Home Loans Done Smarter

It's standard to be asked for your last 2 years' taxes, your last 2 months of bank statements, and your last 2 paycheck stub if you are a W-2 employee. If you are a self-employed borrower, you will be asked for your business and personal tax returns, your bank statements, and your P&L.

These are just some of the documents you will need; your loan officer will give you a list of other needed documents, and the underwriter who reviews your loan will add additional documents you need to provide. If you are a self-employed borrower who has been turned down for a mortgage loan, we would love to look at your options with you. We come across self-employed borrowers all the time who have previously worked with a less experienced lender who did not understand the guidelines for self-employed mortgage borrowers. Let one of our expert mortgage brokers give you a consultation today. 

A mortgage loan application is a paper or digital document you fill out when applying for a home loan. It's a way for lenders to get a full picture of your financial ability to pay for a home loan. Part of the application process is running credit, reviewing assets and bank accounts, reviewing taxes for the past 2 years, and looking at employment history, income, and current debt. An experienced lender like us at PIF Lending can walk you through the mortgage application to ensure it's done correctly and with as little hassle as possible. If you are ready to start the mortgage loan application online, you can start it right here. Just remember, if you get stuck or need help, we are just a phone call away and can easily help.

As you complete the application process, we will review your application and decide your eligibility for a funding package or loan type. Not every Lender works with every type of borrower; it depends on many factors such as your income and credit score. Some lenders do not offer jumbo home loans or high-value loans, usually geared towards luxury properties. Some are more geared towards working with Veterans and Service Personnel and know the ins and outs of Veteran’s Administration or VA Loans intricately. We definitely pride ourselves on being experts at VA Home Loans.

Other mortgage lenders can assume more risk and are willing to work with borrowers who need help getting credit established to improve their credit rating and history or need lower up-front payments.

Our experienced mortgage broker staff knows which lender works with what kind of borrower and matches up your needs and information with the appropriate lenders. This allows faster response times and often lower costs for your loan than other lenders in Las Vegas can provide. Call us today, and we will be happy to talk with you about the loan products that work best for your home purchase or mortgage refinancing goals.

Mortgage calculators are used to estimate what your monthly mortgage payment will be by entering the purchase price of the home you are interested in, the interest rate you expect to get, the loan type, and the down payment amount. Mortgage calculators are great if you are just looking to get a general idea of what your monthly house payment will be. Credit rates, loan types, and the lender can all drastically affect the interest rate you end up with, so please be aware that using a mortgage calculator is not a fully accurate way of estimating what your full payment and closing costs will be.

Property values in Southern Nevada are rising. With the interest rate on mortgage loans at all-time lows, now is the time to take action and start a mortgage application with us. You can expedite your loan process by using the help of our professional loan officers.

Locking in a rate before the Federal Reserve moves the prime rate assures you a very low mortgage interest rate for home mortgage borrowers. A lower interest rate throughout your home loan can save tens of thousands of dollars. As the Best Mortgage Brokers In Vegas, we know where to find the best lenders in Vegas to help you get the best loan for your budget and personal needs. We know how to present your home loan package to get the best rates with no additional fees better than any mortgage broker in Henderson and Las Vegas, NV.

Our loan officers use accurate mortgage loan calculators to calculate the estimated loan amount and associated costs, so get in touch with our officer to know your loan amount.

At PIF Lending, we charge no upfront lender fees and still give you the absolute lowest interest rate you qualify for without those extra fees. Mortgage rates can vary greatly among mortgage bankers because they build revenue into the mortgage rates they charge. Mortgage brokers like us here at PIF Lending are limited by Federal Law in what we can charge on a loan which translates into huge savings on your residential mortgage loan. 

Just for some perspective, those extra fees can add up to 1% or more to the price of the home you intend to buy. That's A LOT of money!!! At PIF Lending, we stay true to our name and "Pay It Forward" by helping you keep that extra cash in your pocket for things like furniture, moving expenses, landscaping, and savings. Every lender, including Mortgage Brokers, sells their loans on the secondary market once the loan has closed. In almost all cases, we sell our loans to the exact same investors. The main difference is how much extra a regular lender or banker charges the consuer versus how much a mortgage broker charges. Since mortgage brokers are capped by federal law on how much compensation they can make, there is really no scenario we can think of where you won't save tons of money just by using one.

