<p>Diane Moca:<br />You may have heard that mortgage rates are up, but what does that mean for you? Well, we've got Mortgage Matt in the house to give us some answers. Thanks for joining us Matt.<br /><br />Mortgage Matt Doyle:<br />Oh, thank you for having me. This is great.<br /><br />Diane Moca:<br />Yes. So I heard that this is a good time to refinance, there's actually a surge in refinancing. I just did a refinance because I figured prices are up, it's a good time to cash out, but should we be worried that rates are going to keep going up? Is it now or never?<br /><br />Mortgage Matt Doyle:<br />Even with rates going up they're actually still really good long term because historically with the exception of two windows of time with interest rates being low over the last two years we're still looking at pretty close to historic lows, and it's a great time to buy, but life events happen. I think people graduate, people move on, people get divorced, people die, people want to move out. And like I said we're seeing a lot of people who are going to warmer climates and working remotely, and how can you blame them, Chicago winters are pretty brutal. But it's getting busy. Interest rates, they're going to continue to rise, but values are expected to go up too. We have a almost 5 million home shortage in the country right now so when we have a shortage of that there's going to be a high demand, which basically means if people don't buy they rent, and with rents, once that demand goes up that rent goes up too, and it's going to turn people back.<br /><br />Diane Moca:<br />And some people do stay on the sidelines because they worry about their credit. I know that qualifications have changed. There's been times when it was very tough to qualify and those requirements seemed to have lessened since they were really strict a while ago. But I've heard that your credit score has to be at least 680 or maybe even a little higher, is that still the case or what are you seeing?<br /><br />Mortgage Matt Doyle:<br />We actually have programs that go down to 580, and if you are... We always tell people let's start with a free call, a no cost, no obligation consultation. To get onto the path to home ownership it really starts with just making a call and setting it up. And then we can look at everything... Put everything on the table and we can lay out a path. Now someone might say that path might be two weeks on a quick close, it might be six months, they might have signed a new lease, they're not ready for another year, whatever we have to do we just lay out a path to home ownership or a path to refinancing, whatever that may be. There's a lot of different things that people can do to look at their credit score and if it needs adjustments there is ways you can do it and there is services out there that will help you out with that, and we can definitely point people in the right direction.<br /><br />Diane Moca:<br />And this is for a lot of people the biggest investment they're ever going to make, and that is scary for a lot of people. And I wonder what you do to help people get over that fear, sometimes just even to make that first call, or even when they hear you start talking it can be overwhelming to someone that doesn't know all of these terms that you're throwing out.<br /><br />Mortgage Matt Doyle:<br />I hear that a lot, it's the biggest investment someone's going to make. I like to actually take that out, I think it's the best investment someone can make. Waking up every morning knowing that house is yours just get something going in you, you got a reason to really make that day count. You get to make it your own too. You get all the tax benefits of writing off the taxes and the interest and increasing your tax deductibility because no matter what if you don't buy a house you're probably going to be looking at renting somewhere. So you still got to put a roof over your head, so it's going to cost something, you might as well buy a home.<br /><br />Mortgage Matt Doyle:<br />Now, when it comes to buying, it's the way you structure your loan. We have a lot of creative ways that we can work with people. We actually have some no down payment programs that are available too. So depending on what people's position is on housing, we usually have some programs that are custom tailored through their financial position, and if they're not ready right now we lay out a really easy to follow path to get them home soon.<br /><br />Diane Moca:<br />Sounds great. Well, whether you are looking into interest rates because you're shopping around for a mortgage, or you're thinking about transferring balances from one credit card to another, it really helps to be informed, and I thank you Matt for sharing your expertise with us.<br /><br />Mortgage Matt Doyle:<br />All right, Diane, thanks so much for having me.<br /><br />Diane Moca:<br />For Talking Cities Aurora, I'm Diane Moca.</p>