Mortgage Rates, Myths, And Smart Moves with Mason Whitehead

We break down what truly drives mortgage rates, why Fed cuts don’t guarantee cheaper mortgages, and how to use timing, credit tiers, and smarter products to your advantage. Mason shares practical pre-approval timelines, non-QM options for self-employed buyers, and real client wins.

• Rates driven by the 10-year Treasury and MBS market
• Fed funds cuts not equal to mortgage rate drops
• Recession risk tied to ultra-low mortgage rates
• Pre-approval timing at four months for most buyers
• Credit tiers reshaped with 780 as top bracket
• Inquiry impact minimal for strong credit, risky for borderline
• Rising third-party costs from regulation and intermediaries
• Non-QM paths including bank statement and DSCR loans
• No-score borrowers qualified with alternative credit lines
• Investor education, rentals, flips, and portfolio strategy
• Contact details for Mason at Churchill Mortgage

Mason Whitehead:
Office Phone: 972-895-4775
Email: mason.whitehead@churchhillmortage.com
Web: www.churchillmortgage.com/loan-officers/mason-whitehead

To learn more about Stansell Wealth Planning visit:
https://www.StansellWealth.com
Stansell Wealth Planning
5550 Granite Pkwy, STE 270  
Plano, TX 75024  
469-606-2040

Transcript

Welcome And Mason’s Backstory

Speaker 1 0:16

Hey everyone, welcome back to the Stansell Wealth Podcast. Thank you for joining us, where we empower you with information and encouragement on your finances. Today I am a very excited, very special guest, Mason Whitehead from Churchill Mortgage. Mason, what's up, man? How are you doing? Good to see you, Cody. Thanks for the invite. Yes, absolutely. Thanks for joining us. Funny story. So, Mason is a mortgage lender. How we met about five or six years ago, uh I worked with a previous advisor, and he always used a certain mortgage guy and had great things to say about him. Uh, about a year later, my brother-in-law and my sister-in-law moved from Midland to the North Texas area, and they rant and raved about their mortgage lender and how good he was. Um, he wasn't sales-y. He uh advised them to actually, you know, sell their house, use some of that equity to pay down some credit card debt that they had, um, which, you know, I don't get a lot of that from mortgage lenders, you know, kind of that advice world. Didn't approve them for too much, like they could afford that, you know, what he recommended, the house that they buy, uh, was affordable. And lo and behold, uh, yeah, I was like, yeah, I'm always looking for good other professionals to send clients to. Like, yeah, Mason Whitehead is this guy. I was like, that's that's the same guy. And so I was like, okay. So I reached out to Mason. I was like, we gotta get coffee or something and meet. And so sure enough, we did. Small world. It's a small world. I've always thought that uh story was funny. So let me, I'll introduce uh Mason officially and formally, and then we'll kick it off and go into some topics here. So Mason is an experienced mortgage loan officer with 20 years of experience and expertise in the mortgage industry, helping individuals and families secure the financing they need to purchase or refinance their homes with a strong background in assisting all home buyers and homeowners across all loan products, types, and uses. He is committed to providing personalized mortgage solutions that best fit each client's financial situation. So, like I said, Mason is with Churchill Mortgage. Uh, what I love about Mason too is obviously we're a faith-based uh firm. And Mason, fair to say, faith-based as well. It's all over the website and on your email. Absolutely. Unapologetically. Yes. So always love that. Um, we've always battled the, you know, we don't want to be, we don't use it as a sales tactic or anything like that, but obviously faith is very important to us. And yeah, absolutely. So let's dive in. Um biggest question I had just give us an update. Where do you see current interest rates? Fed obviously lowered short-term rates last year. Kind of where do you see 2026 and walk us through that?

