Business Talk
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Business Talk
Avoiding Bidding Wars and Securing Your Dream Home
Heather Jukes from Prime Lending opens up about her unexpected journey in the finance world, sharing how her role as a mortgage lender intertwines with her passion for community service. Heather's story is a testament to the power of genuine relationship-building and trust, as she explains how involving her family in volunteer work has enriched both her personal and professional life. Our conversation reveals the supportive culture at Prime Lending, where a wide range of home loan options, including flexible VA loans, are designed to meet the unique needs of every individual.
As we navigate the current housing market, Heather gives us a glimpse into the opportunities and challenges prospective homebuyers face today. Avoid falling into the trap of costly bidding wars by tuning into our discussion on the importance of acting decisively to secure that dream home. Heather also provides insights into navigating the complexities of the home-buying process, with a special note on nationwide mortgage services (New York notwithstanding). We close with gratitude for sharing these valuable insights and a hopeful anticipation for what lies ahead in the housing market.
Welcome back everybody to our podcast, where we uncover the stories behind thriving businesses and bring you expert insights straight from our source. I'm your host, dda, and I have the pleasure to speak with Heather Jukes. She's with a company called Prime Lending. Good morning, heather.
Speaker 2:Good morning.
Speaker 1:How are you doing?
Speaker 2:Fantastic. How are you?
Speaker 1:I'm doing good. Thanks for asking. So this show is all about bringing behind-the-scenes experiences and giving valuable insight to our listeners. The podcast is a go-to resource for learning about the businesses that shape our communities and discovering how to make the most of their services. If you enjoy this content and you want to hear more, be sure to subscribe to this channel. So let's go ahead and dive in. Get to know Heather a little bit. And Heather, if you want to share with our listeners a little bit about your background.
Speaker 2:Fantastic. I appreciate the opportunity to do this. So thank you so much for asking me. A little bit about my background is I've been in the finance industry since about 2011. Started a nonprofit banking mortgage, mortgage, mortgage, right, so gotta love it. It was not necessarily the career that I would have chosen, but I definitely go where doors are opened and lead me, and I could not be any happier. I am someone who loves to give back to the community.
Speaker 2:When I started with my company about two and a half years ago, my marketing guy and I sat down and we talked about you know why I'm in mortgage. And that was the first thing out of his mouth why are you in mortgage? And I'm like, excuse me, like I just filled out 18 pages of why I love mortgage. And now you're asking me why? And he's like, well, it's not your passion. I'm like oh well, what is my passion? And he says, well, your passion is giving back and volunteering. And I said and that's why I'm in mortgage. Mortgage gives me the opportunity to change people's lives, to educate people, but through doing that, it financially takes care of my company so I can do other things volunteer with nonprofits On Thursday afternoon. So this afternoon. I'll be leaving here shortly and I get to go to the county jail and work with inmates to try to change their lives. So whether I'm changing lives and mortgage and getting you a new home, or whether I'm giving back in the community, that's literally that's my passion in life.
Speaker 1:I love what you said there giving back to the community, you know, and it's I think that's one of the things that drives individuals like yourself or you know, giving back and making sure that you're helping people not only with their mortgage needs or home lending needs, but you're helping them outside of that as well, and it gives you a sense of satisfaction, correct? Yeah?
Speaker 2:Oh, absolutely, yeah, I mean you have to build relationships with everyone that you come in contact with in some form or another.
Speaker 2:Right, if people are going to trust you, you need to be able to show who you are, not just say who you are. That knows me, knows the heart that I have, what I do, you know, and that's just that's what drives me Teaching my kids the same thing. You know it's a family thing, like my family is all on board and supports and I love you know the future that we have coming due to the ability to be able to teach and give back.
Speaker 1:Very well stated. So let's go into a little bit to kind of educate our listeners about what prime lending is. And let's start with I know you guys offer new home loans refinance, renovation. Let's talk about some of the loan options as well as qualifications. Let's go down that road if you don't mind.
Speaker 2:Absolutely all those qualifications. Let's go down that road if you don't mind. Absolutely. So a lot of people get scared when it comes to buying a home or they're over knowledgeable and they think they know they're the expert. And that's where I like to come in and just help people find you know exactly what's perfect for them. Prime Lending is an amazing company. It's multicultural. It, you know, has a lot of women that are the top of you know the company. We have plenty of men too, so it's amazing. But you know we don't discriminate by any means, which I just find amazing.
Speaker 2:I left and came to Prime Lending not just because of you know what they have, the culture here and how they take care of their employees, and the support you have is just top notch. When it comes to clients and working with clients, we love to provide education and technology because everyone's so busy in this day and age. We have so many tools to help make the process so simple for the clients If they choose to jump in and use those tools. You know, something I try and teach everybody is everything's a choice. So we give clients the choice or they can go old school, do things a different way, but we want to make it most comfortable for them and what they're used to doing. So we have over 400 products here at Prime Lending and that's what we call them.
Speaker 2:So we do what you were talking about. You know a primary home purchase. We do second homes, we do investment homes. I do not do commercial, so it is residential lending. But what we do and what I like to tell everybody is you know we can lend in all 50 states and we can do in the box, out of the box, whatever you can think of when it comes to home buying and your loan. So we love to use the phrase that you know there is a mortgage out there for everybody. It's just are you willing to accept the terms? Okay? So every mortgage product is going to have things that we need to do to make it come to fruition. The choice is do you want to commit to that or not? Again, it's a choice. We have VA loans. We have VA renovation. What stands apart in that industry is we do not have a cap on the renovation amount, where most lenders will only let VA borrowers do renovations up to $50,000. Prime Lending doesn't have that. So that's amazing for our veterans. Yeah, we do USDA. We do down payment assistance. We do anything you can think of on that side of it.
