Q&A with Tulsa mortgage expert as rates stay high into 2025

2024 ended with high mortgage interest rates, and today these interest rates still average anywhere from six to eight percent.

The Federal Reserve made its 3rd and final interest rate cut of 2024 on December 18th. Many hoped it would affect things like mortgages, but experts say mortgages and interest rates aren’t always correlated.

To shed some light on the current mortgage market and offer expert advice, News on 6 spoke with Nicole Hopkins, a mortgage originator at CMG Financial in Tulsa.

Questions and answers:

Q: What’s the first thing you tell people when they ask about current prices?

A: “So, the first thing I would tell anybody is don’t listen to anything they read on social media. There’s so much misinformation about mortgage rates and mortgage options, so I just tell people to call a mortgage lender and open a conversation. with them the rates are higher right now, especially if you’re like me, when I bought my first home, that’s great. Interest rates are higher now than they’ve ever been hair been in my adult life but that’s not the case for everyone I talk to my parents when mortgage interest was 12% so you really need someone to educate you the process and the nature of ​​the history of mortgages in general.”

Q: Is the rate the same for everyone?

A: “The rate you get on your mortgage depends on a lot of different factors. We have to pull your credit score. We have to pull together your finances and look at your debt to income. We look at how much you puts down in the form of a down payment on the property.All of these different factors affect what your interest rate may be for first-time buyers is the friend you are talking to who just got a mortgage may not qualify for the same as you really talk to a professional to explore what your options are and what they look like?

Q: How can you find the best price out there right now?

A: “So, it’s a really unpopular thing for me to say, because my job is to sell mortgages, but I would say in-store mortgage lenders. It’s one of the best things you can do. The truth about us is that we are all a little different There are federal guidelines, there are federal, state, local programs that people can qualify for, but each lender may also have their own offers Lenders in the Tulsa area right now that say, hey we know that these prices are scary, but you really need to be in a home, so here are some things that we can work with you on the next time you refinance your home, if it’s within X time Some lenders say, within a year, five years, whatever the lender may have decided they will cover the lender’s fees, other lenders say, well, what if we buy down the rate for a year, if you can buy down and have a lower rate during the term. of the next year and it goes up after that, is it a good resource for your family? There are just a lot of different ways of structuring things right now.”

Q: Do you expect prices to remain high or will they potentially fall again?

A: “So, it’s really hard to try to predict the market. It’s something that I just don’t do, and it’s just because when I was working in private wealth banking, we had this amazing financial update team and they would share updates with us quarterly. And the difficult thing about it was that it changed daily, weekly, monthly. Sometimes we heard that the prices would drop by the end of 2024, now we hear that it may be by 2025, it really just depends on the markets and what happens.”

Q: What do you wish people asked you when they called?

A: I wish people would call me and say, Will you sit down with me for an hour instead of saying what’s your rate? And the reason I wish they would do that is because as a mortgage lender, the most important thing I want is for someone to come into a home where their family is comfortable a year from now. I will sit down and review their cash flow with them. I want them to understand, here is my budget. If I buy a house at this price range, here’s how much extra money I have every month and can my family afford to live on it? I am super passionate about financial literacy. I grew up in a family that was first generation college students. This means something to me. It is important to understand what is happening with your finances. But what is sad is that most people just call and ask what is the rate? And I think it’s because of many different factors. It’s things like social media that really focus more on that than your overall financial picture.

Q: What kind of questions should you ask lenders?

A: “I want to specifically say, hey, explain to me what are starting points, what is a down payment? What are all these costs on my loan estimate? So many times I have consumers who will come to me and they will say, hey i get this interest it’s no problem costing you X amount and sometimes it makes sense that I say Yes it makes sense you money in the grand scheme of your mortgage but not everyone understands how they works.”

Q: What kind of mindset should people go into buying a home right now?

A: “Date the course, but marry the house.”