't. There's not room for still working. Knock on wood. Knock on wood. You know, maybe we're saving money for you know, maybe want to put away money for the kids to go to college or the grandkids to go to college because student loan debt, man, it's a thing.
Roland Daniels 23:18
That's at an all-time high. It's a
Heidi Griffith 23:20
thing, and you know, going back, maybe we have higher interest debt credit cards
Roland Daniels 23:27
that we should be addressing.
Heidi Griffith 23:28
That maybe we can pay those down, right? Because people are really quick to talk about mortgage interest rates, but continue. We we said it. Consumer debt is at all time highs. We're racking up the credit card payments. We're cool with putting, you know, and I'll use 21% I feel like that's actually a little low for the average person on a credit card. We're putting, we're we're paying towards these 21% interest credit cards, and we're not, and we're thinking that, you know, we're only a small
Roland Daniels 23:58
portion is going towards that balance. Most of it is in interest. Well, especially if we're making
Heidi Griffith 24:03
minimum payments, absolutely. So you know, but we've got $30,000. It's going to cost us about 28,000, give or take, to close. We got 10 from the seller.
Roland Daniels 24:14
No, that reduces. We got 10 from the seller. We need 18,000. So
Heidi Griffith 24:17
now we need 18,000. But maybe I don't want to move in, and you know that's almost draining our savings.
Roland Daniels 24:23
Right,
Heidi Griffith 24:24
that's almost draining our savings. So here's something interesting. Okay, recent national mortgage market data found. Are you ready?
Roland Daniels 24:31
Let's do it. Drum roll.
Heidi Griffith 24:32
Alternative sources are being used for 29% of purchase down payments. It's the highest in seven years.
Roland Daniels 24:40
So what is an alternative source?
Heidi Griffith 24:41
That's a great question. What is an alternative source? So, an alternative source, and we're just talking specifically about down payments, could be your 401k. It could be a gift from your family member. You know, maybe mom and dad want you to become a homeowner, and they say, you know what? When you buy your first house, we're going to give you a portion of your down payment.
Roland Daniels 24:59
Right.
Heidi Griffith 25:00
It could be down payment assistance. We talk about that frequently.
Roland Daniels 25:04
We do,
Heidi Griffith 25:05
but so 29% of people that are buying homes are using either their 401k, a gift, or down payment assistance.
Roland Daniels 25:13
Right,
Heidi Griffith 25:14
and I think that's an important number to know. Things aren't getting any cheaper. It's harder to save. Seven years for the average home buyer to save for their down payment. So maybe the better question is not how much money can I put down. I think the better question is where's my cash more valuable?
Roland Daniels 25:31
Right.
Heidi Griffith 25:32
Because if I drain my bank account, then you know, hopefully this never happens. But something major happens in our house. Now we put all our money in our house.
Roland Daniels 25:42
So what if we did use one of the alternative sources, such as down payment assistance, which is the three and a half percent? That's another $14,000, which means we only have to come out of pocket with $4,000.
Heidi Griffith 25:56
Yeah, that that's a great setup, and I like that setup, and I like that setup because you know, so we've got to sell our house to. So we would look at probably Nevada Housing Division or Nevada Rural Housing first. Right, they're both great programs. We talk about them all the time, but we could actually utilize the Nevada Housing Division program by the house that we're looking at. Right, and we qualify. We would just have to sell the current house, because you don't have to be a first-time homebuyer,
Roland Daniels 26:26
especially for that $20,000.
Heidi Griffith 26:29
If we use Nevada Rural, absolutely, absolutely. So there's all kinds of stuff that we can use if we went with the first-time homebuyer. Excuse me, not the first time, but home is possible with Nevada Housing Division because we don't have to be a first-time homebuyer. We could get up to 5% and come out of pocket with even less than that $4,000 that you talked about. So there's all kinds of things that we could look at, and I really truly believe if this scenario were really true, if we were going and buying a house tomorrow, these are all things that we would
Roland Daniels 26:57
do. I agree most definitely.
Heidi Griffith 26:58
And we talked when we talked to clients about purchasing a home, even when they have the money for the down payment. We always have the down payment assistance conversation, not to tell them you have to use down payment assistance or it's better, but just to give folks options. Don't you think?
Roland Daniels 27:13
Yes. The name of the game is options, options and the opportunity.
Heidi Griffith 27:17
So wow, we just got into a new home for a little out of pocket, I can really get my new countertops.
Roland Daniels 27:24
You sure can. That's the goal.
Heidi Griffith 27:25
I appreciate you. So before we wrap up this morning, we always take a few minutes to talk about something that's very important to both of us, and that's fair housing. So I was recently asked why I serve as the vice president for the board of trustees for the Silver State Fair Housing Council, and it turns out it was harder for me to actually put into words than I thought, because it really it's it's a feeling,
Roland Daniels 27:48
right?
Heidi Griffith 27:49
It's a feeling, and I really am proud to serve because of the work the Silver State Fair Housing Council does. It matters. They help people understand their housing rights. They give people somewhere to turn when they need help, and they educate housing providers, landlords, property managers, and realtors about the law and their responsibility to treat everyone fairly when offering housing. Silver State Fair Housing Council is an advocate and an invaluable resource. They help someone who may have experienced discrimination when seeking or living in housing that might not have known help was available, fair housing laws protect every single one of us. Silver State Fair Housing Council does the hard work day in and day out. The work matters. The people matter, and I'm proud to be a small part of it. If you believe you've experienced housing discrimination, or you'd like to learn more information about the work Silver State Fair Housing Council does right here in Nevada, please feel free to reach out and we'll connect you. You can give us a call or text us. We're at 702-540-0420. Again, our telephone number is 702-540-0420. We'll be back next Sunday morning at 7:30 a.m. right here on KUNV 91.5. Until then, believe in what's possible, even if you've been told that it's out of reach. And remember, stay true to yourself and your mind. Bye.
Music 29:16
Move, you.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai