March 24, 2025 • 40 mins
Are you considering buying or selling a home with solar panels and feeling overwhelmed by mortgage implications? Join us as we dive into the often-unexplored relationship between solar energy systems and home mortgages. In this episode, we speak with Ben Rubenstein, a mortgage expert from Price Mortgage, who shares valuable insights on how solar loans and leases can affect your home buying experience.
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Speaker 2 (00:24):
Welcome to another edition of the HarmanSolar
Podcast.
I'm Rob Fremano, vp of Salesand Marketing at HarmanSolar,
and with me, as always, mrEverything, ben Wohlschlager.
Ben, how are you today?
Speaker 1 (00:35):
I'm doing great, are you sure I had a breakfast taco
this morning.
I had my bottle of water.
Speaker 2 (00:39):
I'm pumped, ben comes here for the food.
Speaker 1 (00:41):
That's the only reason why I'm here.
Speaker 2 (00:42):
Only reason Keep Ben comes here for the food.
That's the only reason why I'mhere, only reason Keep me on
payroll.
So kind of exciting to me.
This is the last ever HarmonSolar podcast that we are going
to shoot in this studio.
We are opening up a new studioat the Harmon Solar podcast, or
Harmon Solar headquarters,corporate headquarters, and I
myself have been building thisstudio.
Ben has helped nothing at all,that's true, and it's actually
(01:04):
coming out really well.
But our next podcast goingforward will all be done at our
new Harm and Solar Podcast.
Speaker 1 (01:08):
Studios.
In my defense, I've providedcreative input, manual labor Wow
, creative input yeah.
Speaker 2 (01:16):
Yeah, I like that.
I agree with that, okay, thanks.
Speaker 3 (01:18):
All right.
Thanks for the input You'rewelcome.
Speaker 2 (01:20):
Today we are going to talk with a mortgage lender.
We've never done that and wegot a guy, Another guy.
We always got a guy.
Usually we have, sometimes weget a gal, but today we got a
guy right.
This guy is Ben Rubenstein.
Did I say that wrong?
You said it right.
No, that's perfect.
Ben Rubenstein with PriceMortgage Ben how you doing.
Speaker 3 (01:40):
Hey, I'm doing great, feeling great.
Anyone in the mortgage industrymaybe is not great you know
it's a tough business, right nowbut we're still having a lot of
fun.
Speaker 1 (01:51):
I was going to say why are you feeling great?
Yeah, we're eating ramen.
Speaker 2 (01:54):
Yeah, just kidding, we're eating ramen, so Price
Mortgage.
How long have you been there so?
Speaker 3 (01:58):
I've been with Price a little over three years In the
mortgage industry about 15years, Wow, okay.
Banking and finance since highschool Started all the way back
at Wells Fargo and then kind ofjust worked my way through up
the ranks.
Okay.
Speaker 2 (02:14):
And here we are.
And here we are in one of theworst times ever.
Speaker 1 (02:17):
Okay, we got an expert in the industry, which we
needed, right.
Speaker 2 (02:22):
So we've gone through the good and bad over the last
15 years.
Speaker 1 (02:24):
Yeah, but why?
Which we needed?
Right.
So we've gone through the goodand bad over the last 15 years.
Yeah, but why in the worldwould we have a mortgage?
Speaker 2 (02:29):
expert on a solar podcast Because you asked me to.
I have no idea why.
Speaker 1 (02:30):
That doesn't make sense, does it?
Well tell us why.
Well, I mean, people buy andsell homes all the time, right,
and sometimes those homes havesolar on them.
So people want to know well,how does that affect me selling
my home?
Or if I'm buying a home thathas solar?
This is a solar loan on thehouse that I'm buying or selling
.
What are the ins and outs, whatare the questions?
(02:51):
And we, as solar experts, wealways kind of you know default
to ask an expert because we'renot, you know, experts in
mortgages or real?
estate, things like that.
So ask your mortgage expert oryour real estate expert.
So that's what we have.
But here's the cool caveat.
Speaker 2 (03:05):
There is a caveat to this, right.
Not only is Ben a mortgageexpert at least you think you
are no, you are, You're amortgage expert, but you're a
solar owner as well.
Speaker 3 (03:20):
Yeah, that's true.
Speaker 2 (03:21):
Yeah, I've had solar for six years now Six years, so
I want to talk about that,because we had a conversation
with Ben before we startedshooting the podcast and an
interesting topic came up abouthis solar, and we talk about all
the time people that maybedon't get the best deal in the
world Taking advantage of RightMeet Mr X.
Speaker 1 (03:40):
Speak of the devil yeah.
Speaker 2 (03:43):
So tell us about your solar experience.
Now, it wasn't with Harman, solet's get that out there.
It was with a competitor.
Yeah, we won't say the company,no, we won't do that, but talk
about your experience.
You've had solar since 2018,you?
Speaker 3 (03:52):
said, right, yeah, so I've had it for about six years
.
I'm just thinking back to whenthe salesperson came to my home
and offered me the program andhow it was going to benefit me
and initially I saw thefinancial benefit was the
biggest decision.
When I see the ability to own ahome, potentially have what
(04:14):
they say is zero net benefit foryour electricity, right, like,
I'm not going to pay forelectricity.
So it was just the challenge ofthe thought of that was amazing
to me because I could, you know, run a household with five kids
yeah, you know, 3000 squarefoot.
Energy costs keep rising.
(04:35):
So I saw it as an opportunitylike, okay, I'm going to save
three 400 a month, wow, yeah.
Speaker 2 (04:42):
And that makes sense.
It looked good on paper yeah,yeah, I mean so three thousand
square foot home, right, sotwo-story house.
They put a 7k system on yourhouse.
Now a lot of you might not knowwhat that means.
It's a smaller system in theindustry.
I mean so for somebody that'sprobably using a lot of.
You said you had five kids.
You know three thousand squarefeet.
You're probably using a lot ofpower.
Speaker 1 (05:03):
Yeah, that's for someone who's probably their
electric bills are probably likeaveraging, maybe a hundred
dollars a month for seven cases.
Yeah, it's small somewherearound there, but you weren't
averaging a hundred dollars amonth, probably before you had
solar.
Speaker 3 (05:15):
Right, right, yeah.
Yeah, I was paying like two 80a month on a budget plan back
then.
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (05:26):
And you're talking about 2018.
So yeah, and solar was prettyhot back then.
I mean, I just come off the 17drop and then yeah, so I mean
that was a good time for solar.
So you were paying about 280 amonth.
What are you paying now?
Speaker 3 (05:35):
So I'm not on the budget plan but it'll teeter.
You know this is supposedly theone of the lower months of the
year.
Close to $200 for theelectricity piece, paying almost
$200 a month for the loan thatI got for my solar.
So that's $400 on the low end,I suppose, and then this summer
I'm expecting probably close to$700 for June and July Right.
Speaker 1 (05:58):
Yeah, so we've talked a little bit about this before
the show started.
You know, it doesn't look likeyou're saving money, obviously.
Um, because you're looking,you're paying more.
I mean, there is a savings, butwe feel that you're probably
paying too much for the solarsystem alone, like what, what
you're getting discounted fromyour, your aps bill.
(06:18):
Yeah, there's a savings, butthen you account for, well, how
much am I paying for the solarsystem itself?
Right, that was too much so,and that's what we kind of got
this podcast started for rightto help people out to, you know,
kind of educate them a littlebit like, hey, this is how
things actually work and this ishow you should, you know, vet
these companies these are thekind of stories that piss me off
(06:39):
.
Speaker 2 (06:39):
Yeah, this is why you said, this is why we do this.
Ralph is heated.
I get heated when I hear stufflike this because it's it's a a
gentleman that his family weretaking, they were taking
advantage of to line someone'spockets, and that's all that
happened.
Sure, in my opinion, based onwhat you told me you paid, you
probably paid, I'd say, abouttwelve thousand dollars too much
for that system.
Yeah, then, if you would havepaid that less twelve thousand
(07:01):
dollars you actually would itwouldn't be.
You'd be okay.
Your loan would be a lot less.
It's still that system's waytoo small.
You would need a bigger system,but you'd be in a better
position than you are now.
So just I stuff.
Just it irks me, right?
It's why we want to do thispodcast.
It's why we'll never stop doingthis, because you want to keep
informing people.
Be careful of who you'retalking to, who you're dealing
with.
You really got to be able toresearch it Back in 2018, there
(07:23):
wasn't a ton of stuff out there.
You know about all this.
There wasn't this, this uh,what the word?
I'm looking for the awarenessthat we're starting to create
that wasn't really there in 2018.
Speaker 3 (07:33):
It was a free for all yeah.
Speaker 2 (07:34):
Right, it was the wild west.
It was yeah, uh, it's not thatanymore, so and we're trying to
help make sure that that stuffjust doesn't happen anymore.
So I'm sorry that you had thatexperience, because solar is a
great thing for people.
It can be and you always say itright Solar is not for
everybody, but everyone shouldtake a look.
And maybe it wasn't for him, Idon't know.
I mean looking at his house.
Speaker 3 (07:52):
Yeah, I think he could have definitely got a
better system and paid less orat least a better deal.
Speaker 1 (07:56):
Yeah, it would have been a better deal.
Speaker 2 (07:57):
But anyway, I wanted to start there because it just
pissed me off so much.
So on that note.
Speaker 1 (08:03):
On that note, let's talk about mortgage.
Speaker 2 (08:04):
We did bring it on for a different reason, right,
we want to talk about mortgageand we want to talk about
mortgage and solar because it'sI'm sure that you're seeing more
and more people that have homesthat have solar on them, right?
I mean, that's just bigger partof this market now.
Speaker 3 (08:15):
Yeah, a lot of the transactions we see have you
know whether it's a purchase orrefinance, the homes are going
to have solar panels, there's agood chance right.
And when people are going in tobuy homes, we kind of look at
the same things that I did whenI was making the very same
decision Well, what's theelectric bill look like on a
(08:35):
monthly basis?
So I'll often want to educatemy clients on what was the
payments over the last year sothey can kind of see that, in
addition to if it's a solarlease, how much is that a month?
Or if they're carrying a loan,how much is that a month.
So it's about the financialdecisions behind the solar right
and then the process.
Speaker 2 (08:55):
Do you you just mentioned lease do you look at a
system, you look at a situationand go, oh, it's a purchase,
that's better, or oh's a lease,that's kind of a negative?
I mean, do you have a stigma?
Either way, do you say, ah,it's a lease.
We have to be more carefulbecause there's a lot more
involved here versus a purchase.
Speaker 3 (09:11):
No, it's not so much a stigma.
I mean, when you take thepayments in account, that does
factor into the debt-to-incomeratio.
On qualifying, while I haven'treally experienced a situation
where, oh, we can't buy a housebecause of solar oh, you haven't
.
Speaker 1 (09:26):
That's good, yeah, very positive.
Can you repeat that andenunciate every word, because we
do get that a lot Like oh theyhave solar.
Speaker 3 (09:33):
I can't buy a house, yeah, so a lot of you know, and
I think part of it comes in onthe real estate's opinion,
because they're you know,they're kind of recommending
things to their clients as well.
So if they have a negative orpositive outlook on solar, that
could be a good or bad thing,but at the end of the day it's
very easy to do a transactionwhen solar is involved.
(09:56):
So if you're selling a home,they're going to get you know,
they call into the solar company, they make a request, fill out
some paperwork.
It's a couple weeks process.
The buyer calls into the solarcompany, fills out an
application sort of situationand then, once they review and
approve it, you know thetransfer process gets completed
(10:19):
and we get all the paperwork weneed to close the loan.
It's really not a problem atall Easy.
Speaker 2 (10:24):
I like this guy.
It's very easy Because you'resaying everything we've been
saying.
Speaker 1 (10:28):
Right, it's not an issue.
It's not an issue.
Just do your due diligence andget it done.
Speaker 2 (10:33):
Do you feel solar adds value to a home?
Speaker 3 (10:36):
It does when the system yeah.
So I've seen a lot of amazingsituations where solar does
benefit the customer, where theydon't have that electric
payment and they just have theirlease or their loan.
And that's where I was like,wow this.
You know, I've seen itfirsthand with hundreds of
customers where they are gettinga great benefit and
unfortunately, you know, itdidn't work out for me.
(10:59):
But I don't want to keephitting on that.
You know it's just I yeah, theonly thing I wanted to say to
that little piece and I'llswitch back.
But when something like thathappens to someone, I'm glad
that you wanted to address it,because when it happens to the
person and they're dealing withthat financial situation,
there's fights between husbandand wives and lives can be
(11:22):
ruined.
Speaker 2 (11:23):
That's a really good point.
That happens, that's a reallygood point.
Speaker 3 (11:25):
And it's crushing.
That's a really good point.
That's a really good point andit's crushing.
But at the end of the day, I'mglad that you brought me on,
because you guys are educatingpeople, you're helping people
understand the ins and outs ofyour industry, where I just look
(11:46):
at the finances and the benefit, I get it.
Yeah, no-transcript.
(12:13):
Now we're closing late.
Speaker 2 (12:15):
Right.
Speaker 3 (12:16):
And now we're out of you know, then we're falling out
of the contract.
Speaker 2 (12:21):
That's just the seller not doing the things that
they need to do.
Right, right Okay.
Speaker 1 (12:25):
Do you find a lot of uneducated real estate agents or
homeowners who are trying tobuy or sell a home when it's
solar and they're like I justdon't know what to do?
Speaker 3 (12:32):
or well, yeah, I mean , yeah, that happens very often,
because how many times in yourlife are you going to buy a home
?
You know, some people might buysix, seven homes in their
lifetime, where the average ismaybe two or three homes in a
lifetime and with prices up,obviously that number is way
down right now.
But as things transition overthe next few years we're going
(12:53):
to see those numbers kind ofchange as the economy changes
and things like that.
Speaker 2 (12:59):
So do you get in a situation where, okay, so
someone's financing a system,right, they're paying for it and
they're selling the house.
Is the solar then rolled intothe price of the house?
How is that handled?
So let's say they still owe,let's say, $15,000 on the system
.
How does that all get handledwithin the transaction?
Speaker 1 (13:16):
On a loan, not a lease, yeah.
Speaker 3 (13:18):
So if they own the solar system with a loan, most
of the time the seller will justpay off the loan when they
close.
So what happens is, let's say,you sell your home for 400,000,
you owe 300,000 on your firstmortgage but then the solar.
Let's say, you owe 30,000 onthe solar loan.
(13:39):
That just gets paid off at thesale.
And then the seller gets, thenet proceeds.
Speaker 2 (13:45):
It just becomes part of the whole transaction.
Yeah Right, yes.
So in a sense, I would wholetransaction.
Yeah Right, yes.
So in a sense, I would thinkthe seller has to add value and
say okay, my system, I owe$30,000.
Instead of asking 280, I mightask 300 or 310.
So I can then pay it off aspart of the transaction.
Speaker 3 (13:59):
Yeah, and for a buyer ?
I mean they just got acompletely free solar system
that they never had to pay for.
So how?
Speaker 2 (14:06):
did the appraisers react to that?
Are the appraisers putting avalue onto the solar system at
all or no?
Speaker 3 (14:11):
not really.
I'm not seeing added value forsolar systems, not so much.
Speaker 1 (14:17):
Um, can you get us in touch with an appraiser to come
on the show?
Yeah, actually I do haveseveral contacts that we could
talk to.
Speaker 3 (14:24):
Um but um, you know, a lot of times when we say, and
you know, think you know, ifyou're putting money into your
home like remodeling, upgradingand that sort of thing in
general, we just say you'regetting half of you know half of
the value for what you put intoit so it's a fair assumption.
Yeah, if you put in 100k, yourvalue might go up 50k kind of a
(14:45):
thing.
Speaker 1 (14:46):
Okay, but I mean that that makes total sense yeah, I
also think there's a market, abit um marketability to solar.
Not just the financial aspect,because when you take a look at
like, oh, this person has solar,but they got it 10 years ago
when you know in theirgrandfathered in on aps's you
know rate where it's a higherexport rate, so it makes it more
like, wow, you know, if I wouldhave got that exact same system
(15:08):
today, my savings on my apsbill would wouldn't be as great
as this home that already hassolar.
It's grandfathered in on thatplan.
Because when, when a new umhomeowner takes over, they
assume that same grandfather umclause with aps.
So that's nice too, that's true.
Speaker 2 (15:27):
As a lender, are there things you're looking for?
I mean, we kind of talked alittle bit, but be specific.
As far as you see a home withsolar, what are you looking at
when you find, when instantlyyou see, okay, this home has
solar, I need to check this out,I need to look at this.
Do you also and with that, doyou guys ever order inspections
on the system to see if it'sworking?
Speaker 3 (15:48):
Great question.
Short answer is when we orderthe appraisal, the appraiser is
going to go out to the home andthey're going to look at the
property in and out, right.
