Silent Second Mortgage

  

Categories: Real Estate, Mortgage

See: Second Mortgage.

It’s a big day for Danny and Sandy: they’re finally ready to buy their first house. They’ve gotten approved for a $400,000 mortgage loan, which is great, but there’s just one itty bitty teensy weensy issue: there is no way they’re going to be able to come up with the $80,000 they need for the down payment on the house. After all, who has eighty grand lying around? Not these two.

Luckily, there's an option by which they can take out an additional loan for the down payment amount. This loan is referred to as a “silent second mortgage.” But before Danny and Sandy get too excited, there are a couple things they should know about these types of loans.

First, they’re called “silent second mortgages” because, historically, these extra loans were taken out without the knowledge of the first lender. This is a big no-no. In fact, it’s more than a no-no; it’s illegal. Why? Because when we get approved for a mortgage, our lender is supposed to know about all additional loans, debt, assets, financial obligations...everything. If we sneak around and get a secret loan to cover our down payment, we’re technically committing mortgage fraud, which means we could end up facing big fines, and even jail time, if we get caught. And that would be...bad.

But there is another way. The term “silent second mortgage” can also refer to a loan-securing practice that is similar, but far less illegal. We’re talking about DPAs, or Down Payment Assistance Programs. These state-supported programs allow homeowners to take out special additional loans specifically designed to help with down payment costs. And while they’re not as “secret” as their illegal cousins—our first lender is totally going to find out about any DPA action we’re involved in—they can make homeownership an achievable dream for folks like Danny and Sandy.

DPA-type silent second mortgages are indeed additional loans, but they usually come with more favorable terms than our loud first mortgage. The interest rate might be lower, and it might not be compounded as often. Also, in many cases, we don’t have to start paying the loan back until we sell the house, which can help make monthly payments easier to manage while we’re in the house. If Danny and Sandy decide to go the (legal) silent second mortgage route, it sounds like they could be enjoying some summer nights in their own backyard in no time.

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Finance: What is Adjustable-Rate Mortgag...17 Views

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Finance allah shmoop What is adjustable rate mortgage or arm

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Well here's an arm and here's a leg and that's

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What Renting the money to buy a home costs you

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Yeah Okay Eight r m stands for adjustable rate mortgage

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The rate well that's The interest cost of the money

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or the cost of renting that money to buy the

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home Well the rate isn't it fixed in this case

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like five point seven percent for thirty years Where you

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know in advance that your monthly payments going to be

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nine hundred forty three bucks a month or whatever it

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is that would be a fixed mortgage a fixed number

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You can count on it for all three hundred sixty

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payments And then the house is all yours So that's

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fixed then what's adjustable like yes the interest rate changes

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But how does it change Well in a standard arm

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there is some global standard on which the rates are

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often price like lie bore the london interbank borrowing offering

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rate It's one of the key things that price is

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the cost of renting money all around the world with

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the actual rate of libel or is generally reserved for

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banks like super cheap cost of renting money to banks

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who are very likely to pay back the money with

01:11

no hassle that rate is more or less what banks

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pay for running the money along with blue chip customers

01:16

in real life The banks then mark up a premium

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on top of the rate that they're paying to rent

01:22

the money to themselves And then they resell or re

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rent that money teo their prized customers So the pricing

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of bank my views in renting money to joe six

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pack could be something like lie boer plus three percent

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or three hundred basis points So if libel or is

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it didn't say two and a half percent today the

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adjustable rate might be five and a half percent and

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all that's great honor given alone It might mean that

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for a while you're paying seven hundred twelve dollars a

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month for your house payment wonderfully cheap and in fact

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banks market these low rates initially to help people be

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able to afford tto by that new home and live

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of the dream You know the american dream usually with

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an arm there's a teaser rate that starts really low

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Like at live or live or plus ten basis points

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or something like ridiculously cheap for six months or a

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year something like that Then it has an incremental set

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of step ups in interest costs and venit adjust with

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the markets usually upward maybe upward by a lot Remember

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