Posted on: 02nd Apr, 2010 11:39 pm
My friend works 8 months of the year on a cruise ship, assistant cruise director. He wishes to make his first time ownership purchase of a condo in Florida. He has a really good friend who is willing to give him the 10% down, to be paid back at a much later time frame. He has 2 problems. The large commercial banks say for his FHA loan his friend must commit to the mortgage & cannot simply give him the down payment (his friend does not want to commit to the mortgage) this would not be the case if the loan came from another family member, & in order to get an FHA loan he must occupy the property for at least 50% of a year. How can or can this be resolved in order for him to get a loan? He earns more than enough to maintain the mortgage payments. Should he be looking at getting financing from non traditional, i.e. non bank, companies? Where would he go in Florida to find these non traditional options? Would this be considered to risky trying to obtain financing with the above dilemma?
If your friend received the down payment money as a gift, then the lender would have not asked that person to be on the mortgage. Your friend can apply for loans from the private lenders but he should remember that these loans will be available at a higher interest rate. If he is able to afford the higher interest rates, then he can go for that option.
regina, i suggest your friend seek out another lender, one who will look at his residency situation a bit more liberally. obviously, this would be his primary residence, and even though he spends a great deal of time on the ship, when all is said and done, he can file his taxes, pay his electric and water and other utility bills at this property.
i hesitate to tell anyone to leave any parts of their story out, but it's possible if the length of time spent on the ship hadn't been a part of the conversation, he would have been in good shape already. of course, the matter of the down payment money must also be ironed out. as niicss pointed out, a gift is perfectly okay for down payment, but it must come from a family member or a non-family-member who has an extraordinarily close relationship with him. if that can be done to everyone's mutual satisfaction, then i'd like to think he'll get his mortgage done.
i hesitate to tell anyone to leave any parts of their story out, but it's possible if the length of time spent on the ship hadn't been a part of the conversation, he would have been in good shape already. of course, the matter of the down payment money must also be ironed out. as niicss pointed out, a gift is perfectly okay for down payment, but it must come from a family member or a non-family-member who has an extraordinarily close relationship with him. if that can be done to everyone's mutual satisfaction, then i'd like to think he'll get his mortgage done.
