As one of our country’s Veterans, you’re entitled to participate in the VA Home Loan Program, a special program designed to help Veterans become homeowners. We’ve prepared this important information to help you decide if home ownership is right for you, and how much it might cost.
The VA Home Loan Centers has a series of calculators to help you with the numbers portion of the home buying process. Coole Home Loans, part of the Federal Home Loan Centers, has assembled all the links you need to gain access to the VA Home Loan Center Calculators. We’ve placed them all here, in one convenient place, to help you in your quest to buy a home. Just review the information, click the link and use the calculators to help you in your home buying endeavor. It’s that simple!
Perhaps the most often asked question is, “is it better to buy or to rent?” The answer is, “it depends.” You have to figure in how much the home costs, how much you’re paying for rent, plus how much you’re going to pay each year just to maintain your home. There are other considerations, like tax benefits, interest rates, insurance costs and more. The good news is that the VA Home Loan Centers provides a “rent versus own” calculator to help you crunch the numbers.
You can access this link here: https://www.vahomeloancenters.org/rent-vs-own-calculator/
Please know that if you have any trouble using this calculator, or any of the other calculators listed in this article, your Coole Home Loan agent will help you fill out the forms and discuss the results with you. We’re always available to help you on your road to home ownership!
Another question that is often asked is, “how much will my mortgage payment be each month?” Here again, the answer is, “it depends!” Unfortunately, there are no standard answers, because there are simply too many variables that go into making up your monthly mortgage payment. Things that impact your payment are the purchase price of the home, how much you’re going to have for your down payment, how long a term your mortgage will be, plus interest rates, taxes and insurance.
There is a calculator at the VA Home Loan Centers to do all the math for you. To access the link, click here: https://www.vahomeloancenters.org/calculate-your-mortgage-payment/
When looking to buy a home, one of the most important things to know is “how much will you be able to borrow.” It’s important because how much you can borrow determines how much home you can afford. This is known as “pre-qualifying”. This is very different from what is known as “preapproval.” With preapproval, you know exactly how much you can borrow and the lender has agreed to fund your loan for a specific amount even before you’ve found your home. With “prequalifying,” you have an estimate of how much you can borrow, but you don’t have a lender’s approval yet.
Part of the process of prequalifying is based on your total debt-to-income ratio. The better your ratio, the more likely you’ll be pre-qualified. And if you have a good debt-to-income ratio, you’ll also qualify for a better interest rate on your loan. Another factor is going to be your credit score. Your credit score gives a lender a pretty good prediction of your ability to repay your loan. It takes into consideration your payment history, how much you owe, how long you’ve lived at your current address and how long you’ve been at your job. All these factors come together as a “FICO score” – the most widely used credit-scoring system.
Your Coole Home Loan agent can help you review the numbers, and arrange to help you acquire a pre-approval certificate.
To view the Prequalification Calculator, please click here: https://www.vahomeloancenters.org/prequalification-calculator
If you’ve done any research on mortgages, you’ve probably found out that there are different mortgage lengths, or terms – like 10 year, 20 year and 30 year mortgages. And we’re often asked, “Which one is better?” You probably already know the answer: “it depends.” The longer the term, the lower your payment, but the more you’ll end up paying in interest. So VA Home Loan Centers has prepared a calculator to help you compare the different payments of each mortgage term. You simply enter your purchase price, down payment and other information and the calculator will do the rest.
You can access this calculator here: https://www.vahomeloancenters.org/what-is-the-difference-between-a-15-year-va-mortgage-and-a-30-year-va-mortgage/
While different term mortgages affect how much you’ll pay over the life of your mortgage, there’s another consideration – paying extra each month. Why do this? Because by increasing your monthly payment – even by just several hundred dollars, you’ll be able to pay off your mortgage many years ahead of schedule. This is very important – because it will save you many thousands of dollars in interest by paying your mortgage off early! How much can you save?
