BuyerQual

 

BuyerQual allows you to determine whether homebuyers qualify for buying a specific home and to play with various purchase scenarios.  The main advantages to using this program rather than a calculator are: (1) you don't need to know any formulas, and (2) All buyer information is shown on the screen at one time, and this information is interactive.  If you change a figure on the screen and tap the “Recalculate” button, all pertinent fields will reflect your change – you don’t have to input all information over and over again.  If you only want to determine monthly housing payments, ignore the debt or income fields.  With BuyerQual’s “Max” tool this program will automatically pre-qualify a buyer on the spot.

Other Palm real estate programs only calculate monthly principal and interest payments (P&I) while either ignoring monthly taxes, homeowners insurance, mortgage insurance, and homeowner association fee payments or asking the user to guess at some figures.  Since mortgage underwriters consider the total PITI for home qualification, those programs provide erroneous qualification and house payment information to buyers - often resulting in failure for buyers to qualify for the home they've "fallen in love with.".  BuyerQual eliminates this situation by calculating the actual “total” monthly payment and providing accurate qualification information.

Devote time to the home and not to a calculator.  Plug in the numbers as you consider finances.  Don’t be concerned about having to put in one number before another, dividing one by another, remembering whether or not you entered a percentage, what factor do I use for homeowners insurance, and so forth.  With BuyerQual enter numbers in any order – put the interest rate in first if you like or enter it last, etc.  Miss entering the buyer’s income?  Look at the BuyerQual screen and you can see what’s been entered and what hasn’t.

Many real estate agents use BuyerQual when they show homes to potential homebuyers.  After they input the homebuyers’ basic financial information, they only need to change  the price for each individual home and tap on the “Recalculate” button.  BuyerQual recalculates the information for that house so that they are able to obtain accurate on-the-spot home payment and qualification information.  BuyerQual “remembers” the last information used, even if you switch to other programs or shut off your handheld.  You can save thousands of housing scenarios to your Memo Pad and print that information from your Palm Desktop program, a word processor, or directly from your handheld to an infra-red printer using Print Boy.

Tap on your hand held’s Application’s Launcher symbol.  You will see program icons on the screen. Click on the “BuyerQual” icon and you are taken to the program.  Note that the numbers have been filled in.  You enter the numbers in rows 1-3 and let BuyerQual calculate the rest. Years, Rate, and Down fields use “Pick Lists” for the most common numbers.  Select “30” Years.  Note: If you want to use loan year numbers other than 15 or 30, write them in this field.
This figure shows the Pick List for Interest Rate.  It provides interest rates from 3% to 10% in .125 point increments .  To use rates not on the pick list, merely write them in this field. Note that Taxes are $125 per month and we want to use a different factor.  Tap on your PDA’s Menu key and the “Options” tab appears.  Tap on “Preferences." The “Options” screen appears, showing the factory set defaults.  Notice that the factor for the “Annual Tax Rate” is 1.50 percent (US national average).  To change it to another area, tap your stylus behind the 1.50 and move it backwards erasing the “50”.
Tap “OK” and your “Annual Tax Rate” factor has been reset.  This new factor will remain your default setting until you change it.  The above figure also shows BuyerQual's Canadian capability. Now look at your screen.    Your “Taxes” have changed from $125.00 to $83.33 per month.  Not only that, but your buyer’s housing and debt ratios (HTI & DTI) have been reduced. The previous figure shows the debt ratio (DTI) as 22% but we want to how much it really is.  Tap the “22%” and a “Details” screen will appear showing the exact debt ratio.
To see the buyer’s monthly payment, go to the main BuyerQual screen and tap on “Details”.  The screen shown in this figure will appear, showing each payment detail and the total monthly payment. Note the “Max” button on the bottom right of the main screen.  This button will calculate the maximum home that buyers can afford.  Tap “Max” and the above screen appears. You may select one of two categories for a conventional loan (Excellent or Good Credit), FHA, VA, or you specify the debt ratio.
To get the closest to the maximum affordable home value, you must manually cycle the screen 4-5 times by alternating between the “Max” button on the main screen and the “OK” button on this screen. The new main screen after determining the maximum home price the buyers’ should qualify for.  You’ve just pre-qualified them. This figure shows the new debt ratio .  A 41% is almost  always results in a loan approval for buyers with excellent credit.
Here we see the additional Options available with BuyerQual.  With taxes and insurance you may select a rate as we did previously, or you may select an exact amount (fee).  If selecting a fee, enter annual amounts. You can also select mortgage insurance options.  Using the FNMA setting provides automatic calculate-ions of PMI based on a 30-year conventional loan.  You may specify the PMI rate for other loans if you want to be more specific. If you are dealing with a condo or PUD, BuyerQual has a Home Owner’s Association (HOA) Fee feature.  To access it check mark  “HOA” on the Options screen.  A pull down menu appears:  select amount and frequency of the fees - BuyerQual will assign the monthly payment amount for qualification purposes.
Now, when you tap the “Details” screen to see the monthly payment “HOA Fees/Dues” are included in the total payment, and within the home qualification ratios.

Download BuyerQual Users Manual (MS Word Format)