SPIRITS

Homeward

bound

Local mortgage team aims high to help people live the dream of successful home ownership.

PAID PROMOTIONAL FEATURE

“EVEN THOUGH PURCHASE PRICES ARE INFLATED BECAUSE OF DEMAND AND EVERYBODY MOVING HERE, INTEREST RATES ARE STILL HISTORICALLY LOW, SO EVEN THOUGH PRICES ARE A LITTLE HIGHER, AFFORDABILITY IS BACK BECAUSE INTEREST RATES ARE AT LOWER LEVELS THAN THEY’VE EVER BEEN IN HISTORY.”

—KRISTIN JAMIESON

he Kristin Jamieson Mortgage Team Powered By Success Mortgage Partners, located in Montverde, is in the business of making home buying happen as quickly and simply as possible. To ensure that happens more often than not, Branch Manager and Mortgage Loan Consultant Kristin Jamieson implemented something not many other mortgage companies in the area have to o er – an underwriter.

According to Kristin, bringing an underwriting to her o ce is a pretty unique thing to do in the industry because “nothing leaves our doors as far as any part of the loan process.”

Kristin adds: “That is huge because a lot of times people are dealing with local lenders, but the underwriters are in California, the buyers are in Florida, processing is in Michigan, everyone is all over the place; but with our own underwriters, we’re all here centralized and it’s all local.”

What that means for the client, Kristin says, is a much speedier closing process.

Additionally, a local underwriter means better understanding of all that’s involved with a transaction.

“It is essential to have an underwriter in the state of Florida that understands Florida property laws and rights and the kind of stu we get a lot of questions on, like HOA rules, condos, manufactured homes and more. When you are dealing with somebody that’s not in our state and doesn’t understand our lending requirements or our lending laws, a lot of things get lost in translation,” Kristin says.

Overall, the Kristin Jamieson Mortgage Team Powered by Success Mortgage Partners specializes in residential mortgage loans, home purchases, and re nances. The team also helps with credit repair and getting people on the right track with budgeting,

“If they are not quite ready to be a homeowner now, it’s never a ‘no’ with us, it’s just a ‘not right now,’ so we’ve come up with a game plan to get them mortgage ready,” Kristin says, adding that the unprecedented happenings of 2020 allowed her team a chance to really look at mortgage loans in a di erent way.

Kristin says it’s all about preparation and getting people mortgage ready by whatever means best suit their needs.

“With re nances, we’re doing a lot of cash-out debt elimination, putting people in really good nancial positions. The last couple of years have been pretty hard on everybody and if we can put them in the best possible nancial position going forward, it only helps,” Kristin says. “It makes their rebuilding easier, and if people have been laid o or something, we’re saving them money on a monthly basis.”

Kristin says the guidelines for obtaining a mortgage loan have also gotten tighter since the coronavirus pandemic, which introduced new challenges.

“It’s a little but more di cult to obtain a mortgage just because there’s so much risk right now,” she says. “Nonemployment rates are still going up, and not going down much at all, so the risk to the mortgage lender is strong.”

The plus side however, Kristin says, is that “while underwriting requirements are a little bit tighter, a ordability has come back a little.”

“Even though purchase prices are in ated because of demand and everybody moving here, interest rates are still historically low, so even though prices are a little higher, a ordability is back because interest rates are at lower levels than they’ve ever been in history,” Kristin explains.

Even so, Kristin and her team, which consists of four loan o cers (including