Growth & Grace

Wesley Knight 0:00
This is a Kun V studios original program. The following program is underwritten by Crawford management group and Chris glow, and does not reflect the views or opinions of 91.5 Jasin Moore the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, or the Board of Regents of the Nevada System of Higher Education even

Music 0:18
better than I was the last time, baby, we back, we back, and

we back and we back and we back and we back and we back. And I was the last you eat. That

Leaha Crawford 0:42
was the last time. Good morning. Las Vegas. It is Super Bowl weekend. Yay. We got the Eagles and the Chiefs playing in that Super Bowl game tomorrow in New Orleans, today, today, today, I have we're gonna talk about home loan. Y'all. We want to talk about getting into those houses. I have a very special guest here in the studio with me, Miss Cassandra Smith, hey, Sandy.

Speaker 2 1:08
Hey Leah, how are you? I am wonderful. Happy to be here with you. Thank

Leaha Crawford 1:13
you. You want to know, as always. Thank you. Thank you for coming on and talking about something you've been in, you've been doing, you've been in this real estate game now for a little bit of time. Now,

Cassandra Smith 1:22
absolutely over 20 years. Over 20 years.

Leaha Crawford 1:25
Let's talk about it. Because you started well, first of all, who is Cassandra Smith? Well, Cassandra

Cassandra Smith 1:31
Smith is a native Las Vegas native, right down the street here at sunrise, hospital, yes. Oh, wow. Really? Down

Leaha Crawford 1:40
the street, down literally, okay, down the street, okay, all right, on Desert Inn, Okay, got you? What was it on desert in back then? Yeah, same location. Same location. Okay, so, born, okay, born

Cassandra Smith 1:50
and raised right here. I have spent the last, I'm afraid to say, but over 25 years in banking and mortgage lending and real estate. So, yeah, a lot of experience, a lot of experience, different situations, different situations.

Leaha Crawford 2:08
Okay, so where are we? So let's talk about today, Home Loans. Are they? I mean, what's the credit score that's needed? Because I know a lot of people, they don't I mean, they don't know if they qualify. They don't know what to do. People we're always talking about, buy a home, buy a home, buy a home, and they don't have a clue of where to start and what to do.

Cassandra Smith 2:28
Well, with home loans, I tell you, there are so many different products, and we definitely want to help the first time home buyer, our veteran home buyers, our experienced or bounce back buyers. There are so many programs. Credit scores can honestly, you know, depending on the program, can really be, you know, in the mid to high 500 Stop, stop. Say that again, in the mid to high five

Leaha Crawford 2:57
because I remember time you couldn't get you can even look at that house with a 500 I'm just saying. I know that's but no, I remember a time when you couldn't even, I mean, if you weren't high sixes, you weren't getting anything.

Cassandra Smith 3:10
And that's not the case anymore. That is not the case anymore, and there are definitely programs, of course, more favorable terms are available with the higher credit score. So that's what we always want to do, is maximize the benefits and terms that are available to every home buyer.

Leaha Crawford 3:28
Okay, so let's talk about that, though. So I want to buy a house. The other barrier to entry is the down payment.

Cassandra Smith 3:36
Well, you have hit my heart right there, right there. Okay, right now in the United States, there are 2466 down payment assistance programs. Well, how many close

Leaha Crawford 3:49
to coast? Wait, wait, stop, what 2466 down payment assistance programs? Down

Cassandra Smith 3:59
Payment Assistance Programs. There is a program for every person. It may take some work. It may take a little bit of adjustments in some budgeting and things like that. However, there is a program municipalities, our country wants our country to be homeowners homeowners.

Leaha Crawford 4:23
They want our citizens to be homeowners. We do. We want people that live here to be homeowners. Yes,

Cassandra Smith 4:28
it changes everything. It changes so many economic factors for every community, no matter what the gender, the race, whatever your identifying factor is, we want you to be homeowners.

Leaha Crawford 4:44
Homeowners. Okay, so how I'm interested is, are there, like some minimal I guess, depending on the program will determine what the requirements are. Yes,

Cassandra Smith 4:56
the program definitely does dictate the requirements. But again, many of them have tiered programs. For example, Some programs may require you to have a minimum credit score of 620 but if you have a 680 you get a few more favorable terms. And those favorable terms could be a change in interest rate or a change in debt to income ratio, which makes your purchase ability increase. Okay,

Leaha Crawford 5:25
so you put out you said, some terms. You said, some terms, debt to income ratio, interest rate variability. Are you comfortable? Debt to income ratio?

