Hold Off On Big Purchases For Your New Home During The "Quiet Period'

When you sign papers to buy a new home, your thoughts might immediately drift to what you’d like to buy to turn it into your perfect place. New appliances, new furniture, it all adds up. Before you pull out the credit cards you may want to consider the advice of Tuval Mor, a broker with Keller Williams in New York City, New York who cautions new home buyers about spending during the ‘quiet period:’

Ah, the thrill of purchasing your dream home can inspire you to go out shopping for the perfect living room set with matching drapes, before the closing. If you planned on doing that with credit, best to wait till after the closing. Due to high foreclosure rates throughout the nation, Fannie Mae has instituted a new Loan Quality Initiative which requires that any lender determine that “borrower liabilities incurred up to, and concurrent with, closing are disclosed and evaluated in qualifying the borrower for the loan.”

This period between the approval and the closing is usually called “the quiet period.” Lenders can vary in how they enforce this new initiative that just came into effect, but in many cases what this means is a second credit report pull right before closing. Did you buy a new professional cookware set for your new kitchen on a new Sears’s card that the cashier talked you into for the 10% discount? Well if you use the entire $1000 limit on your purchase, this seemingly innocuous purchase could throw your debt-to-income ratio off.

Fannie Mae and others have done studies and found consumer behavior patterns correlating with mortgage losses and as a result have incorporated sophisticated new credit surveillance systems into the mortgage industry. It is important for home buyers, and also those looking to refinance their mortgage, to be aware that unlike the boom years, today every action that pertains to their credit will be considered until the closing, and that credit splurges during the quiet period are a clear no-no in today’s mortgage environment.

The good news is that if you put those credit cards on ice until your new home is really yours, you should have a smooth closing. And with all the thousands of dollars you’ll be saving with these historically low interest rates (around 4%), you can afford to splurge on the perfect furnishings and accessories… just wait a little bit, until after the mortgage is closed!


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