Patrick Gentry

For the mortgage nerds out there… Closing costs are high on home purchases and refinances without a lot of ways to reduce them (most title companies are going to charge the same fees). However, a little used option folks can use is premium pricing. In effect you take a higher interest rate in exchange for your lender paying a portion of closing costs. This can be handy especially in a situation where you will be selling or refinancing your home again in the near future.

www.nationalmortgagenews.com/news/clos…

Congratulations! Buying your first home is no small thing! This guide isn’t meant to replace your loan officer (but if you have questions beyond the guide I’d love to talk, email me here).

Do’s:

• Talk to a Loan Originator early in the process
  • LOs want to help you get ready and a good one doesn’t mind talking to you months or even a year in advance to help you get ready!
• Have your financial house in order
  • Do you need to have perfect credit? No, but the better your score the more options you will have!
• Know the roles of your team
  • Your loan officer will be the person who helps navigate the financials and loan programs.
  • Your realtor is a local area expert, they are there to help you navigate the contract and offer process and be your advocate speaking with the seller’s side of the transaction.
    • Loan officers don’t make for good realtors, and realtors don’t make good loan officers!
• Save for down payment and closing costs
  • In general you should plan to save up for a down payment of 3 or 3.5% of the purchase price. (100,000 x 3% =3,000 ). Closing costs vary from state to state, but a good rule of thumb is planning for an additional 6000 to 10,000.
• Have an idea of what your maximum monthly payment needs to be. Your loan officer can back into ideal purchase price with this number.
  • Most online mortgage calculators actually do a pretty good job of calculating your payment. Be aware that they often will sell your information to online lenders who will then proceed to call you… a lot.
    • Here is a calculator from a reputable company
• Ask your loan officer about special programs, down payment assistance etc. Not all programs are right for all people, but always ask!
• Get an inspection.
  • I recommend getting your own inspector who is not referred by your realtor (or even your lender). Having a true, uninterested third party separate from the transaction can save you a lot of headache in the future!

Dont’s:

• Add additional debt
  • Will this disqualify you on the spot? Not necessarily, but a lender has to get explanations for any credit pulls you have gotten recently and if you’ve added debt these have to be accounted for and added against your budget. It basically adds more paperwork and friction for you (and it may disqualify you due to budget if things are too tight).
• Quit your job!
  • Seriously, income is one of the most important factors on your loan, you need to keep your job situation as steady and predicable as possible. Don’t start changing your schedule, or how you’re paid (going from salaried to hourly, or from hourly to commission, or W2 to 1099, or full time to part time).
• Commit to a realtor or LO at first contact
  • The beautiful thing about being the buyer is nothing happens without you! No one gets paid, and a home doesn’t get sold until you commit to buying. This is too important of a life event to work with someone who isn’t treating a multi hundred thousand dollar transaction seriously.
    • Do remember that LOs and realtors are paid a commission however, if you know you’re moving onto someone else, we would appreciate the “breakup” call or text so we can move on. No one likes working on the weekend for a deal that’s not going to happen.

Basically all these points could have an “in general” behind them, but if you follow these guidelines you will be largely setup for success! Again, email me here with questions and I’ll be happy to touch base with you!

Technology is an expensive hobby, but one I love very much! Having grown up “on a budget” and very much still there, it often has meant I jump onto the latest and greatest new thing late. So it was with Asus ROG Ally Z1 Extreme (what a mouthful). I picked up this beauty off of Facebook Marketplace for 300 bucks!

But oh wow was it worth the wait! Having been an on and off PC gamer for years I have a fairly healthy Steam library of games, not to mention the collection of freebies I’ve gathered from Epic (which is also why I opted for a windows machine vs a Steamdeck). And even more interesting, with the Z2 generation being announced at CES and the power seemingly not that big of a leap over the Z1 generation] . I really am quite pleased!

As far as what I am doing with the machine, mostly it’s just catching up on a bunch of indies I hadn’t yet gotten around to playing. This thing is no slouch on AAA games. I picked up Jedi Survivor on sale a few weeks back and Ally run it well on low settings. My only quibble is battery life, if you’re running a AAA game on 15 W mode, you’re going to not even hit 2 hours of battery. This is fine for me since I’m just playing around the house and rarely play more than an hour at time, but it’s no Switch on the battery department.

If your needs are similar to mine and you value portability over graphics, then this gets a hardy thumbs up from me!

Data in almost all of it’s forms is fascinating. Macro (think country, state, even world data) all the way down to the most personal (my own health data tracked over years on the Apple Watch). Digging into the context for any particular bit of data is passion of mine.

Years ago after listening to the No Dumb Questions podcast discuss making an annual playlist to replicate the feeling of radio and albums you would listen to over the course of a year. It felt like a really obvious and fun way to use music as a time travel device. I now have 6 years of music playlists to travel back and get those feelings from those years. I thought it would be fun to take a look at my 2024 Playlist and see what data I can pull out!

Starting with the macro… I grew up on country in the 90s and have held a strong affinity for that particular flavor of country. Modern country on the other hand is largely a no more for me… dog. My tastes in the last 10 years have gradually moved into a more folk/roots/Americana feel and those flavors are heavy in the 2024 list.

Getting a touch more micro, I really enjoyed The Ache by Brandon Heath this year and with all the time spent on that album it shifted the Spotify algorithm into a more Christian acoustic direction and I’m not even mad.

With the birth of my daughter in November Ben Rector has been in heavy rotation, especially Daughter. There are probably more tidbits to pulled out, but at this point I’m curious what will be served up going into January.