Above all, we stand for people over numbers. To us, you are not just a "transaction", you are a human being with individual needs and we understand that here at our mortgage brokerage. 

Our name means "Pay It Forward," and we live up to our name by helping you find the right home loan program for your personal or investment needs at excellent interest rates with no lender fees so you can be confident in your loan options and make the correct decision for you and your family. We don't get paid a single dollar unless we are able to make your dream of homeownership come true. We do not charge upfront lender fees, and there are no out-of-pocket expenses until it's time to order the appraisal on your new home. 

Call us today and let us walk you through the process of homeownership and wealth-building. As always, there's never an obligation to find out what your options are. Nowadays, there are so many options for choosing a lender that it can be extremely overwhelming when it's time to choose a mortgage broker for a residential mortgage loan. When it comes to financing your dream home it matters who does your residential mortgage loan.  

Being able to speak to a lender that cares and understands lending guidelines and all the extremely important intricacies of mortgage loans can make the difference in your home loan closing or not. High-volume online lenders see your loan as just another number. Whether you close or not, they have a line of people waiting for a quick fix home loan so your loan makes no difference to them. 

At PIF Lending we are locally owned and operated you can come to our office anytime and meet us face to face. At PIF Lending we focus on you as a person not numbers on a paper. Outside of the obvious benefits, we give you in reduced interest rates and no lender fees we spend approximately $15,000 on each of our in-house loan officers in training and ensuring they are vastly more competent than the industry standard. This not only ensures a successful close of escrow it empowers our entire team and builds confidence in our Realtor partners and our beloved clients. 

The easiest way to understand the difference and why this matters to you is that working with a Mortgage Broker like PIF Lending translates into saving thousands of dollars in unnecessary closing costs due to lender fees and saving money on interest payments because Mortgage Brokers typically offer lower rates in general.

Mortgage Brokers like us do not charge up-front lending fees when you purchase a home. Regular lenders or mortgage bankers typically charge an underwriting fee, processing fee, and origination fee, which become part of your closing costs as a home buyer or mortgage borrower. Those fees can add thousands of dollars in out-of-pocket expenses onto your closing costs which are paid in addition to your down payment. The best part about mortgage brokers is that we are required by federal law to disclose our compensation to you, the borrower and regular banker and lenders are not required to do that.

Watch a short video by Andrew Leavitt, managing broker at PIF Lending, by clicking the link below. This video will quickly help you understand the difference between a Mortgage Broker and a Banker or regular lender.

BROKER VS BANKER <--------click me

Most people typically ask, "Who's better, who's cheaper, should I go with a mortgage banker or a mortgage broker?" Well, let me ask you the same question but in a different fashion. Let's say that you know the car that you want to purchase and you go to dealership A. You find that exact car that you want to purchase. You go to dealership B, and you find the car again. Now, there's one difference between these two dealerships, one of them is significantly cheaper, and one of them is more expensive. Let's just put that price tag around $5,000. Are you going to pay $5,000 more for the car when it's the exact same car at the other dealership, and it's cheaper? Probably not.  I wouldn't, at least! Mortgage brokers, we are capped by federal law on how much we can make on the back end of a home loan. What's the backend? Well, you can't see it, and that's the whole point. However, with brokers, it's very transparent because we have to put it on the loan disclosures, but it's not up until the closing timeframe where you're actually going to see that number.

Mortgage bankers never have to list it at any point in time in the transaction. That cap comes from federal law, and with mortgage bankers, that federal law doesn't apply to them; they're not capped. While as Brokers, we are capped at 3%, and sure, maybe they are charging  3%, but most of us don't; it's usually at 2.75%, and the mortgage banker could be at 4, 5, 8, 9. As long as they follow a few compliance laws, they can charge as much as they want.