Fed Cuts Versus The Bond Market

Speaker 3:13

Yeah, so um I think the interest rate market has gotten more politicized than ever. So that's that's factoring into things as well. Um, but what people really should understand mostly is that the interest rates we get on mortgages are tied very are correlated very strongly to the 10-year treasury. So as the 10-year treasury or the prime interest rate that the Fed deals with, when you hear the Fed lowering rates, um, they're talking about the federal funds rate. Uh, when the Fed funds rate lowers, the Fed comes out and says, yes, we're lowering rates a quarter point. People always call me that very next day, like, okay, I heard rates went down a quarter point. Uh, it's not the same thing. Okay, so now when the Fed does that, it should trickle through the rest of the market. However, what you also need to understand is that the market, meaning the mortgage-backed security market, the Wall Street bonds where all the interest rates are priced, that moves ahead of the Fed because the Fed kind of telegraphs up front what they're going to be doing. So it's never a surprise, or it's rarely a surprise when they lower or raise rates. The market prices those things in weeks in advance because they kind of already know what the Fed's going to do. The Fed doesn't like to shock and awe and surprise people. So they kind of gently telegraph to their meeting minutes and everything else ahead of time. So market prices of the Fed lowering or raising it ahead of time. So that's already baked into the numbers before they make their announcement. But what really drives interest rates is the economy. So you got to look at it like the Fed uses the mortgage market or the interest rate market to spur the economy or to slow it down. So the last couple of years they've been really focused on inflation. We got to bring inflation down. So they raise interest rates to make borrowing more expensive, because if it's more expensive to borrow, you're not going to borrow as much, which will end up slowing the economy down, and prices should theoretically come down. So the only way for rates to go down, people keep saying, hey, when are rates going to drop? I said, well, when's the next recession? That's what drops an interest rate. Because when the economy slows down, jobs, GDP, uh shocks in the market, like a pandemic we had in 2020, when the economy gets scared and slows down dramatically, the Fed lowers interest rates to spur spending. So we are a consumer-based economy. So all we can do is raise and lower interest rates to make people go out and spend more money or spend less money. So when the economy slows down, the Fed lowers interest rates to spur the economy to spend, which impacts housing. So if you want rates to go down, I always tell people we're in a very unique industry. We're not like wanting recessions, but it does help the mortgage market a lot when the economy suffers, because that lowers interest rates. That's why you saw rates drop so far during the COVID era, during that pandemic, is because when everybody's staying at home, they lowered rates dramatically to spur spending and investment and cash flow going in the economy. So rates have started to come down. The other political side of it's coming into play here shortly is we're gonna have a new Fed chairman soon. Uh I'm sure Trump would have liked to have him out like a year ago. Um, but uh the new Fed chairman is pretty much gonna push for lower interest rates uh here shortly. Um so we do believe you'll probably see um the Fed lowering rates, but it's not just up to the chairman. He he has one vote on a board. So it is still uh believed that you'll see rates slowly go down over 2026. But remember, just because the Fed lowers rates does not mean mortgage rates fall accordingly, because there have been plenty of times in the last couple of years where the Fed lowered rates, but interest rates and mortgages went up. Because the mortgage markets following the bond market, following all of Wall Street and the economy truly, without the political effect, and saying, what do we really think is happening in the economy? And it does not always follow suit with the Fed. So uh that's a very long-winded answer. I hope it makes sense.

Speaker 1 6:41

No, that that that was perfect, and that's your clients are hitting you up so much. You have so many clients uh pinging your pinging your phone every day.

Speaker 6:50

And I swear if I had a crystal ball, I'd be a millionaire right now because every day every day I get the question, hey, I know you don't have a crystal ball, but yeah, I'll I'll I'll have clients ask me, you know, hey, when were you gonna get three, four percent mortgage rates?

Speaker 1 7:03

And it's like, well, you you don't really need to be rooting for that because uh yeah, that means something wrong. Right. Something broke in the recession or COVID or something like that. Right. There's a big issue. And then yeah, I I'd say you probably hit the nail on the head too. I'm sure you get this all the time. Uh the Federal Reserve setting interest rates, obviously, short-term rates, mortgage rates, especially in a 30-year mortgage, follow the 10-year treasury. They are not the same thing, right? A 30-year mortgage interest rate, those could go up in the next six months, even if the Fed keeps cutting, because the 10-year treasury's traded, you know, bought and sold every single day. And that's what affects the.