There’s a calculator to show you just how much! Here’s the link: https://www.vahomeloancenters.org/extra-payment-savings-va-home-loan-calculator/
You may have heard the term “amortization.” It’s a big word, but it simply means how much interest you will pay on a loan versus paying down the principal amount of your loan. It’s calculated over the term of the loan. In the early years of your loan, you’ll be paying a lot more interest than principal. As the loan progresses, you will begin to pay more of the principal loan amount and less in interest each year.
Here’s a calculator that shows you this amortization, by year. You can access it with this link: https://www.vahomeloancenters.org/calculate-view-your-amortization-payment-schedule/
As with any of the other calculators, your Coole Home Loan agent at our Federal Home Loan Centers will be happy to review the numbers with you and answer any questions you may have.
Another way of looking at how much home you can afford is to take a look at how much mortgage you’ll be able to afford. You simply input the amount of your home’s purchase price, how much money you’re putting down, the interest rate you’re paying and the length of your mortgage, plus your property taxes and insurance – and it will calculate your monthly payment. By looking at this number, and putting it up against your family income and your current debts, you’ll have a pretty good idea of how much mortgage you’ll be able to afford.
If the payment appears too high, you’ll either have to adjust the price of the homes you’re looking at to a lower price, or find a way to come up with more of a down payment. One look at the number should be able to show you where you’re at.
Here’s the link to the “determine how much mortgage you can afford” calculator: https://www.vahomeloancenters.org/determine-how-much-mortgage-you-can-afford/
A lot of attention has been paid lately to the whole subject of refinancing. Every time you pick up a newspaper or turn on the news you’ll see stories and articles about refinancing your mortgage. This should really come as no surprise: interest rates today are lower than they’ve ever been!
Many people are currently saddled with an adjustable rate mortgage, or ARM. The biggest concern is whether or not refinancing to a fixed-rate loan will increase their monthly payment – especially considering that home values have declined.
So how can you determine whether refinancing is for you? If your current ARM interest rate is higher than available fixed-rate loans, a mortgage refinance could be worthwhile. Some experts state that a mortgage refinance makes sense if your savings on your payments will pay for the costs to refinance – within two years.
Another consideration is whether or not you plan to stay in your current home. If you’re planning to stay where you’re at for a good period of time, then refinancing makes perfect sense. If you’re planning to move soon, well, refinancing is not for you.
Here’s another thing to think about: if you have a second mortgage, getting one loan at a lower interest rate to cover both your first and second mortgage makes perfect sense. Second mortgages traditionally have adjustable rates, and if you have a high balance, rolling both into one is the way to go.
There are several reasons where refinancing is not the right way to go. If you have credit issues like late payments or have racked up a lot of credit, it may pay to wait to consider refinancing until you’ve established a record of paying on time. And if you’re going through a divorce or job change, you also might want to wait, as those factors could impact whether you stay in your current residence or sell it.
Refinancing can save money, but it is not for everyone. You have to weigh just how much money you’ll save if you do refinance, versus the costs involved to obtain a new loan. But the process is simplified, thanks to a calculator that helps calculate refinancing savings.
You enter your loan amount and the length, or term, of your loan along with the interest rate you’ll pay and the calculator will show you what your new monthly payment will be after you refinance. If it’s substantially lower than your current monthly payment, it probably makes sense to refinance your loan. A Coole Home Loan agent can walk you through this, and s how you your savings over time against your current loan.
Here’s a link to the Refinance Savings Calculator: https://www.vahomeloancenters.org/va-home-loan-centers-refinance-savings-calculator/
The whole point of using the calculators we’ve mentioned is to provide you with the tools you need to understand the “numbers” side of buying a home. But they’re only a guide; an experience professional can help you put all of these numbers together to give you a good idea of how much home you can afford, what your mortgage payment will be and many, many other helpful numbers you can use in your quest to buy or refinance your home.
A Coole Home Loan professional at our Federal Home Loan Centers is a licensed Realtor who has helped many veterans purchase and finance homes. We’d like to help you, too!