You might be asking, "Well, how do I measure if you can charge more points if I can't see it until closing?" Well, it's simple, you get a loan estimate from the mortgage company. Now, a loan estimate comes in the first part of the disclosures, and it's probably the most important document in the loan disclosure package, in my opinion. 

If you look at it, and one says an interest rate of 3.75% for mortgage company A, and mortgage company B has an interest rate of 2.99%, that's three-quarters of a point difference. The monthly payment is a couple of hundred dollars different at that point. Well, that's how many points you're getting charged in the back-end that you can't see because those points that you're paying are the reason why your interest rate is higher. Also, we can't charge processing and underwriting fee as mortgage brokers and mortgage bankers can. But wait, the mortgage banker says one more thing. "Well, they don't have their underwriters in-house, and they're not going to close on time." Let me explain how in-house underwriters work. If you're the owner of a mortgage bank, the last thing you're going to do is have the underwriter sitting next to the loan officer because then the loan officer could potentially influence the underwriter, which is completely unacceptable at all times in all situations.

If an underwriter makes a credit decision based on the loan officer's influence versus the actual documents and what they say and what a credit decision should be based on, then when that mortgage banker goes to sell the loan to the Federal Housing Administration or FHA or VA, and they come back and say, "Hey, you didn't get this paperwork, and it looks like you didn't document well enough about this job gap. We can't buy this loan from you." Now the Mortgage Banker owns this $400,000 loan or this $300,000 loan. That's a $400,000 loss in one day on one loan, so if you're the mortgage banker, you're going to go ahead and separate them, and you're going to keep them that way, just like Mortgage Brokers keep them separate. The reality is that we all function the same when it comes to underwriting.

Knowing that, who are you going to go with? The mortgage banker that charges more fees makes more on the back end has one underwriting department that they can sell to, or do you want to go with a mortgage broker who has multiple lenders, therefore multiple underwriters who may potentially each interpret the guidelines slightly different. Mortgage Brokers have various options for lenders, no fees upfront, and you can actually see how much compensation they are making on the back end, which results in you getting a lower interest rate. I don't know about you, but I would probably go for the cheaper option, and I'm also probably going to go with the option of the mortgage broker because where a mortgage banker can only go to one underwriting department, the mortgage broker has access to multiple lenders.

If you don't qualify in the traditional square box, well, great; we probably still have an option for you, whereas the mortgage banker just says, "Loan declined." 

Let's get your loan approved, and we'll talk to you soon. Andrew Leavitt, PIF Lending CEO AKA Commander in Chief of getting you into your dream home!

At PIF Lending, we understand that applying for a Residential Mortgage Loan can be stressful. There are lots of different documents required by all lenders including bank statements, paycheck stubs, IRS tax returns, and letters of explanation for items that the underwriter may need more clarification on. For self-employed borrowers, there will be P&L statement requirements and other items like your business license being in good standing and a copy of your operating agreement that will be required to close on your home. 

There may be terminologies you are not familiar with that can be confusing, lots of questions to answer, and public records that need to be pulled regardless of if you are applying for a VA Home Loan, Conventional Mortgage in Las Vegas NV.  Whether you are buying your first home, an investment property, or refinancing your existing home loan, it's not easy unless you have an expert mortgage lender like us on your side. 

We help you with the entire process of gathering the necessary documents, filling out the mortgage loan application, and getting the residential mortgage loan through the underwriting process and fully approved. At PIF Lending, we cover all the bases, if there is a first-time home buyer program, a down payment assistance program like Home Is Possible for example, or any other first-time home buyer Nevada loan option that would benefit you we will tell you all about it!

VA HOME LOAN- NO Down payment required, no minimum credit score set by the VA, although each lender, like PIF Lending like all va loan lenders has its own credit score requirement, and ours is 580. VA Loans have excellent interest rates and NO Purchase Limits on VA Loans as of 2021! Since VA Loans no longer have purchase limits, that means that qualified Veterans can purchase homes that would typically require a minimum of 20% down using a Jumbo Loan without putting any money down towards the down payment of the home. We can help you get your Certificate of Eligibility which is needed to verify your VA Home Loan benefits. 