So as far as the appraisal, ifthe appraiser doesn't kind of
bring up any issues or if theydon't see anything that looks
wrong, then we never ask for asolar inspection do you think
(16:12):
you should?
Speaker 2 (16:14):
what I mean by that is how many, what appraisers
experience and look, maybe theappraiser does nothing about
solar, so he doesn't really knowwhat he's looking at.
Speaker 1 (16:22):
Yeah, there's oh yeah , there's panels on the roof.
I totally get your concern withit.
Speaker 3 (16:27):
um, you know, I think one of the bigger things we
would worry about is, like, ifwe see like leaks on the inside
from the roof or any kind ofthat, if they see something like
that, then we're definitelygetting a roof inspection,
because I mean, you could have apaperweight sitting there if it
doesn't work.
Speaker 2 (16:44):
Yeah, true.
So the reason I'm asking thatis because, like, for instance,
instance, harman, what we do iswe offer that service to
realtors, and realtors have beentaking advantage of it where
they, if they have a home withsolar, they have our us go out
and do an inspection and we havea full report, just like an
appraiser puts a report together.
We have the same thing for thesolar system.
We'll tell you yep, thisthing's working great or no?
This thing needs this, this,this and this yeah to kind of
protect a buyer.
Speaker 1 (17:04):
We actually just had an inspection yesterday, went
out to the home, realized yoursystem's not even working.
It wasn't one of our customers,but we went out there because
they asked us to come out there.
We went out there and go, wow,your system's not even working.
So we got it up and running.
It was a quick, easy fix.
It was inexpensive, so thatautomatically boosts value in
your home.
Speaker 3 (17:24):
Yeah, that's actually something I would love to hear
more about.
Speaker 2 (17:28):
Of course we're salespeople.
Speaker 3 (17:36):
You think about it like well?
Speaker 1 (17:36):
somebody is concerned about oh, is the solar
benefiting me when they buy ahome?
I feel like that should be kindof in the disclosures too,
though the homeowner should knowif your system is working or
not, but how many times is thatactually getting disclosed?
Speaker 2 (17:45):
It's probably not.
Speaker 3 (17:46):
Yeah, the only way we can kind of gauge is, you know,
from my experiences well, let'slook at the APS bill and let's
see, you know, what are theypaying a month?
And if the dollars and centskind of makes sense, then okay,
great.
But on a deeper level, you know, after you know reconnecting
with Ben several years ago andkind of seeing his expertise in
(18:06):
solar, do you hear that, Ralph?
Speaker 2 (18:08):
No.
Speaker 3 (18:09):
And what he was able to do with just looking at my
system and evaluating it.
I was pretty impressed with hisknowledge and what he could do
and see as far as solar systems.
Stop talking, Do you hear that,Ralph?
And I'm not just trying tobuild him up too much, but I'm
definitely impressed and what Iwould say is if everybody, when
they buy a home, could have somekind of help just understanding
(18:31):
that the solar system isworking, it is benefiting their
system.
We need to give you moreinformation on this.
Speaker 2 (18:37):
That would be really good Because honestly, I think
it's one of the best productswe've ever come up with.
We sat around a room one dayand we said you know, every time
someone buys a house they getan inspection report.
Why don't they have aninspection report for the solar
system?
It makes total sense, right,and so we developed that product
a few years ago and startedputting it in real estate
companies um hands and theystarted using it.
It just makes sense.
If I'm going to buy a home thathas solar on it, I want to know
(19:00):
that it's working or if itneeds this, because if it has
issues and needs a thousand ortwo thousand dollars worth of
work, I'm going to work that inthe price.
I'm going to like I'm notpaying this.
You fix this before I buy it.
Whatever etc.
Speaker 1 (19:11):
I'm sure 99% of home buyers are not as educated as
you and I are.
When I was out home shoppingand I come across a home that
had solar, I was like let metake a look at it.
I don't need an inspectionbecause I can do it myself.
But homeowners aren't like youand I you know they're going to
go?
Speaker 3 (19:28):
Oh, it has solar I assume it's working.
Speaker 1 (19:31):
I don't know.
Speaker 2 (19:32):
Right, great product, so we'd give a thing.
We'll get you more informationon that, but I think that's
something that every anyonethat's buying a problem for
somebody that wants to buy ahouse that has solar on it.
If it's an owned system or afinance system, you lease system
(19:54):
.
I think you said that it's aneasy transfer process.
Speaker 3 (19:57):
Yeah, oh yeah.
Speaker 2 (19:58):
Right.
So that's pretty much in linewith everything we said Just
communication.
Speaker 1 (20:02):
That's all it is.
Speaker 2 (20:02):
It's all about communication.
I mean, I think the biggestchallenge that we have in the
industry is real estate agentsthat aren't educated, so they
just don't.
If they don't understand it,they're not going to like it
Right, so that's what they do.
I think more and more arestarting to get educated, but
there is still that really bigpiece that just don't get it and
don't want to deal with it.
Sure, you know.
So they're a challenge for us,and so we try to talk to as many
(20:24):
of those as we can.
Speaker 3 (20:25):
Right.
I mean there's a couple otherangles to look at it.
You know, if someone's tryingto close a transaction in two
weeks, you know, maybe that'sgoing to push their timeline out
a week.
It's extra paperwork, extraconversation.
So do I even want to deal withthis or take the time to go
through that?
So those are like some of theobstacles.
(20:46):
But I mean it's really a fiveminute conversation and a 15
minute phone call.
Speaker 2 (20:52):
So you just don't.
I was going to ask you do yousee any challenges with somebody
buying a house that has solaron it?
It sounds like you're sayingnot really.
Speaker 3 (20:59):
There's not really a true challenge behind it.
It's more so just like avoidingthe situation.
Like if the real estate agentsays, oh, you don't want a home
with solar, so the Like if thereal estate agent says, oh, you
don't want a home with solar.
Speaker 2 (21:11):
So the challenge is the real estate agent that's
uneducated, that doesn't want tosell it.
That's the challenge.
Speaker 3 (21:14):
Probably the more likely situation.
Speaker 2 (21:18):
But for the homeowner themselves it's not a challenge
.
If they want to buy a home withsolar, it's not a big deal.
Speaker 3 (21:22):
Yeah, I don't see why you wouldn't, as long as you're
getting a financial benefit.
And then if the seller is goingto just pay off the system, if
it's an own system and they payit off, I mean that's why not?
Yeah, there's literally no lossto the buyer.
No, there's nothing but a gain.
Yeah, I agree with you 100%.
Speaker 2 (21:41):
And just to clarify you don't see when you see a
house come in or a home come in,that's being bought or whatever
.
If it has a lease system,that's not a negative for you.
Speaker 3 (21:51):
No, not at all, you don't care if it's leased or
financed.
Yeah, if it's leased orfinanced, we don't care at all.
Yeah, it's just a matter ofwell.
We need a copy of the leaseagreement.
How much is it a month?
(22:11):
Again, just factoring in thepayments.
Factoring in the payments, sowhen somebody, um you know,
sells a home that has no solar,we don't factor in the
electricity bill into debt toincome ratios right, so I mean
it's a couple hundred a month ifthat on some of these systems
okay.
Speaker 2 (22:22):
So that's makes sense , because right now the biggest
thing out there, people's likeoh, if it has a lease, it's just
a big negative to sell and tobuy.
And you're saying that's justnot true.
Speaker 3 (22:31):
Yeah, let's look at the lease agreement again.
Yeah, what's those payments?
What's the electric payments?
Right, but yeah, no, I mean,even if it's a let's, you know,
everybody's refinancing theirloan.
Very easy to get the solarcompany just to fill out a,
you're transferring a lien,essentially.
Speaker 2 (22:52):
So very, very easy to do.
See, that was my next question.
How does it impact refinancing?
So, you're going right therewhich is beautiful.
Speaker 3 (22:59):
He follows the outline.
He's following my outline.
Speaker 1 (23:01):
Yeah, that's great.
Speaker 3 (23:02):
So refinancing not an issue either.
It's very easy, it's super easy.
Speaker 2 (23:06):
Wow, all an issue either.
Speaker 1 (23:07):
it's just, it's very easy like it's super easy, wow,
all right, this is all this allgood stuff no, it's good stuff.
Um, I actually had an encounterwith someone, um, recently.
Um, they were looking to buy ahouse and you know, they were
looking at all these differenthomes and they're like, oh, this
one.
You know a couple homes Ilooked at they had solar and I
just I just didn't want to dealwith that.
I'm like, well it's, it'snothing really to deal with,
like it's a five minute phonecall, like if this is your dream
(23:29):
home and it's everything I'veever wanted and everything.