Speaker 7:41

Well, so you just saw today, actually. I got a text alert this morning that the mortgage-backed security market fell apart this morning. I'm like, what the heck happened? Well, I went on the news real quick this morning before I even got in the office, and um, well, you know, we got this whole Greenland issue going on. Yeah. So what Denmark did to kind of stick it to the U.S. is they dumped all their treasuries. They sold them all. We're not we're not buying more, we're getting rid of our treasuries. Well, supply and demand kicks in. So if all of a sudden you flood the market with treasuries or tell them you're not buying anymore, rates have to go up to attract more investors to buy them. So they basically raised our interest rates this morning by saying we're not buying treasuries and we're liquidating our position.

Speaker 1 8:18

Yeah. Uh hit us with a political opinion. You like what Trump's doing? Yes or no, I'm joking. We're not gonna get too much.

Speaker 8:25

I love Trump's uh goal. I love Trump's goals and what he wants to do and make America great and putting America first. I do not like his attitude and the way in which it's executed. Yeah, I hear you there. Yeah, the pride I wish we take a back seat to common sense and diplomacy sometimes. But I do appreciate the results he gets by being hard-headed up front and then softening later. But uh, right now, I'm like, I get the idea. My wife and I had long discussion the other night about Greenland, and she's like, what's going on? And we said we talked about it, and I completely understand the positional, the geography, the national security implications. Like, I get all of it. I think there's a much better way of going about it than saying we might use our military.

unknown 9:02

Like, oh god.

Speaker 1 9:03

Yeah, yeah, there's a lot. Yeah, there's a lot to it, that's for sure. Yeah. So um, so switching gears a little bit, now more toward the personal, you know, how how affecting me. Walk me through maybe some of my listeners. It's been a while since they've gotten a mortgage, or maybe first-time homebuyer. Uh, like how soon, with everything going on, how soon should you reasonably get pre-approved and just kind of start that process? Because we know everyone, there's spring, the summer's gonna be here before you know it, and some you know, looking around, especially depending on interest rates. So, how soon should you start that process?

Speaker 9:37

Sure. Um, so you can never have the initial conversations too soon. Like I literally talked to people that are two, three years out from buying a house, they just want to prepare now. They just got married or they're looking at buying a first home, they got some things they're working on, paying off debt, whatever it is, and they they want to have a plan. So I will talk to you no matter how far out you are, I will talk to you, help you create a plan, a financial structure, savings plan, debt payoff, whatever it is, to get you ready. So you can't have a conversation early enough. But generally speaking, I say when you're within about four months of wanting to buy a house, we need to get that pre-approval going. Now, that's not an arbitrary number. Once I pull credit on you, it's good for four months. That credit report's good for four months. So I I ideally I will not pull credit before that timeline unless you're questioning credit or there's credit score issues, we need to work on that. I can pull a credit report, we can run models on it, what to pay off, what to pay down to get the credit score going the right direction. We have some great modeling software we can use on that. So generally, I would say no, you can't talk too early to plan. But if you if you're an experienced home buyer, you've done this a number of times, typically four months out is when we start the pre-approval process. Unless you have credit concerns, then we start it sooner to work on that.

Global Shocks And Daily Rate Swings

Speaker 1 10:42

Nice. Okay. Yeah, good to know. I didn't know the if you do it too soon, you know, further than four months out, you gotta run and you know, pull a new one. It doesn't mean we start all over, but I do have to redo the credit report, which is a needless hit if we don't have to.