CONVENTIONAL LOAN-Conforming loan limits are set by the FHFA, and the Conventional Loan Limit Clark County 2025 is $766,550. These loans can be used for Primary Residence, Investment Properties, and second homes. Higher credit score requirements and down payments vary from 3% to 20% on average with No Mortgage Insurance with 20% down, or 20% of the mortgage balance paid off. 

FHA LOANS-The FHA max loan limit for 2024 in Clark County, Nevada, for a single-family home, is $498,257. These loans have very low down payment requirements at only 3.5% down; they allow for lower credit scores, higher debt-to-income ratios, and shorter wait times after a BK or foreclosure. FHA Loans are insured by the Federal Housing Administration. 

DOWN PAYMENT ASSISTANCE-  We offer Home is Possible and Home Ready, which allows you to go from a 5% down payment to a 3%  down payment and also allows for reduced mortgage insurance which lowers your total monthly payment. Also, we have down payment assistance that finances your entire down payment available As Well.

REFINANCE- If interest rates are lower than when you purchased, or you have paid off a large portion of your loan balance and want a lower payment, this is a perfect option. 2020 and 2021 set the record for the lowest interest rates ever in the history of mortgage lending, and 2022 rates were still historically low. In 2023 rates are higher however greater inventory is available for buyers who want to take advantage of the market and refinance into a lower rate in the future. Rates are expeted to drop again in 2024 but we don't know yet exactly how much that drop will be.

Besides your down payment which can vary from no down payment at all on a VA Loan to as low as 3% on Conventional Homes Loans and 3.5% on an FHA Home Loans.  On Conventional Mortgages, you can put down 3%, 5%, 10%, or 20%, and you can add more money down if you choose to as long as you meet the minimum down payment requirement for each loan type.

 Besides the down payment, there are additional out-of-pocket expenses you should plan for no matter what mortgage lender you choose.  After you have completed your mortgage loan application and have received your loan pre-approval letter from us here at PIF Lending, your Realtor can help you submit an offer on a home.

 Once your offer is accepted, you will need to put down an earnest money deposit or EMD for short. The EMD is a deposit that you will wire to the escrow company that is held by escrow and is applied towards your total down payment at closing. If you are a VA buyer, even if you are not putting any money down on your home, you will still need to be able to place an earnest money deposit in escrow. That deposit will go towards your closing costs as a VA buyer, and any overage will be given back to you at closing if it's not all needed. Next, you will likely want to have a home inspection done, and this is an upfront out-of-pocket expense that will run anywhere from $275 - $1500 depending on the size of your home and if it has a swimming pool and spa or not. Most home inspections on homes less than 3500 square feet will cost an average of about $350. 

The next upfront out-of-pocket expense will be your appraisal, and appraisals can range from $500 to as high as $3500 on a luxury home priced over 2 million dollars. On average, appraisals run about $600, and you should plan on using a credit debit card to pay this fee which your lender will collect from you.  You can choose to have mold inspections, septic inspections, mechanical inspections, and water well inspections, to name a few, and those each have separate fees. Most home buyers start with a basic home inspection, and if there is any cause for alarm, they order additional inspections at that time. The next major out-of-pocket cost will be at closing approximately 30 to 45 days on average from when your offer is accepted. At that time, you will need the balance of your down payment and your closing costs, and those will be wired to escrow the day before you close. Your closing costs can consist of taxes, insurance, title fees, escrow fees, real estate brokerage fees, and lender fees. 

Now, here's where we differ from other lenders; at PIF Lending, we do not charge lender fees; however, most regular lenders and mortgage bankers charge a processing fee, an underwriting fee, and origination fees. Those fees can sometimes cost $1,000 for each separate fee! That's a ton of money that you DO NOT need to pay. This is just one important reason that you should choose us for all your mortgage lending needs.