Oh, but it has solar on theroof, never mind like, no like
let's pump the brakes a littlebit, like we can solve these
issues.
It's like ben was just sayingit's easy, we can, we can take
care of it.
Yeah, people, yeah people don'twant to listen, though there's
a type of loan impact.
Speaker 2 (23:47):
So if it's an fha, for instance I know fha has a
lot of rules or if it's a valoan, are there any any things
that impact, like if solar's onthere is?
Speaker 3 (23:56):
so if you go from like conventional, now we're
looking at fha, va or even usda,kind of the three guidelines in
there is like is it safe, is itsanitary, is it secure?
So, if everything is workingcorrectly and it meets all the
city, county, um, you know rulesor so you know, so to speak,
(24:18):
like it's up to code, yeah, it'sup to code, then we're good,
like there's zero concern there.
Speaker 2 (24:24):
Um, so just a lot of myths, a lot of yeah a lot of
misinformation misinformation,Exactly so okay, so there's no
special requirement by thegovernment and you're just a
couple of that, you saying it'sjust again, this is not a big
deal, right?
Yeah, sounds like an easytransition.
Are there mortgage programs outthere that are maybe more green
(24:44):
focused or, you know, they lookat renewable.
I mean, is there any kind ofprograms that you deal with out
there, or is it just based onbasic stuff?
Speaker 3 (24:51):
Well, a lot of people don't know about um, the, the
green programs that are alreadybuilt into FHA, va.
So you can get, you know,roughly $6,000 towards energy
efficiency improvements.
When you do a refinance or apurchase.
You can get extra loans forthose.
You have to have a contractorcome in and do the bids and then
(25:15):
they can literally build itright into the transaction put
the money in escrow.
Speaker 1 (25:22):
So this is kind of touch more on that.
So this is let's say, someonedoes not have solar and they
want to refinance.
They can use that.
What do you say?
Six grand towards like gettingsolar or is that how it works?
Yeah, yeah, that's true I didnot know that.
Speaker 2 (25:35):
I didn't know, that's true you go, so they can
refinance through one of theseprograms and get six thousand
dollars right put toward like acash out refinance so you could
do energy efficient windows, hotwater heaters, solar, other
different improvements, allrenewable stuff, all green stuff
.
Speaker 3 (25:52):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (25:55):
So, if you are looking to get solar and you are
looking to refinance your home.
I'm sure we'll flash hisinformation on the screen or
something.
Give him a call, you can getsome extra cash for that.
Towards that solar purchaseInteresting yeah.
I did not know that I learnedsomething new every day.
Speaker 2 (26:12):
It's usually not with Ralph, but I learned something
new every day.
Speaker 3 (26:15):
Wow, that's really that's yeah, there's a lot of
crazy stuff out there.
I mean, I could give youanother one, like, let's say you
want to buy a house.
Let's let's say we're going todo an FHA loan and you see the
home and it's not quite thedream home that you want it to
be.
We can do basically arenovation loan where you can
(26:37):
get $30,000, $60,000 towardsrenovations.
We got to look at how much isthe loan going to be and then,
once we do the renovations, whatwould be the appraised value
after the fact?
And then we can build in all ofthose renovations into a
purchase.
Speaker 2 (26:56):
But then would you be assigning value to solar.
In that sense PotentiallyInteresting?
Yeah, because you'd have tolike, if you're gonna say you're
assigning a value to therenovation got a talk to an
appraiser, yeah we do need toget an appraiser in here.
Speaker 3 (27:08):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (27:09):
Because I know that I talked to appraisers probably
10, maybe 8, 10 years ago andthey weren't assigning a whole
lot of value to solar, but theywere really starting to take a
look at it Because they weretrying to understand.
It was the same scenario wherereal estate agents were that
they just didn't understand itright so they wouldn't touch a
value on it, but they weretrying to educate themselves
through the appraisal board andmore and more so they could
(27:30):
actually start assigning somevalue.
And I've heard nationally theyhave started assigning value to
solar in some situations.
So I would really like to getone in here just to have that
more detailed conversation.
So another thing that peoplecould go to you for we kind of
talked about it a little bit,but there are people that get
solar that get bad loans.
I mean solar loans.
(27:51):
So just to give you an example,solar loans have really high
fees on them, way more than, I'msure, anything you guys even
get close to you I'm talking.
There's solar loans out therethat have up to almost 40 fees
on them.
Speaker 1 (28:02):
They disclaimer they could have high fees.
They don't not all of them.
You could have some with no fee.
They're all different kinds.
Speaker 2 (28:08):
There's different kinds.
You can go anywhere from zeroto about 38%.
Speaker 1 (28:13):
Depending on the solar loan 38% fee.
Think about that.
Speaker 2 (28:17):
There are people and the common thing there is the
lower your interest rate, thehigher your fees, especially in
today's world.
What's the interest rate on amortgage right now?
Speaker 3 (28:28):
Oh you Six, six and a half seven.
That's horrible.
Speaker 1 (28:33):
That's horrible.
That's what we're in Comparedto five years ago, that's bad.
Speaker 2 (28:36):
I know that it was higher even than that and it's
actually starting to come downit does look like things are on
a downtrend.
Speaker 3 (28:41):
Just a couple weeks ago, I would say, conventional
loans were at a seven and a halfpercent rate.
I would say conventional loanswere at like a seven and a half
percent rate, and so finallywe're starting to see a
downtrend.
That's good.
So we're getting really excitedabout that and hopefully we see
some continuation through thesummer.
What do you think will be bythe end of the year.
A lot of people ask me thatquestion like every day.
If you knew.
(29:03):
I know you don't know, but justa gut, if I was a mortgage
wizard, which you are, which Iam.
Speaker 1 (29:07):
That's his actual trademark name.
Speaker 2 (29:08):
Right, you're a mortgage wizard so you have to
tell us.
Speaker 3 (29:10):
And I had to guess.
I'm going to say by the end ofthe year we'll be at 1%.
No, no, I'm just kidding.
Five and a half.
Speaker 1 (29:18):
Five and a half, that's not horrible.
Speaker 3 (29:22):
And then people start getting excited and hopefully
we see some movement, becauseit's just like we're kind of
seeing this holding patternright now, even today still
which makes sense.
I mean, it's kind ofunderstandable.
A lot of first-time buyers arepriced out of the market
completely between thehigh-priced homes as well as the
higher rates.
(29:42):
So when we look at it from afinancial perspective, my first
question is always you know, howmuch are you paying in rent,
right?
Because if I know you're payingtwo thousand a month in rent.
Four hundred thousand dollarpurchase price on a home right
now is going to be three grand amonth.
You know, psychologically areyou comfortable to pay an extra
thousand dollars a month on justyour home payment?
Speaker 2 (30:04):
So not including all the other stuff in owning a home
.
Speaker 3 (30:06):
Yeah yeah, you know home payment, so not including
all the other stuff in owning ahome, yeah, yeah, and you know
for a lot of folks out therelistening you know you might
want to be at.
You know when you look at youroverall budget, your total take
home, you want to be at about25%.
You know your mortgage and allyour utilities and just your
(30:27):
home shouldn't be more than 25%of your net take home, your home
alone 25% Home electricity.
Speaker 2 (30:30):
All of that combined.
Speaker 3 (30:31):
Yeah, your utilities.
Speaker 2 (30:32):
Should be about 25% of your take home.
Speaker 3 (30:34):
Correct On your budget.
That's not like a requirednumber, because when we do a
mortgage and we look at yourmortgage and all of your debt in
general, 50% of your gross canbe debt and mortgage.
So your 50% DTI is what you'relooking at.
That's kind of the magic number.
You know FHA, VA.
We can go a little bit abovethat in some cases, depending on
(30:57):
credit and how much you havesaved and things like that.
Speaker 2 (31:00):
But yeah, what do you consider when you look at
somebody's coming in with theircredit score?
What's a good credit score foryou?
What is something you're hopingto see?
Speaker 3 (31:07):
Um, you know, if it's above 600, that's like the
number.
Where it's like okay, we got anopportunity to help someone.
Speaker 1 (31:13):
Yes, we're good.
Speaker 2 (31:15):
But I'm expecting a higher number than that.
Speaker 3 (31:18):
Now, if you're putting 10% down, um, I go down
to like five, 50 on an FHA loan.
Wow, most banks cannot do that.
As brokers, we shop over 100lenders in the country, so we're
shopping for rates for you.
Our fees are way less as abroker.
We don't charge an originationfee.
(31:38):
We don't have a lot of theadded built-in fees.