Cassandra Smith 5:38
Yeah. What is that? So when your debt to income ratio is how your total payments, your credit card, your your car

Leaha Crawford 5:49
loan, your and it's the minimum payment, the

Cassandra Smith 5:52
minimum payments, it is the minimum payments, your total payments, and that is divided by the amount of monthly because it's the minimum monthly payment divided by your minimum gross income, gross let's talk about that. Okay? Because,

Leaha Crawford 6:12
okay, two different numbers. So I can say this, when loan officers are asking you for documents, they're asking you for a reason. Because a lot of times, I think when people give their income, they give their net paycheck, correct? They get their net paycheck, and that's not your income, right? Whatever is direct deposited into your account, that's not your income. Your income is actually the

Cassandra Smith 6:32
gross, the gross, the gross, yes, okay, got

Leaha Crawford 6:35
it. So the it is the monthly, the not what you pay every month. So if you have you have, you might have a credit card that has $1,000 balance, but the payment might be $25 Correct, right? So car note is only maybe two $300 Okay, so you look at that to see what the debt to income ratio is, got it? That's good. I mean, that's good to talk about that number, because I think we get confused about we hear the term, but really don't know what it means

Cassandra Smith 7:01
exactly. And one thing I definitely want to share and impress upon people, it's okay to ask if you don't know, guess what, no one's going to make you feel any negative way. We want to encourage you one to be homeowners and to be educated about the process and about actually owning a home once you get into it, once we work, do all this work, we want you to be successful and build that equity. Got

Leaha Crawford 7:32
it. Got it. Okay, yeah. Listen to growth of grace. I am Leah Crawford today. We have Miss Cassandra Smith on here, and we're talking about home loans. Home Loans. We're talking about how we help you get into that home. I have another question for you, absolutely with the down payment assistance. Where do I start? Is it to contact the loan officer first? Or do I go look at these spouses first?

Cassandra Smith 8:00
I love that question. I know it's easy to pop on

Leaha Crawford 8:07
XYZ website, and I'm not gonna lie, because you get to look at like, Oh, I like, I like, I like, all the fabulousness. Okay,

Cassandra Smith 8:14
all the fabulousness. And guess what that fabulousness may be in your budget, but you need to know that before you fall in love with the house, because the challenge is bringing some some borrowers, some home buyers, back from I want this fabulousness, but my budget only allows me to purchase this. This house a little less fabulous. We're gonna call it starting house. It's

Leaha Crawford 8:43
still fabulous, my starter fabulousness, okay,

Cassandra Smith 8:46
exactly in the process of building up to become Ultra fabulous in, you know, in our strip view, you know, condo, condo fabulousness. You know, where we inviting our friends over, friends, absolutely yes. But you gotta start somewhere. But you gotta get started. And that's generally the challenge with most people. If they can't have all the fabulous right now today, they don't want it. We let's walk it back just a little bit. Just begin with the end. In mind, we gonna need a loan to purchase whatever ideal home you have. Let's start with the loan. We're gonna begin there. Let's start with getting qualified for the loan so we can

Leaha Crawford 9:26
see what you so we can see how much you qualify for, absolutely. So we put you in a range that you can see exactly, exactly you can look at stuff and that, that you can afford, so you're not up, you know. Okay,

Cassandra Smith 9:38
got and just understanding you it's not permanent. You know, you that two or three years, you know, you get in the market. Because while you're trying to work towards being able to qualify more, the time in the market is against you, so you need to be timing time in the market versus trying to time the market. Because. Everyone's been saying for years, oh, the market's gonna crash. Stop, stop,

Leaha Crawford 10:04
stop, stop, because I want you, I want you to go back. You said something time in the market and timing of the market two different things, two very different

things. Okay, let's

talk. So what is time in the market? Time

Cassandra Smith 10:18
in the market is when you own a home, and every year it's creeping up in value, 20,000 30,000 just moving on up,

Leaha Crawford 10:27
yeah, just move on up, moving on up. And that's me all the way, moving on up, on the east side,

Cassandra Smith 10:35
you know. And so many people are trying to wait until the market crash. Well, we had this infamous crash that everyone you know, that so many people have talked about, our market has been increasing now. The affordability does change with that. But if you bought a house three years ago, and now you're building equity in that, guess what? You can use that equity to build up to the next level, fabulous. And guess what? Your payment might not be because you have so much equity in your home to put down. It may not be for that first time, home buyer in that move up home area, they're paying a higher payment because now they're paying more they have less money to put down. And you have maintained over the years. You can use that equity to do so much, but trying to time the market, time the market. Oh, my goodness, none of us know. You know, how many of us have the jolts, you know, the job opportunity? You know, how many of us have all those factors that go into interest rates and home appreciation. How many of us have control over that? Right? 0000,