Speaker 10:53

Exactly. Yeah, which affects your credit, right? If you have great credit scores, it shouldn't. It's the people that are borderline qualifying or credit scores are in tiers, by the way. Like your top tier credit changed a couple of years ago. It used to be 740, now it's 780. So top tier credit scores are 780 and up. Tier two is now 760 to 779, tier three is 740 to 759. So you can have a 750 credit score, which is still very good, but you're getting some pricing hits now that you didn't used to get. Because 780 and up is now top tier. So uh it does when you check your credit, if you've got great credit scores like mid-upper 700s, it shouldn't impact anything. But it can do one or two points for an inquiry. So most people means nothing. But if you're barely qualifying, if you're like at a 600 credit score and it's shaky, yeah, you don't want a bunch of people pulling it for sure.

Speaker 1 11:40

That makes sense. Uh any new, so obviously Trump administration uh coming up with a lot of things. Any new loan programs, regulations uh coming out, you know, 2025, 2026 that can affect people?

Pre-Approval Timing And Credit Basics

Speaker 11:55

Yeah, so I mean what we're seeing is a uh a lacking right or backing off of some regulatory hurdles, we're hoping to see uh with the CFPB issues coming up. Um again, uh we agree, at least I say most mortgage people that have been doing this a long time agree that it needs to be regulation protections. 100% agree with that. But what happened was you went from 2007 to 2015, or should say 2010 when Dodd Frank came out, and we just the pendulum swung way too far this way, if you ask me. And and some of the restrictions are are not protecting consumers, they're actually raising costs on consumers. Here's a perfect example. You know what the cost of a credit report is right now? For anyone to pull it? Like for a lender to pull it. If I pull your credit report, do you have any idea what it actually costs? Uh a joint credit report is $340. Now, when I started the business 20 years ago, it was like 12 bucks. So all this regulation, now there when you pull a credit on a lender, we also get supplements, and there's things behind there we also get besides just the credit report that they'll do with us and do supplements to update things, and there's part of that process. But it still used to be 30 bucks for a joint credit report. Now it is $340 for a joint credit report. Now we still show the client $30 each, $60, but then now you see what's called a bundle fee or credit bundle fee. They they market it differently, they say it differently, but it's all actually the credit report. And a lot of that is regulated regulation and also the fact that Experian Trans Union and Equifax have basically a triopoly on the system. And there are some government regulations now, and there's some lawmakers trying to push back on that. Costs have gone through the roof regulatory-wise. The cost of an appraisal 15 or 16 years ago, and I started at Churchill 16 years ago, an appraisal was like 200 bucks, maybe 300 bucks. Now there's $785 because we had to put middlemen in the way and regulators and said, no, we have to have these middle people in the way and do all this stuff. And all it does is increase the cost of the consumer. So we're looking for some of that to be improved and go away with regulation. We're looking to back off some regulatory hurdles that aren't actually helping customers and they're actually tying our hands to make things more costly and difficult. The other thing that's come out the last couple of years is what you may hear of non-QM or non-qualified mortgage. These are alternative loan programs that don't meet the conventional Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, or FHA boxes, like bank statement loans, DSCR loans for investors. There's a lot of great programs out now that help people get into homes that wouldn't have otherwise qualified in the past. The most common one is if you're self-employed and many self-employed people have CPAs and tax advisors, that their goal is to minimize your tax bill. So they'll write off a lot of things. Now, some of that's not really legitimate, but it's a whole separate story. Um, but most people that are self-employed want to minimize their tax bill. And so they expense a lot of things and they showed minimal taxable income. Well, then you want to go buy a house and we can only count taxable income. So you tell me, like, yeah, I grossed $350,000 in my business last year, but you weren't off $300,000, so your taxable income is only $50,000. So I don't have a lot to work with to buy a four or $500,000 house. So these bank statement loans allow us to basically go to the business bank statement and average 12 months of deposits for your income. So it's a it's a game changer for qualifying for especially for self-employed clients. So we're doing a lot of bank statement programs for that reason right now. And the rates aren't that much worse, especially if you got a good down payment. But there's just a lot of programs now that allow us to help clients that would not otherwise qualify.