Retail lenders the way theyoperate, they've got margins
kind of built into the rates toget more money for the lender
ultimately.
But three years ago I switchedto price mortgage for that exact
reason was how can we get therates as low as possible to
(31:58):
where we're more competitivethan anyone else?
And that's pretty much how I'vesurvived staying in the
industry for the last threeyears.
Pretty much how I've survivedstaying in the industry for the
last three years.
If I didn't make that move, I'dprobably be out with the other
75% of people that have new jobsnow Selling solar Okay.
Speaker 2 (32:17):
So that's this is good.
I want to talk more about this,to kind of pump what you guys
do.
So if someone walks in with a550, it doesn't mean they're
done, they're not done.
You could actually help them.
Speaker 3 (32:26):
They're not done and I still love talking with those
folks because I mean, if theyare done today, next year we're
going to help them get to wherethey need to be Somebody walks
in with a 750.
That's gold right, I mean, yeah,I mean anything above 700, we
can do a lot for, like there's,you know all the options are
there.
So then it's, you know, when welook at those loans what's the
(32:52):
most financially savvy optionfor you.
Right, if, depending on howmuch money you're putting down,
where's the rate, where's thepayment?
We got to look at those thingsand then you know, most of the
folks that are closing on atransaction this year will, you
know, highly likely berefinancing in the next one, two
, three years tops.
Sure, that makes a lot of sense.
So I'll often tell them wedon't want to spend several
thousand dollars buying down alower rate right now because if
(33:16):
you refinance 12 months later,you basically lost the benefit
of paying extra money at closingto get that lower interest rate
.
Speaker 2 (33:23):
Yeah, I mean that makes sense, right?
I think you're 100% right.
I think the people that havebeen buying homes in the last
probably 12 months and the onesthat will buy them this year
will be financed in the next twoyears.
Speaker 3 (33:31):
Sure Sure.
Speaker 2 (33:32):
That just makes sense .
There's guys like me that Irefinanced I don't know last
time Trump was in office and myI got a 3% rate Right.
So those are the guys likewe're not.
We're not going to move at all,we're going to either, unless
we sell and move out of state.
I think that segment of peopleare just, they're stuck and that
kind of hurt you guys a littlebit too, because those people
don't want to do anything,because the minute they touch it
(33:53):
now their rates go higher.
Agreed.
Speaker 3 (33:56):
Yeah, oh yeah.
Speaker 2 (33:57):
So that's kind of hurt the industry a little bit
too, for the last few yearsRates just got too low.
Speaker 1 (34:02):
I mean people took advantage of it for the right
reason.
Sure, I did.
Yeah, I know how do you notright, Right, right?
Speaker 2 (34:09):
But I think what you're saying at five and a half
, if you can get to down to five, five and a half percent by the
end of this year, I thinkthat's a win, that's a huge win.
It opens your market back up,yeah so.
Speaker 3 (34:17):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (34:31):
No.
Speaker 3 (34:31):
I to.
I see that direction coming.
Yeah, with the way theeconomy's changing, the change
in, you know, governmentpolicies and all those things
coming through.
Um, you know the S?
The stock market is trendingdown a little bit.
Right now we look like we're incorrection territory where, you
know, we're putting everythingin a box and shaking it all
around, mixing it up, confusingeverybody.
Investors are freaking out, butmaybe it's a very healthy
(34:53):
change that we need.
Speaker 2 (34:54):
No, I agree.
I think things.
I mean the solar industry tooka huge hit in the last four
years as well.
I mean with the economy and theway it went and the interest
rate.
We were selling 0.49% loansfour years ago.
Speaker 1 (35:07):
That was crazy 0.49%.
Speaker 3 (35:09):
Yeah, the only thing I'll comment on is when I did my
solar back in 2018, I got 2.99%.
Right so that was the onepositive where like oh okay.
Speaker 2 (35:19):
No, that's a good rate.
I mean, I guarantee you there'sa fee that was built into that.
That probably was 25%.
Speaker 3 (35:25):
Yeah, back then.
Speaker 2 (35:29):
But we were down to 0.49 just four years ago and it
was, you know, easy to sell 0.49loans, not bad.
Then it went from 0.49 up to999, 899 and the industry just
died.
Yeah, like the 10 topinstallers, uh, in solar, from
20,022, are all out of businessin the country.
They all went out of businessin the country.
(35:49):
They all went out of business,the top 10.
Wow, because the economy andwhat it did, right.
But now we're starting to seethe correction and we're
actually starting to see down to399 again, which is that's
where most I think that's thelowest that's out there right
now right, 399.
So we anticipate they're goingto go even lower.
I heard that they corrected arate yesterday.
They dropped the rates.
Speaker 1 (36:07):
Yeah, is that true?
I'll have to look at it.
I know it was this week, is itthis week?
Speaker 3 (36:13):
Yeah, just banking and finance in general.
All the rates should kind of becoming down across the board.
Speaker 2 (36:19):
What I like about what you guys do is, like you
just said, is you go out thereand search for the best
opportunity for people, versusjust offering what you have.
Speaker 3 (36:29):
Yeah, you'd be surprised.
So, like every week, there's anew flavor of the week.
I call it Because this lenderwants to drop their rate or
their margin down to the pointwhere they're number one on the
sheet.
But next week there's going tobe a completely different five
companies that are the top five.
Speaker 1 (36:46):
Because they don't want to be number one.
Speaker 3 (36:47):
If I work directly as a retail lender with one
company, I'm subject to whatevertheir products and pricing
management team.
They set their rate and theirmargin any given week, any given
day, so I'm having to play withtheir numbers.
But as a broker, I get to playwith everybody's numbers and
find out what's best for mycustomer.
Speaker 2 (37:05):
Well, it reminds me of our business, everybody's
numbers and find out what's bestfor my customer.
So well, it reminds me of ourbusiness.
I mean, you're, you're, you'relined up with us really well,
because we're we talk about thisall the time is that we don't
just offer you this right?
Speaker 1 (37:13):
We don't have just one finance company or one
modules to offer one inverterLike.
We have options.
Speaker 2 (37:19):
We have options, because those companies that
only have this talk about that.
This is the best thing for youand this is what you need versus
what you really need, right,because that's all they sell.
So you're kind of in that sameboat, which I really think is
really important that people cango to you.
The mortgage wizard.
Speaker 3 (37:32):
That's your name, right yeah?
Speaker 2 (37:34):
The mortgage wizard and he will work for you and he
will look at all the differentoptions and what makes best
sense for you.
That's what I want when I havesomebody working for me.
Yeah, so I mean, that makes alot of sense.
So if somebody wants to getahold of you, how do they find
you?
You?
Speaker 3 (37:47):
know it's pretty easy , my contact number.
Most people call me.
Text me.
If you find me on social mediayou can message me.
But yeah, I mean I can give youmy contact.
Speaker 2 (37:57):
Yeah, no, say it, it's pretty easy 602-885-3863.
Speaker 3 (38:02):
Okay.
Speaker 2 (38:03):
Is there an email?
Speaker 3 (38:04):
address yeah, it's brubenstein at pricemortgagecom.
Speaker 2 (38:09):
Are you on the internebs interwebs?
Oh yeah, oh yeah, I've got awebsite.
Speaker 3 (38:14):
I've got Facebook, instagram and all that fun stuff
.
How can people find you on theinterwebs.
Speaker 2 (38:18):
Is there any particular way you want them to
go?
I mean, like for me, they justlook at Solar God and they find
no, I'm kidding, no, but I mean,how do they find you?
Is there a mortgage wizard ison the internet or yeah, I
haven't done that, unfortunately, not yet.
Speaker 3 (38:29):
You need to do that, you need to put a little wizard.
If you search Ben Rubenstein,my name's coming up for sure.
There's only one of those inthe world If you search Ben
Rubenstein, there's so many BenRubensteins.
It's unbelievable.
But but there's only onemortgage wizard.
Speaker 2 (38:44):
There's only one mortgage wizard.
You need to do the whole wizardoutfit.
Speaker 3 (38:48):
Yeah, I mean, I thought about that for Halloween
, you know crystal ball and allthat, Can we?
Speaker 1 (38:53):
reshoot this podcast with you dressed up as a wizard.
That would be phenomenal.
I mean, I could do that, yeah.
Speaker 2 (38:59):
We could have him come in and dress that way and I
could just do camera effectsand make it seem like boom.
That'd be really fun fine Smoke.
Any other things.
Speaker 1 (39:06):
No, thank you for coming.
I'm really glad I came in andmet both of you.
Speaker 3 (39:12):
Yeah, it was cool.