Leaha Crawford 11:46
I love it. So you listen to growth and grace. I'm Leah Crawford, and we are talking about just getting ready to buy a house, getting ready to buy a house, and the things you need to do. So I am interested in buying a home. But let me give you a contact information. It's 702-472-8000, again. 702-472-8000, the website is loans for homes Las Vegas, just like it sounds, loans for homes Las vegas.com. Loans for homes Las Vegas. What I love about you is you take time with people, and you always make yourself available to people so that you can answer the questions and empower them with information and not withhold it, and make you know, make them feel bad because they don't know. Over the years, I've watched you put a lot of people in homes. What do you do to help them maintain it? Do you do anything like any information, help them maintain it? If they're in

Cassandra Smith 12:48
the home? Absolutely. You know one. You know people life happens right when you're in the home, life being able to have conversations about what it's going to take to either maintain that home, or do we need to transition to something different, meaning, sell it and, you know, move move up, move down, what have you, but also just the education process of what are your needs? At the moment, usually, I'm getting the the panic. Call you someone passed away, got a kid going to college, we need a you know, we need to help finance that process. How do we do that? So again, having those conversations, to be able to those direct conversations, because it's specific for everyone, to be able to help make a solid decision on what to do now, one of the things I absolutely do encourage all my home buyers to do is to get a trust. I have worked with some families, unfortunately, in the past couple years, too many families, I would say, who, where there wasn't a trust. There's conflict amongst the siblings or the other family members, and equitability in distributing the assets becomes a becomes a fight. We don't want that. We don't want that. So we definitely want families to get a trust. But you know, in just maintaining the household that equity can grow. You know what services, what vendors are needed to help in that process, the consultations are far they are far reaching. So always just trying to be a resource to help, not only, again, just get in the house, but maintain it, and then be able to whatever the next step is, be able to partner with them on that next step. And

Leaha Crawford 14:46
just so our listeners know, I am bringing two attorneys on, and we're going to talk about trust, and we're going to talk about home ownership, and we're going to talk about the things that you need to set up to protect your assets, and the different things that you need to do because. Because one thing all of us are going to do, we're going to transition, yes, and how we transition? Do we leave our family in turmoil, or do we plan so that? Or, as my friend will say, you trying to control it from the grave? Yes, I'm trying to control it from the grave. I don't want y'all to hurt each other. Yeah, trying to arguing about, you know, something that I that I built, that, um, y'all are just blessed, that I know y'all, and I'm giving it to y'all, yeah, but we're gonna have a fight about it, so let's minimize the friction, just

Cassandra Smith 15:27
to see siblings that grew up playing together, you know, and then all of a sudden, you know, you're already in pain because your parent or grandparent has transitioned. You know, your heart is hurt, and then you're trying to make decisions and trying to make decisions in emotions, trying

Leaha Crawford 15:44
to make decisions which is never good. Never making decisions and emotions that's never good. Yes, it's never good, all right, but let's, let's run it back. Let's go over it one more time. I'm interested in buying home. What are some of the documents that I need to have

Cassandra Smith 15:59
so your most recent 30 days in pay stubs, okay? Your most recent two months bank statements, okay, and your most recent two years W twos, okay? So if you're self employed and you're not going to have W twos, generally, however, you are going to have your tax return. So those are required. Instead of the W twos, we would substitute that with your most recent two years tax returns. Got

Leaha Crawford 16:30
it so all right now are they still 4506 and they still getting them pulling the transcripts from the IRS and things like that. They're still pulling the transcripts from the IRS. Okay, so you want to have these documents so it's not something that you get to w2 and you just don't know where it is correct. You probably want to keep these documents somewhere, where if you need to go to retrieve them, and the paycheck and the w2 have to make sense correct.

