Hey, Kyle here With Win the House.
You Loved.com.
Bank of America has a pretty interesting grant.
That's relatively new.
It's up to $10,000 for down payment and up to seven and a half thousand
dollars for closing costs that I covered in this video and ask those
of you who went through the program.
What was your experience like?
And the overwhelming response was it's low.
It's so frustrating.
Frustratingly slow and day by day extension by extension.
I feel time slipping past me and I hope the seller maintains our
offer and approves our extension.
And I feel it deep weary in my bones.
Okay, it's slow, but is it that bad?
2000 years later?
So someone and so the process was initially pretty simple for me.
But due to delays on bank of America's part, my closing has
now been delayed three times.
My advice is stay in daily communication with your loan officer.
I'm just praying that my seller accepts this recent extension.
And here's the big problem with a lender being slow is
it's not just an inconvenience.
Yeah.
Actually, it can cost you both money that you put in with
inspections and maybe earnest money.
If your contract doesn't actually close and it can ask
you actually cost you the home.
Because if we think for a minute, when we to get under contract, let's say we get
under contract here at this point in time.
And our contract is going to cover until a closing date.
All right. So this is our closing.
Okay.
That's all.
Fine and dandy.
We told the seller that we were going to close within this period of time.
That's great.
So covers everything up to here.
The problem is we had a contract that says we're going to close on this date.
So the minute that we can't close on that date, and we actually say,
whoa, we need a little bit more time.
And maybe that's, I don't know, seven, maybe that's seven days.
At that point, it's up in the air.
The seller could say, Nope, we're going to move on to another
offer or they can accept it.
And so what can be difficult here is that.
If we work with a lender, who's not nailing our contract close time.
That's when we can run a jeopardy again of losing earnest money, losing the
inspection money that we put up because maybe we won't be able to get the house.
If the seller doesn't move forward with accepting our extends.
Now to be fair.
This is a really solid loan program compared to a lot of
other types of loan programs.
There are some really great low down payment options.
Like USDA's 0% down loan, but outside of that, this is one of the best
down payment assistance programs or grants that really I've ever seen.
And for those of you who watch the channel, the numb, I'm not a huge
fan of down payment assistance programs because most of them tend
to be a little bit more expensive and not have great terms to them.
And the reason why.
One of the main reasons why this program is great is because there's no
repayment and the rates appear to be low.
I can't go through it myself cause I'm not actually in the process of buying
a home or getting approved for a loan.
But from what I've seen, the rates do appear to be really favorable
and comparable to other programs.
However, there are some big drawbacks here that you definitely want to consider.
If you're looking at this as an option and comparing amongst
other different types of loans.
So number one, it can be tough to find.
So only certain markets are available and not every home qualifies for both grants.
So it may be eligible for one grant or the other.
Remember there's a down payment grant and a closing cost grant and a home
may only qualify for one of them.
If even that and bank of America, thankfully does have a website
where you can explore homes and that are eligible in different areas.
And so they have a tag in the top, that says home buyer, And
basically it will show you an icon next to the homes that do qualify.
And then number two, another big drawback is you do have
to work with bank of America.
So you can't go take this grant and work with the lender that
you have been working with.
If you've already been approved, you have to work with bank of America.
Which could be a good thing, could be a bad thing.
Some of the drawbacks are that not only could they be slow, like one common
are mentioned, but sellers are also aware of some of the bank of America.
Issues with timing like that and can be afraid to accept offers
from quote unquote, big banks.
And this isn't just a bank of America issue.
There are a lot of listing agents who would recommend their sellers to actually
not work with a clients who work with a buyer who might be approved through
a bigger bank, because they can have those issues of lack of community.
And possibly longer closing time and the seller, they want their money, but
they also want to close on time too.
They don't want to have to deal with extensions from a non-communicative bank.
Now bank of America still does a lot of business.
Don't get me wrong.
They're like they might have a reputation for being slow amongst listing agents
or sellers, but they still do a lot of business and they're, I'm sure they have
plenty of loans that still close on time or earlier than the contract closing.