We learned a lot.
Really cool experience.
Thank you for inviting meAbsolutely.
Speaker 2 (39:16):
We need to get a hold of an appraiser next.
We weren't thinking about that,but I think, after talking to
Ben, that just makes a lot ofsense.
We're going to get down dirtyon this stuff because he just
cleared up a lot of myths thatare out there.
Speaker 1 (39:26):
Yeah, we talked with a real estate agent, we talked
with a mortgage expert.
Now we need an appraisal.
Speaker 2 (39:30):
Um, probably I want to talk with um homeowners
insurance agents yeah,absolutely you know how that
affects everything, so and benneeds to get your information on
those uh system reports that wedo, because I think that's
really beneficial to yourcustomers.
If they're buying solar, yougot to protect them yeah, yeah,
we're all about the consumer andI think that's why we developed
that and that's I think it'd bea good product for you.
Yeah, could be, so all right,so that that's uh, our, uh, our
(39:52):
talk about mortgage, and Ilearned a lot.
Ben learned a lot, yeah, and bennever says that I know so see
what happens to get two benstogether uh, mr everything plus
some mortgage stuff hey.
So thanks for watching.
We'll be coming at you realsoon here.
We've got so much cool stufflined up.
We have so many guests lined upand we're doing something
special in April as well.
(40:13):
We'll get to that on the nextone, but that's going to be
really cool.
But we'll be out here soon.
Again, thanks for watching andwe'll talk to you then.
Thank you.
Speaker 3 (40:20):
Thank you.
Welcome to another edition of the HarmanSolar
Podcast.
I'm Rob Fremano, vp of Salesand Marketing at HarmanSolar,
and with me, as always, mrEverything, ben Wohlschlager.
Ben, how are you today?
Speaker 1 (00:35):
I'm doing great, are you sure I had a breakfast taco
this morning.
I had my bottle of water.
Speaker 2 (00:39):
I'm pumped, ben comes here for the food.
Speaker 1 (00:41):
That's the only reason why I'm here.
Speaker 2 (00:42):
Only reason Keep Ben comes here for the food.
That's the only reason why I'mhere, only reason Keep me on
payroll.
So kind of exciting to me.
This is the last ever HarmonSolar podcast that we are going
to shoot in this studio.
We are opening up a new studioat the Harmon Solar podcast, or
Harmon Solar headquarters,corporate headquarters, and I
myself have been building thisstudio.
Ben has helped nothing at all,that's true, and it's actually
(01:04):
coming out really well.
But our next podcast goingforward will all be done at our
new Harm and Solar Podcast.
Speaker 1 (01:08):
Studios.
In my defense, I've providedcreative input, manual labor Wow
, creative input yeah.
Speaker 2 (01:16):
Yeah, I like that.
I agree with that, okay, thanks.
Speaker 3 (01:18):
All right.
Thanks for the input You'rewelcome.
Speaker 2 (01:20):
Today we are going to talk with a mortgage lender.
We've never done that and wegot a guy, Another guy.
We always got a guy.
Usually we have, sometimes weget a gal, but today we got a
guy right.
This guy is Ben Rubenstein.
Did I say that wrong?
You said it right.
No, that's perfect.
Ben Rubenstein with PriceMortgage Ben how you doing.
Speaker 3 (01:40):
Hey, I'm doing great, feeling great.
Anyone in the mortgage industrymaybe is not great you know
it's a tough business, right nowbut we're still having a lot of
fun.
Speaker 1 (01:51):
I was going to say why are you feeling great?
Yeah, we're eating ramen.
Speaker 2 (01:54):
Yeah, just kidding, we're eating ramen, so Price
Mortgage.
How long have you been there so?
Speaker 3 (01:58):
I've been with Price a little over three years In the
mortgage industry about 15years, Wow, okay.
Banking and finance since highschool Started all the way back
at Wells Fargo and then kind ofjust worked my way through up
the ranks.
Okay.
Speaker 2 (02:14):
And here we are.
And here we are in one of theworst times ever.
Speaker 1 (02:17):
Okay, we got an expert in the industry, which we
needed, right.
Speaker 2 (02:22):
So we've gone through the good and bad over the last
15 years.
Speaker 1 (02:24):
Yeah, but why?
Which we needed?
Right.
So we've gone through the goodand bad over the last 15 years.
Yeah, but why in the worldwould we have a mortgage?
Speaker 2 (02:29):
expert on a solar podcast Because you asked me to.
I have no idea why.
Speaker 1 (02:30):
That doesn't make sense, does it?
Well tell us why.
Well, I mean, people buy andsell homes all the time, right,
and sometimes those homes havesolar on them.
So people want to know well,how does that affect me selling
my home?
Or if I'm buying a home thathas solar?
This is a solar loan on thehouse that I'm buying or selling
.
What are the ins and outs, whatare the questions?
(02:51):
And we, as solar experts, wealways kind of you know default
to ask an expert because we'renot, you know, experts in
mortgages or real?
estate, things like that.
So ask your mortgage expert oryour real estate expert.
So that's what we have.
But here's the cool caveat.
Speaker 2 (03:05):
There is a caveat to this, right.
Not only is Ben a mortgageexpert at least you think you
are no, you are, You're amortgage expert, but you're a
solar owner as well.
Speaker 3 (03:20):
Yeah, that's true.
Speaker 2 (03:21):
Yeah, I've had solar for six years now Six years, so
I want to talk about that,because we had a conversation
with Ben before we startedshooting the podcast and an
interesting topic came up abouthis solar, and we talk about all
the time people that maybedon't get the best deal in the
world Taking advantage of RightMeet Mr X.
Speaker 1 (03:40):
Speak of the devil yeah.
Speaker 2 (03:43):
So tell us about your solar experience.
Now, it wasn't with Harman, solet's get that out there.
It was with a competitor.
Yeah, we won't say the company,no, we won't do that, but talk
about your experience.
You've had solar since 2018,you?
Speaker 3 (03:52):
said, right, yeah, so I've had it for about six years
.
I'm just thinking back to whenthe salesperson came to my home
and offered me the program andhow it was going to benefit me
and initially I saw thefinancial benefit was the
biggest decision.
When I see the ability to own ahome, potentially have what
(04:14):
they say is zero net benefit foryour electricity, right, like,
I'm not going to pay forelectricity.
So it was just the challenge ofthe thought of that was amazing
to me because I could, you know, run a household with five kids
yeah, you know, 3000 squarefoot.
Energy costs keep rising.
(04:35):
So I saw it as an opportunitylike, okay, I'm going to save
three 400 a month, wow, yeah.
Speaker 2 (04:42):
And that makes sense.
It looked good on paper yeah,yeah, I mean so three thousand
square foot home, right, sotwo-story house.
They put a 7k system on yourhouse.
Now a lot of you might not knowwhat that means.
It's a smaller system in theindustry.
I mean so for somebody that'sprobably using a lot of.
You said you had five kids.
You know three thousand squarefeet.
You're probably using a lot ofpower.
Speaker 1 (05:03):
Yeah, that's for someone who's probably their
electric bills are probably likeaveraging, maybe a hundred
dollars a month for seven cases.
Yeah, it's small somewherearound there, but you weren't
averaging a hundred dollars amonth, probably before you had
solar.
Speaker 3 (05:15):
Right, right, yeah.
Yeah, I was paying like two 80a month on a budget plan back
then.
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (05:26):
And you're talking about 2018.
So yeah, and solar was prettyhot back then.
I mean, I just come off the 17drop and then yeah, so I mean
that was a good time for solar.
So you were paying about 280 amonth.
What are you paying now?
Speaker 3 (05:35):
So I'm not on the budget plan but it'll teeter.
You know this is supposedly theone of the lower months of the
year.
Close to $200 for theelectricity piece, paying almost
$200 a month for the loan thatI got for my solar.
So that's $400 on the low end,I suppose, and then this summer
I'm expecting probably close to$700 for June and July Right.
Speaker 1 (05:58):
Yeah, so we've talked a little bit about this before
the show started.
You know, it doesn't look likeyou're saving money, obviously.
Um, because you're looking,you're paying more.
I mean, there is a savings, butwe feel that you're probably
paying too much for the solarsystem alone, like what, what
you're getting discounted fromyour, your aps bill.
(06:18):
Yeah, there's a savings, butthen you account for, well, how
much am I paying for the solarsystem itself?
Right, that was too much so,and that's what we kind of got
this podcast started for rightto help people out to, you know,
kind of educate them a littlebit like, hey, this is how
things actually work and this ishow you should, you know, vet
these companies these are thekind of stories that piss me off
(06:39):
.