Cassandra Smith 16:51
And the easiest thing to do, really, if you are in the mindset of, you want to buy a house, you want to store that information somewhere, of course, keep it secure, but you want to have that that information stored somewhere privately, so that you can go back and easily achieve it. Now, back to your question about the 4506 C, okay, come on, if you we're in an economy now where gig workers are everywhere, and that's how they feed their family. They do door, dash, or any type of, you know, delivery, Amazon delivery, Walmart, delivery, whatever the services are. So there are loan programs that can help individuals that don't have traditional income or and a w2 they are bank statement programs and and and other similar types of programs. However, with those programs, they do require, generally a higher credit score and some down payment, down payment that comes from the individual themselves. Down Payment Assistance programs generally don't apply there. However, there is a program, there's a program, there is and you can

Leaha Crawford 18:06
get if you know that this is how you've if this is how you work your gig worker, there is a program out there for you, a little different requirements, but I guess if you contact Miss Smith, she can basically let you know what you need to do so that you can get prepared to purchase the home. So what have you seen? Well, how long does it normally take for someone to get I know how long it took me many years ago. How long does it normally take I come in today and my stuff is all over the place. How long does it really take the average person, would you say, from what you've seen over the past 20 years to get ready to buy a house? How many years or months

Cassandra Smith 18:45
really? Generally, once a person has made that decision, and they're going from zero to homeowner, okay, from renter to homeowner, generally, that process does take at least.

Leaha Crawford 18:57
And I'm average, and it's not just one, just one, just average, because it could be more, could be

Cassandra Smith 19:02
less, yeah, on average, it's generally about eight months. Okay. However, I have seen some this super sharp sweetheart, young lady, when I tell you all her documents were in order from the date of the application to her closing. Was absolutely bananas. I just did not believe it. 18 days. Oh, 18 days. However, she had all of her ducks in a row, pay stubs, email, bank statements, email, I mean, she had those items W twos emailed within, you know, or uploaded, I'm sorry, within a matter of minutes, she had saved her money, and she just knew that it was her time.

Leaha Crawford 19:44
But let me ask you this, how long before then did she make the decision to make that 14 day process that

Cassandra Smith 19:51
so in her particular case, based on her story, okay, based on her story that she shared with me, she. She was a little bit upset with the landlord, and said, I'm done, and decided to move. So there was her preparation. Those were her habits of, oh, being organized. Let's talk about okay, and saving. Those were her natural habits. So once, once, she once conversation or whatever happened prior to her coming to me that 18 day process was done.

Leaha Crawford 20:24
Got it so habits, let's talk about that now, because if you have the habits, you might be ready and not know you're ready Absolutely,

Cassandra Smith 20:30
absolutely. And there's so many people that are ready today and don't understand, do you think you have to have, you know, multiple 10s of 1000s of dollars in the bank. Do you have a 401 K? Because 401 k can be used as your down payment or part of your closing cost.

Leaha Crawford 20:51
And yeah, and that's and depending on if you're a first time home buyer, I think there are some exclusions from the penalty. There are some exclusions from the penalty because there is a 10% penalty if you percent penalty if you pull it out early, right? It is the penalty if you pull it out early, well, I love it. So you're listening to growth and grace. I'm Leah Crawford. I'm talking to Cassandra Smith. Have an RC we normally have this conversation off the air, because I talk to her, you know, frequently, and we talk about just different things and how we can assist people. Because people, you may you may want to do it, but just might not know how to do or the different things that you need to do in order to get ready. You talked about building the habits. Building the habits, what are the best like? What? So what are some good habits that you can start to develop? Some

Cassandra Smith 21:36
good habits really are, is one protecting your financial information. Let's say for that. First of all, we understand that there's rampant misbehavior as far as identity theft and things like that. You one, that's that's probably one of the biggest things we want to do. Two, we want to make sure we know where all of our document or access, how to access all of our documentation, our bank statements, our pay stubs, our W twos, and we want to store that information if you have decided store that in a private place that's easy, accessible and known by you. That's so

Leaha Crawford 22:12
funny, because when people are buying houses, they're doing things like, I get a bunch of phone calls. Can you send me that? Oh, sure, we send it right away. And that's what I love about our office. We send if you need something from us, because we store, we store everything securely you need it, we send it immediately, because we understand that there's a lot of emotions involved when you're buying a house, yeah, a lot of emotions and people. I want to get it done. Okay, well, we'll send it over 20 minutes done. That's

Cassandra Smith 22:38
why I love working with your clients, because, like, I know is I'm gonna have everything I need because, like, make a phone call, Hey, Jenny, okay,

Leaha Crawford 22:46
and it's done. You're right, no. But the thing is, is that what we had to get organized too, right? So it was, how do we because we had these conversations with clients, because most of our clients, they are homeowners, very few are renters. And that's the beauty, because we start having that kind of because some people don't believe that they people don't believe that they can, yes, they haven't grown up in homes. They grew up in apartments. So they think that, that, you know, that it's okay. They thought that, you know, maybe the rich person had the house, but no one know, every you can own a home, yes, and you're probably paying right now a little bit less than I mean, because think about a rents are going to continually go up your mortgage is consistent

