TRANSCRIPT: KHTS AM 1220 RADIO INTERVIEW
FEBRUARY 27, 2012
FRED ARNOLD: Good morning Southern California AM 1220 KHTS, This is Fred Arnold your host of the Santa Clarita Valley Chamber of Commerce business spotlight and I’m with Linda. Linda, I’ve known you forever.
LINDA FLEISCHMANN: Forever
FRED: Yes yes yes, so Linda Fleishmann, and you have been a mortgage professional for almost 20 years, I don’t wanna date you here, but is it almost two decades?
LINDA: Well, I’ve been in the financial industry for, oh God, over 26? But I’ve been an actual mortgage broker in this business for over 14.
FRED: Perfect and your pursuit of excellence is helping people qualify for a mortgage in and advising them, really being an advisor, and you wrote a book -- “How to Have a Stress Free Mortgage: insider tips from a certified mortgage broker to help you save your time, money and most of all frustration.”
LINDA: Frustration, absolutely.
FRED: Why is this business so frustrating right now for the consumer?
LINDA: Well, for the consumer it’s a little bit confusing. You have the news media talking about how difficult it is to get a loan and how much money you have to put down and quite honestly, a lot of times they’re wrong. It is, it does have some difficulty but if you know what you’re doing, like you and I both know, then you know what? You can navigate your clients through getting the loan and it’s not so stressful.
FRED: Yeah, it’s really about managing expectations and managing, “You know, here’s what I think you can get up front,” so that there’s not false promises or false hope, you know. That’s really critical.
LINDA: Absolutely.
FRED: Let’s talk about some tips, some tips in your book that you, you know, just like to throw out there that people need to really consider. I know prequalifying’s one of the big tips you tell people to do.
LINDA: Oh, absolutely. There’s a lot of tips. However, if I would say a couple of the top ones would be, if you’re co-signing for somebody, be careful with that. Make sure that you document that the other person is making the payments. So be very careful with that.
FRED: So make sure they are making the payments, so your credit doesn’t go bad.
LINDA: Make sure they are, yeah, and so you don’t get a surprise when you come to me and I pull your credit and you go “my God, they haven’t been making their payments” because a lot of times people don’t realize that. Another thing is just to make sure that you keep your credit cards paid on a time, check your credit once a year, go to FreeCreditReport.com so that helps to make sure there’s no surprises.
FRED: Or AnnualCreditReport.com.
LINDA: AnnualCreditReport.com, yeah.
FRED: FreeCreditReport.com is good you can get the one there too. But don’t pay, right? Don’t pay for the FICO score.
LINDA: Don’t pay, no.
FRED: Just get the credit. Call Linda, she’ll take a look at it, she’ll analyze it, she’ll tell you if there’s any problems with it, but don’t pay for FICO scores, because that’s a recurring revenue for them, they just hit you.
LINDA: They just hit you, absolutely. Absolutely.
FRED: So another tip -- well, tell us about prequalifying for a mortgage if you’re looking to buy.
LINDA: Well, the the bottom line is, we’re looking at your credit score and we’re looking at how much money you’re putting down and what type of loan you, you want to get. depending on your down payment determines your type of loan. I analyze it and look at what’s best for you. I have some people putting down more money so I’m looking at maybe a conventional loan versus an FHA loan which is only a three and a half percent down payment.
FRED: Well, you’re telling me that people get a loan at three and a half percent?
LINDA: Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, especially when I hear on the news that they’re talking about putting a twenty percent down payment only. It’s not accurate.
FRED: Yeah, that isn’t accurate yet and that hasn’t been resolved yet. But FHA, tell us about an FHA product.
LINDA: Oh, FHA is great, it’s a 30-year fixed-rate loan, the qualifications are a little bit easier so you can have a lower credit score down to 620 although I can do some in the 500s with some of my lenders. And that way you can qualify to get a loan. It does have mortgage insurance, you do pay for that every month, but I mean, the rate today, three point seven five percent, hello!
FRED: Isn’t that amazing?
LINDA: That’s just phenomenal.
FRED: And rates change every day. In fact, when you’re watching this online -- because you’ll be able to do that -- they might have gone up or down. So don’t get mad at Linda. But rates change every day, don’t they?
LINDA: Absolutely, all the time. So when you’re quoting a rate, know that when you’re comparing rates between people or between lenders, talking today and talking tomorrow may be different, so you really have to make sure you compare on the same day.
FRED: Compare on the same day, but also what are you looking for? You’re looking at rate, what else?
LINDA: You’re looking at their credit rate, credit scoring, you’re looking at how much they’re putting down, you’re looking at the product they’re looking at --
FRED: So you’re telling me that if someone has a higher credit score or lower credit score, their price is going to vary?
LINDA: Absolutely. When people come up and ask me “What’s the rate today?” I can’t just quote it, it’s a ridiculous question in some ways because it’s so dependent on so many different factors. And that’s why when people talk to their friends and they end up with “Oh, I got this amazing rate!” well, you don’t know what their situation is, just like when somebody got a rate that’s not quite as high, you think, “Oh my God, they got, they got messed up, because of that” well, they didn’t necessarily. It’s because maybe their score was lower or maybe they had less equity in the house.
FRED: Or maybe when they got the loan it was two months ago when rates were different.
LINDA: Absolutely.
FRED: You know, one of the things that I know about your business is the fact that there’s a lot of talk around the water cooler, and nobody wants to admit they didn’t get the best rate. So sometimes, you know, check with your mortgage professional, because you hear all kinds of stories, all kinds, and it really is dependent, and you’ve probably never seen two deals that are exactly the same.
LINDA: Very rarely. The one thing unique about my business is that no two loans, no two clients, no two deals are the same.
FRED: Very important. So Linda Fleischmann, from “How To Have a Stress Free Mortgage” and Linda, someone wants to pick up the book, somebody wants to get ahold of you to get more advice?
LINDA: They can either email me at linda@stressfreemortgage.com, or you can go to my website, stressfreemortgage.com. You can buy the book there, it’s also on Amazon and it’s also available through Kindle so -- a lot of people read kindle now -- it’s available there as well.
FRED: Good stuff, thank you very much. Ladies and gentlemen, “How to Have a Stress Free Mortgage: Tips from a Certified Mortgage Broker” Linda Fleischmann. Thank you very much for coming in.
LINDA: Thank you, Fred.
FRED: This has been your Santa Clarta Valley Chamber of Business spotlight on AM 1220 KHTS.