Speaker 2 (06:39):
Yeah, this is why you said, this is why we do this.
Ralph is heated.
I get heated when I hear stufflike this because it's it's a a
gentleman that his family weretaking, they were taking
advantage of to line someone'spockets, and that's all that
happened.
Sure, in my opinion, based onwhat you told me you paid, you
probably paid, I'd say, abouttwelve thousand dollars too much
for that system.
Yeah, then, if you would havepaid that less twelve thousand
(07:01):
dollars you actually would itwouldn't be.
You'd be okay.
Your loan would be a lot less.
It's still that system's waytoo small.
You would need a bigger system,but you'd be in a better
position than you are now.
So just I stuff.
Just it irks me, right?
It's why we want to do thispodcast.
It's why we'll never stop doingthis, because you want to keep
informing people.
Be careful of who you'retalking to, who you're dealing
with.
You really got to be able toresearch it Back in 2018, there
(07:23):
wasn't a ton of stuff out there.
You know about all this.
There wasn't this, this uh,what the word?
I'm looking for the awarenessthat we're starting to create
that wasn't really there in 2018.
Speaker 3 (07:33):
It was a free for all yeah.
Speaker 2 (07:34):
Right, it was the wild west.
It was yeah, uh, it's not thatanymore, so and we're trying to
help make sure that that stuffjust doesn't happen anymore.
So I'm sorry that you had thatexperience, because solar is a
great thing for people.
It can be and you always say itright Solar is not for
everybody, but everyone shouldtake a look.
And maybe it wasn't for him, Idon't know.
I mean looking at his house.
Speaker 3 (07:52):
Yeah, I think he could have definitely got a
better system and paid less orat least a better deal.
Speaker 1 (07:56):
Yeah, it would have been a better deal.
Speaker 2 (07:57):
But anyway, I wanted to start there because it just
pissed me off so much.
So on that note.
Speaker 1 (08:03):
On that note, let's talk about mortgage.
Speaker 2 (08:04):
We did bring it on for a different reason, right,
we want to talk about mortgageand we want to talk about
mortgage and solar because it'sI'm sure that you're seeing more
and more people that have homesthat have solar on them, right?
I mean, that's just bigger partof this market now.
Speaker 3 (08:15):
Yeah, a lot of the transactions we see have you
know whether it's a purchase orrefinance, the homes are going
to have solar panels, there's agood chance right.
And when people are going in tobuy homes, we kind of look at
the same things that I did whenI was making the very same
decision Well, what's theelectric bill look like on a
(08:35):
monthly basis?
So I'll often want to educatemy clients on what was the
payments over the last year sothey can kind of see that, in
addition to if it's a solarlease, how much is that a month?
Or if they're carrying a loan,how much is that a month.
So it's about the financialdecisions behind the solar right
and then the process.
Speaker 2 (08:55):
Do you you just mentioned lease do you look at a
system, you look at a situationand go, oh, it's a purchase,
that's better, or oh's a lease,that's kind of a negative?
I mean, do you have a stigma?
Either way, do you say, ah,it's a lease.
We have to be more carefulbecause there's a lot more
involved here versus a purchase.
Speaker 3 (09:11):
No, it's not so much a stigma.
I mean, when you take thepayments in account, that does
factor into the debt-to-incomeratio.
On qualifying, while I haven'treally experienced a situation
where, oh, we can't buy a housebecause of solar oh, you haven't
.
Speaker 1 (09:26):
That's good, yeah, very positive.
Can you repeat that andenunciate every word, because we
do get that a lot Like oh theyhave solar.
Speaker 3 (09:33):
I can't buy a house, yeah, so a lot of you know, and
I think part of it comes in onthe real estate's opinion,
because they're you know,they're kind of recommending
things to their clients as well.
So if they have a negative orpositive outlook on solar, that
could be a good or bad thing,but at the end of the day it's
very easy to do a transactionwhen solar is involved.
(09:56):
So if you're selling a home,they're going to get you know,
they call into the solar company, they make a request, fill out
some paperwork.
It's a couple weeks process.
The buyer calls into the solarcompany, fills out an
application sort of situationand then, once they review and
approve it, you know thetransfer process gets completed
(10:19):
and we get all the paperwork weneed to close the loan.
It's really not a problem atall Easy.
Speaker 2 (10:24):
I like this guy.
It's very easy Because you'resaying everything we've been
saying.
Speaker 1 (10:28):
Right, it's not an issue.
It's not an issue.
Just do your due diligence andget it done.
Speaker 2 (10:33):
Do you feel solar adds value to a home?
Speaker 3 (10:36):
It does when the system yeah.
So I've seen a lot of amazingsituations where solar does
benefit the customer, where theydon't have that electric
payment and they just have theirlease or their loan.
And that's where I was like,wow this.
You know, I've seen itfirsthand with hundreds of
customers where they are gettinga great benefit and
unfortunately, you know, itdidn't work out for me.
(10:59):
But I don't want to keephitting on that.
You know it's just I yeah, theonly thing I wanted to say to
that little piece and I'llswitch back.
But when something like thathappens to someone, I'm glad
that you wanted to address it,because when it happens to the
person and they're dealing withthat financial situation,
there's fights between husbandand wives and lives can be
(11:22):
ruined.
Speaker 2 (11:23):
That's a really good point.
That happens, that's a reallygood point.
Speaker 3 (11:25):
And it's crushing.
That's a really good point.
That's a really good point andit's crushing.
But at the end of the day, I'mglad that you brought me on,
because you guys are educatingpeople, you're helping people
understand the ins and outs ofyour industry, where I just look
(11:46):
at the finances and the benefit, I get it.
Yeah, no-transcript.
(12:13):
Now we're closing late.
Speaker 2 (12:15):
Right.
Speaker 3 (12:16):
And now we're out of you know, then we're falling out
of the contract.
Speaker 2 (12:21):
That's just the seller not doing the things that
they need to do.
Right, right Okay.
Speaker 1 (12:25):
Do you find a lot of uneducated real estate agents or
homeowners who are trying tobuy or sell a home when it's
solar and they're like I justdon't know what to do?
Speaker 3 (12:32):
or well, yeah, I mean , yeah, that happens very often,
because how many times in yourlife are you going to buy a home
?
You know, some people might buysix, seven homes in their
lifetime, where the average ismaybe two or three homes in a
lifetime and with prices up,obviously that number is way
down right now.
But as things transition overthe next few years we're going
(12:53):
to see those numbers kind ofchange as the economy changes
and things like that.
Speaker 2 (12:59):
So do you get in a situation where, okay, so
someone's financing a system,right, they're paying for it and
they're selling the house.
Is the solar then rolled intothe price of the house?
How is that handled?
So let's say they still owe,let's say, $15,000 on the system
.
How does that all get handledwithin the transaction?
Speaker 1 (13:16):
On a loan, not a lease, yeah.
Speaker 3 (13:18):
So if they own the solar system with a loan, most
of the time the seller will justpay off the loan when they
close.
So what happens is, let's say,you sell your home for 400,000,
you owe 300,000 on your firstmortgage but then the solar.
Let's say, you owe 30,000 onthe solar loan.
(13:39):
That just gets paid off at thesale.
And then the seller gets, thenet proceeds.
Speaker 2 (13:45):
It just becomes part of the whole transaction.
Yeah Right, yes.
So in a sense, I would wholetransaction.
Yeah Right, yes.
So in a sense, I would thinkthe seller has to add value and
say okay, my system, I owe$30,000.
Instead of asking 280, I mightask 300 or 310.
So I can then pay it off aspart of the transaction.
Speaker 3 (13:59):
Yeah, and for a buyer ?
I mean they just got acompletely free solar system
that they never had to pay for.
So how?
Speaker 2 (14:06):
did the appraisers react to that?
Are the appraisers putting avalue onto the solar system at
all or no?
Speaker 3 (14:11):
not really.
I'm not seeing added value forsolar systems, not so much.
Speaker 1 (14:17):
Um, can you get us in touch with an appraiser to come
on the show?
Yeah, actually I do haveseveral contacts that we could
talk to.
Speaker 3 (14:24):
Um but um, you know, a lot of times when we say, and
you know, think you know, ifyou're putting money into your
home like remodeling, upgradingand that sort of thing in
general, we just say you'regetting half of you know half of
the value for what you put intoit so it's a fair assumption.
Yeah, if you put in 100k, yourvalue might go up 50k kind of a
(14:45):
thing.
Speaker 1 (14:46):
Okay, but I mean that that makes total sense yeah, I
also think there's a market, abit um marketability to solar.