Speaker 1 15:06

Nice. Yeah, we we we battle that all the time with clients of you want to appear poor to the IRS, and then you go get a loan or qualifying for like disability insurance, which is all based on your income. And it's like, oh no, well, I make more than that. I only just you know, it's a it's a fun game of going back and forth.

Speaker 15:24

Yeah, it's a great game until you come to me, and then I'm like, yeah, yeah. I tell people you you pay the tax man or you pay a little higher interest rate. It's one of the two.

Speaker 1 15:33

You can't you can't do both. You can't have your cake and eat it too, can you? That's right. That's funny. Okay, last thing. Uh, any interesting case or family or uh customer that you've helped recently you wanted to share with us?

Speaker 15:46

Uh yeah, I mean, a couple easy ones I'll tell you is uh we get calls a lot that say I was turned down, especially by builders, lenders that don't do complex files. So I'm not asking to get every complex loan and hard loan ever out there, but um, don't take no for an answer. You know, talk to a professional with a lot of experience that has uh a lot of programs to work with. Um and then like a couple of recent examples are uh if you have no credit score whatsoever, we can do those loans. So uh we're the only mortgage company endorsed and recommended by Dave Ramsey because we work with those kind of clients for alternative credit lines. Now, if you have no credit score at all, I don't mean bad scores, you have to have no score, like a zero. And as long as you've been renting an apartment or a house and paying utilities and paying auto insurance and doing some basic things where you have things you pay every month, we can generally get you qualified. So we just had a call yesterday with somebody that says, Oh, the builder's lender turned us down. We had no credit scores. Well, we easily got them qualified. And then uh again, those bank statement programs, I've got one I'm about to close right now where um self-employed client would not qualify otherwise. But uh, we're easily getting them qualified, no problems, no issues at all uh for home purchase they would not have otherwise gotten done. That's awesome. Um finding it, my job is to find a way. I always joke with people that our job is to solve problems. The number one problem is I want to buy a house, I can't pay cash. Okay, so we're gonna get a mortgage. At that point, my job with my experience is to look down the road and see what roadblocks are we gonna come across and make sure we have a plan to address those. Make it a smooth process.

Speaker 1 17:13

Awesome. Love it. That's great. Thank you for sharing all that. Um, okay, where what phone number can we call you at? What website can we go to?

Credit Tiers, Inquiries, And Pricing

Speaker 17:21

Help them get a hold of you, Mason. That'd be good. Uh direct office number 972-8954775. Uh, email is mason.whitehead at churchhillmortgage.com. Or you can just go to churchhillmortgage.com and click on find loan officer in Texas. And uh my my friend and I run Texas together here. So any of those ways work. You can also just Google me and you'll find me.

Speaker 1 17:44

Good or bad. Absolutely. Uh last thing, you actually 30 seconds, you actually train other real estate agents? Right, yes.

Speaker 17:52

A big uh one of my favorite things to do personally is invest in real estate. I own rental property, residential, commercial, I manage it myself. I do property flipping as well, renovating homes and selling them. I also teach classes on how to become a real estate investor. It is not scary, it is not freaking that the whole midnight phone call is not really a thing from a tenant. I can teach people how to do that, how to do it responsibly and manage it well. And uh, I think that real estate should be part of everybody's retirement portfolio and investment portfolio. And we can show you how to do that uh through one-on-one in-person classes and online uh to get past your fears and concerns about being a landlord and show the truth and how it works.

Speaker 1 18:27

Awesome.

Speaker 18:28

Mason, thanks so much for your time today, man. Well, my pleasure, Cody. Thanks for having me. Really appreciate it.

Speaker 1 18:32

Yes, sir. God bless you. You too, sir. Thank you for listening to the Stansell Wealth Podcast. This podcast is for informational and educational purposes only. It is general in nature and may not apply to your specific situation. Please consult with a professional before acting on any information shared in this podcast pertaining to financial, investment, legal, or tax advice. The views expressed by Cody and his guests do not necessarily represent those of Charles Schwab, Victory Financial Group, or any other organization.