Speaker 2:That's kind of the inbox lending that I was talking about. The out-of-box lending is we also are direct lenders, so that's the inbox. But we also have options to work with brokers. So for those scenarios that don't necessarily fit in the box, I can do a DSCR loan, which is an investment no income loan. I can do a primary purchase no income loan. I can do bank statement loans. So, say, you claim a little bit too much on your taxes. I can get 12 months worth of bank statements and we calculate the income that comes in and we can use that income versus your tax returns. That might show a little less. We have so many different options. It's just are you willing to say, hey, these are the closing costs or this is the documentation I have to provide, or whatever I need to do? So that's what sets Prime Lending apart and literally makes the cream of the crop.
Speaker 1:I love that and I caught during this conversation that you mentioned 400 different products and each product. You can basically get pretty much anyone that is looking for a home loan approved based on their scenario, of course, based on the background and their credit and all that other stuff but you can actually have a tool that's available for anyone to help them with. Correct Absolutely absolutely so.
Speaker 2:If your credit you did mention credits. I do want to bring that up. You know credit is something that is extremely important when it comes to lending. Um, if your credit score is a little low, I will work with you for six months or a year and get you to the point where we can get you into that home. So, again, that comes down to are you willing to accept the terms? The terms don't always mean today. Sometimes the terms mean in six months or a year, but I can work with you and follow up with you. I mean, I have a client right now that we're dealing with an IRS issue and we've been working together over a year and they understand how important this is for their family and they love the service and you know the relationship that we've built. So we're going to get them in a home. It's just not sure, you know. Hopefully it's sooner than later.
Speaker 1:I love that. How do interest rates and market fluctuations you know how do they affect your home affordability?
Speaker 2:So thank you so much for asking that question. I love that you bring that up, and part of my job is to make you understand what you're really asking me. The rate is not really what you're concerned about, and the market's going to go up and down. We know that it's kind of leveled out, um, and if we want to look at the past, I mean we were expected to have six drops last year and we all know that didn't happen, right? So when it comes to getting approved, we have to stop asking what's the rate? Okay, because what are we really wondering? If I was going to, you know, what does the rate lead to? You're asking me yeah, what do you think?
Speaker 1:the right leads to monthly payment right. Is that not the?
Speaker 2:question exactly what's the monthly payment going to be? So when we get so fixed on a number of a rate, all we really want to know is can I afford afford that monthly payment and how does it fit into my lifestyle? So what we like to do is we like to look at all the information, look at the income you know, look at what debt you currently have, and we're going to tell you okay, you can get a home in this range and the monthly payment is going to be X, y, z. Do you feel comfortable with that payment? And when they say yes, then you say okay, so this is the rate. But don't worry about the rate, because as long as you afford the payment, that's great. Down the road, when you get a little equity, if you want to look at changing the rate, we can do that. But right now you have an amazing opportunity to get into the home that you want for the payment that you feel comfortable in.
Speaker 1:I like that. I like that a lot. So you know every industry. You know you can't predict what the future holds right, nobody can predict that. So where do you see, or where do you think you know, in terms of speaking about future home loans, where is that evolving? Where is that? Where do you think that's going?
Speaker 2:I mean with buying homes. The future is right now. Okay, and the reason I say that is right now. There is so much inventory out there and there's not enough buyers. Buyers are scared. We've kind of gone through a little bit of a shake up in the last six months and people are a little rattled by that, let's be honest. But that brings opportunity for people that are excited. They're like want to know what.
Speaker 2:I don't care what's happening, let me get my home, because what that's going to allow you to do is you're going to be able to get the home that you like right now, at the situation you're sitting in, when the market flips. Unfortunately, now you're going to go into a bidding war. Once you go into a bidding war now, you're going to pay $40,000, $50,000 over what you would have paid for that exact same house. So now your payment could be almost the exact same, but now you have extra $40,000, $50,000 in debt. So, as for the future, you know everyone wants to say, well, let me wait, let me wait, let me wait. I don't agree with that because you know we just saw how there was bidding wars with 10, 15 different offers on every single house, and then you settle for a home, you don't get your perfect home.
Speaker 1:Wow, this is some great information. You know that you're providing our listeners, heather, so, as we wrap up here, would you mind providing them a way, our listeners a way to get a hold of you, as well as, maybe, a website that they can get some more information?
Speaker 2:Absolutely Definitely. So I am always available, unless I'm volunteering or I'm with another client. You can always get ahold of me on my cell phone, 440-563-8697. Or you could email me at heatherjukes, j-u-k-e-s, at primelendingcom, and I work evenings. I work weekends, unfortunately. My husband, kids can agree with that. But I do things like I did earlier this week and I went to meet with my son in the middle of the day for his birthday.
Speaker 2:So I have work life balance but I like to take care of my clients Right and, as I stated before, I do do mortgages all over the country. I have a client in Colorado, I have one in California right now. I've done Ohio, pa, not New York. Unfortunately New York's laws are a little bit tougher, but I do have colleagues here at Prime Lending that I absolutely could refer you to. That would be amazing, but I personally can do pretty much almost all 50 states.
Speaker 1:Well, heather, thank you so much for taking time out of your busy schedule to give, to share your information and what you do to our listeners, and we're looking forward to hopefully having you back again in the near future.
Speaker 2:Well, thank you so much for this opportunity and I always look forward to coming back.
Speaker 1:You're very welcome and I always look forward to coming back. You're very welcome.