Cassandra Smith 23:23
Exactly. Here's my question that I always ask people, if you look at the time it takes for an eviction, unfortunately, you get that five day pay or quit. That's a five day pay or quit five day pay your quit three more days you now you have a eviction on your credit report, which can potentially turn into a judgment for all of the back funds that are due in the event you get into a situation with your mortgage. There are workout options again, mortgage companies, the government, we all want you to be homeowners, so we're trying to work with you and work through the challenge to help you maintain your home and build wealth.

Leaha Crawford 24:13
Okay, so I'm gonna share a story, because I've known Cassandra for a very long time, and she helped the family. They were, what, two days before the foreclosure sale, oh

Cassandra Smith 24:25
no, no. It was gone.

Leaha Crawford 24:29
It was gone. It was had foreclosed on, foreclosed on, but they saved the house. We were able to go back through

Cassandra Smith 24:37
and basically unwind the foreclosure and

Leaha Crawford 24:41
unwind the foreclosure. And when I tell you that is a special that is a special trait, because the emotions were high. It was a family owned home, and you'll be glad they are still in the home today. They are still in the home today. Do. And it was she was there. So sometimes you just need somebody that's going to hold your hand through this process and be there for you and talk and listen to you. Because the emotions are real. They really and uncertainty is real. Because I can tell you, when I signed my home documents, that's more than I've ever signed my name on one document, on one document. And I can remember just going through like, Okay, I gotta read this too. I gotta Okay, can we just just sign and be done? I just want to know how much the payment is, what the interest rate is, and is it going to go up? No lead, but it'll but I can't say it will go down, because I remember when I first got my mortgage, there was a PMI, the private mortgage insurance, and when I got to a certain point, then that dropped off, and the payment was reduced. Yes, the payment was and I look at it now, I'm like, wow, the payment was reduced. Yes, right? And my mortgage is less than what a lot of people around me paying rent

Cassandra Smith 25:59
well. And just like, when does your rent go down? Hmm,

Leaha Crawford 26:05
we get a roommate. Gotta get some roommates. Gotta get some roommates, then the rent goes down. But you're right, when does your rent go down? Hmm, and they're increasing. Yeah.

Cassandra Smith 26:19
At what point do you build equity renting it you, you know, I know families that have lived in houses renting for 24 years. 24 years,

Leaha Crawford 26:32
they pay the mortgage Absolutely. They pay somebody else's mortgage absolutely for 24 years. 24 years. All right, so you are listening to growth and grace. I am Leah Crawford, and I have the lovely Cassandra Smith here with me. Her contact information is 702-472-8000 again, 702-472-8000 and the website is loans for homes Las vegas.com. Las Vegas is spelled out, loans for homes. Las vegas.com, I can tell you that if you want to listen to the show, it is available on most social media, on most platforms, transistor growth and grace. If you miss something and you want to catch a past show, you want to hear more about this show. You want to hear some information again, just to make sure you heard it correctly, but she did say it, there are more than 2000 home, damn home loan programs out there, or down payment assistance programs, I'm sorry, down payment assistance programs nationwide. So wherever you're listening, you know, you just got to do the research and find the information or find the professional that is willing to help you. Cassandra, as always, thank you. Thank you for accepting my invitation to come on the show and talk to us, because I also believe that everybody should be a homeowner. Everybody should be a homeowner. So thank you, and I look forward to you hopefully, Alicia, come back with you so we can have a lively conversation around the home. You know,

Cassandra Smith 27:59
the MG will definitely be different. Oh, yeah, oh, oh,

Leaha Crawford 28:01
because. Cas, very calm, very cool. I love at though. I love at because, but does yeah and, but at is working? She is she doing a down payment assistance program. She's just going straight

Cassandra Smith 28:12
the bigger loan. Well, I am her team member that does the

Leaha Crawford 28:16
payment assistance. Okay. Well, again, if you want to really learn about this process and pass the information on if you know someone that that's interested until next week, next time, peace and blessings, enjoy the Super Bowl. And I'm gonna say this out loud on the radio, E, A, G, L, E, S, eagles. Yes, I am an Eagles fan, and I am excited to see this game tomorrow. All right, I know I hopefully turns out differently from what it did two years ago, until next week, until next time, peace and blessings, bye, bye.