But sellers can be leery of some of those offers that come in with
this like big bank lender reputation compared to a local lender that has a
really great reputation and all of the agents know and that they trust and
have worked with to see that they're reputable, it's actually close on a deal.
And this is why I highly recommend that.
Even if you're looking at this program and you're like this.
I really want to look at this and apply for it and see if I can get it.
You still need to shop around and explore different lenders and see what
they can offer you because there's no point in just looking at one loan.
There's no harm in looking at the different options that
you have available to you.
And a lender is more than just the programs that they offer.
The re we have to also consider the quality of the customer
service and will your loan officer be available to answer calls?
When you need you, when do you have a question or when a
problem needs addressed, will they be there to answer that?
And what I mean by this is not, you don't need somebody.
Who's going to answer the phone at two in the morning, nourish or at night,
how does that work in the morning?
Nor should you probably be.
Calling your loan officer that much, but you do want some level of
responsiveness from your loan officer.
And one commoner said I was pre-qualified for this, but can
never get my banker on the phone.
And he wouldn't reply to my emails.
They also won't do a pre-approval because it was too much work.
Went with another lender.
No.
And so this is another instance at which if you do run into a problem
with a loan, with any lender, if that problem is not being addressed,
that could put your closing in jeopardy, not only from a timeline
perspective of can we hit the closing date, but also if there's a problem.
Get it fixed as quickly as possible and have time to find whatever the fix is.
That way you can move forward with closing on that home in a
third drawback is the down payment grant is limited to conventional
or conventional like programs.
So if you remember, there's two different grants that down
payment closing costs grant.
So if you are the down payment.
And closing costs, grant work with kind of these conventional products
that bank of America hubs has.
But if you need flexibility with a program like FHA or VA or USDA you can only use
the closing cost grants independently and you can't use the down payment.
Not to mention FHA is a loan program offered by almost every lender is
compatible with hundreds of local down payment assistance options that
are available nationally and likely are available in your area as well.
And those need to be compared because they could be comparable or better
than the bank of America grant.
And so you really want to be able to see okay if I need an option like FHA okay.
How does that stack up against something like the bank of America grants as well?
If I combine my FHA loans.
Another type of down payment assistance that is provided locally.
So it's not all drawbacks though.
But I don't wanna just like pitch this as a golden Ray of home loan, sunshine.
So I felt like the negative should be covered first.
Cause I see a lot of these videos on the bank of America grant,
that's good news, free money.
Get it while you can that kind of thing.
And it's ah, I don't know.
That's a fair representation without kids.
All of the facets of this program and, the pros and cons.
So now onto some positives, so someone else said, I just got both
bank of America grants approved.
The process has been straightforward.
Our loan officer is very helpful and we're very happy.
Scheduled.
Closing is May 5th.
And some people love the process that they've had with bank of America.
Another person said my two homes have been through bank of America.
They're so smooth and easy to work with.
Going through them next, maybe next year for a third purchase.
Or someone else who said, I just closed using these two grants.
I got an APR of, and I'm actually gonna, I'm going to block this out.
Cause I don't want to be held liable for posting the rate on here.
And put 5% down payment and paid no closing costs.
I close on my scheduled closing date, another who said I went to bank of America
and spoke to a mortgage broker about this.
Which are actually loan officers, not mortgage brokers,
but it's beside the point.
They qualified me for conventional loan and will be giving me 5,000
for down payment and seven and a half thousand for closing costs and
points to get the interest rate too.
And again, I'm going to leave the interest rate out of here.
Oh, and he confirmed that the only down payment grant needs to be
added to your income which just.
Don't take this comment or this video as tax advice, talk to an attorney.
So ultimately this program is an option.
I want you to really keep that in mind that it's an option to consider.
It's not just the only thing that I want you to consider shop with other
lenders and see what programs are available to you because there likely
are more options for you to consider.
You just have to do a little bit of looking around and be a
little bit creative with trying to figure out what exists?
Who can I connect with and how can I ask questions?
People understand where I'm at and the solutions that I need for where
I'm personally at with my credit and my money situation as well.
And if you want to learn more about the requirements of both of these grants,
click on the video right here, I cover everything that you need to know about it.