Not just the financial aspect,because when you take a look at
like, oh, this person has solar,but they got it 10 years ago
when you know in theirgrandfathered in on aps's you
know rate where it's a higherexport rate, so it makes it more
like, wow, you know, if I wouldhave got that exact same system
(15:08):
today, my savings on my apsbill would wouldn't be as great
as this home that already hassolar.
It's grandfathered in on thatplan.
Because when, when a new umhomeowner takes over, they
assume that same grandfather umclause with aps.
So that's nice too, that's true.
Speaker 2 (15:27):
As a lender, are there things you're looking for?
I mean, we kind of talked alittle bit, but be specific.
As far as you see a home withsolar, what are you looking at
when you find, when instantlyyou see, okay, this home has
solar, I need to check this out,I need to look at this.
Do you also and with that, doyou guys ever order inspections
on the system to see if it'sworking?
Speaker 3 (15:48):
Great question.
Short answer is when we orderthe appraisal, the appraiser is
going to go out to the home andthey're going to look at the
property in and out, right.
So as far as the appraisal, ifthe appraiser doesn't kind of
bring up any issues or if theydon't see anything that looks
wrong, then we never ask for asolar inspection do you think
(16:12):
you should?
Speaker 2 (16:14):
what I mean by that is how many, what appraisers
experience and look, maybe theappraiser does nothing about
solar, so he doesn't really knowwhat he's looking at.
Speaker 1 (16:22):
Yeah, there's oh yeah , there's panels on the roof.
I totally get your concern withit.
Speaker 3 (16:27):
um, you know, I think one of the bigger things we
would worry about is, like, ifwe see like leaks on the inside
from the roof or any kind ofthat, if they see something like
that, then we're definitelygetting a roof inspection,
because I mean, you could have apaperweight sitting there if it
doesn't work.
Speaker 2 (16:44):
Yeah, true.
So the reason I'm asking thatis because, like, for instance,
instance, harman, what we do iswe offer that service to
realtors, and realtors have beentaking advantage of it where
they, if they have a home withsolar, they have our us go out
and do an inspection and we havea full report, just like an
appraiser puts a report together.
We have the same thing for thesolar system.
We'll tell you yep, thisthing's working great or no?
This thing needs this, this,this and this yeah to kind of
protect a buyer.
Speaker 1 (17:04):
We actually just had an inspection yesterday, went
out to the home, realized yoursystem's not even working.
It wasn't one of our customers,but we went out there because
they asked us to come out there.
We went out there and go, wow,your system's not even working.
So we got it up and running.
It was a quick, easy fix.
It was inexpensive, so thatautomatically boosts value in
your home.
Speaker 3 (17:24):
Yeah, that's actually something I would love to hear
more about.
Speaker 2 (17:28):
Of course we're salespeople.
Speaker 3 (17:36):
You think about it like well?
Speaker 1 (17:36):
somebody is concerned about oh, is the solar
benefiting me when they buy ahome?
I feel like that should be kindof in the disclosures too,
though the homeowner should knowif your system is working or
not, but how many times is thatactually getting disclosed?
Speaker 2 (17:45):
It's probably not.
Speaker 3 (17:46):
Yeah, the only way we can kind of gauge is, you know,
from my experiences well, let'slook at the APS bill and let's
see, you know, what are theypaying a month?
And if the dollars and centskind of makes sense, then okay,
great.
But on a deeper level, you know, after you know reconnecting
with Ben several years ago andkind of seeing his expertise in
(18:06):
solar, do you hear that, Ralph?
Speaker 2 (18:08):
No.
Speaker 3 (18:09):
And what he was able to do with just looking at my
system and evaluating it.
I was pretty impressed with hisknowledge and what he could do
and see as far as solar systems.
Stop talking, Do you hear that,Ralph?
And I'm not just trying tobuild him up too much, but I'm
definitely impressed and what Iwould say is if everybody, when
they buy a home, could have somekind of help just understanding
(18:31):
that the solar system isworking, it is benefiting their
system.
We need to give you moreinformation on this.
Speaker 2 (18:37):
That would be really good Because honestly, I think
it's one of the best productswe've ever come up with.
We sat around a room one dayand we said you know, every time
someone buys a house they getan inspection report.
Why don't they have aninspection report for the solar
system?
It makes total sense, right,and so we developed that product
a few years ago and startedputting it in real estate
companies um hands and theystarted using it.
It just makes sense.
If I'm going to buy a home thathas solar on it, I want to know
(19:00):
that it's working or if itneeds this, because if it has
issues and needs a thousand ortwo thousand dollars worth of
work, I'm going to work that inthe price.
I'm going to like I'm notpaying this.
You fix this before I buy it.
Whatever etc.
Speaker 1 (19:11):
I'm sure 99% of home buyers are not as educated as
you and I are.
When I was out home shoppingand I come across a home that
had solar, I was like let metake a look at it.
I don't need an inspectionbecause I can do it myself.
But homeowners aren't like youand I you know they're going to
go?
Speaker 3 (19:28):
Oh, it has solar I assume it's working.
Speaker 1 (19:31):
I don't know.
Speaker 2 (19:32):
Right, great product, so we'd give a thing.
We'll get you more informationon that, but I think that's
something that every anyonethat's buying a problem for
somebody that wants to buy ahouse that has solar on it.
If it's an owned system or afinance system, you lease system
(19:54):
.
I think you said that it's aneasy transfer process.
Speaker 3 (19:57):
Yeah, oh yeah.
Speaker 2 (19:58):
Right.
So that's pretty much in linewith everything we said Just
communication.
Speaker 1 (20:02):
That's all it is.
Speaker 2 (20:02):
It's all about communication.
I mean, I think the biggestchallenge that we have in the
industry is real estate agentsthat aren't educated, so they
just don't.
If they don't understand it,they're not going to like it
Right, so that's what they do.
I think more and more arestarting to get educated, but
there is still that really bigpiece that just don't get it and
don't want to deal with it.
Sure, you know.
So they're a challenge for us,and so we try to talk to as many
(20:24):
of those as we can.
Speaker 3 (20:25):
Right.
I mean there's a couple otherangles to look at it.
You know, if someone's tryingto close a transaction in two
weeks, you know, maybe that'sgoing to push their timeline out
a week.
It's extra paperwork, extraconversation.
So do I even want to deal withthis or take the time to go
through that?
So those are like some of theobstacles.
(20:46):
But I mean it's really a fiveminute conversation and a 15
minute phone call.
Speaker 2 (20:52):
So you just don't.
I was going to ask you do yousee any challenges with somebody
buying a house that has solaron it?
It sounds like you're sayingnot really.
Speaker 3 (20:59):
There's not really a true challenge behind it.
It's more so just like avoidingthe situation.
Like if the real estate agentsays, oh, you don't want a home
with solar, so the Like if thereal estate agent says, oh, you
don't want a home with solar.
Speaker 2 (21:11):
So the challenge is the real estate agent that's
uneducated, that doesn't want tosell it.
That's the challenge.
Speaker 3 (21:14):
Probably the more likely situation.
Speaker 2 (21:18):
But for the homeowner themselves it's not a challenge
.
If they want to buy a home withsolar, it's not a big deal.
Speaker 3 (21:22):
Yeah, I don't see why you wouldn't, as long as you're
getting a financial benefit.
And then if the seller is goingto just pay off the system, if
it's an own system and they payit off, I mean that's why not?
Yeah, there's literally no lossto the buyer.
No, there's nothing but a gain.
Yeah, I agree with you 100%.
Speaker 2 (21:41):
And just to clarify you don't see when you see a
house come in or a home come in,that's being bought or whatever
.
If it has a lease system,that's not a negative for you.
Speaker 3 (21:51):
No, not at all, you don't care if it's leased or
financed.
Yeah, if it's leased orfinanced, we don't care at all.
Yeah, it's just a matter ofwell.
We need a copy of the leaseagreement.
How much is it a month?
(22:11):
Again, just factoring in thepayments.
Factoring in the payments, sowhen somebody, um you know,
sells a home that has no solar,we don't factor in the
electricity bill into debt toincome ratios right, so I mean
it's a couple hundred a month ifthat on some of these systems
okay.
Speaker 2 (22:22):
So that's makes sense , because right now the biggest
thing out there, people's likeoh, if it has a lease, it's just
a big negative to sell and tobuy.
And you're saying that's justnot true.
Speaker 3 (22:31):
Yeah, let's look at the lease agreement again.
Yeah, what's those payments?
What's the electric payments?
Right, but yeah, no, I mean,even if it's a let's, you know,
everybody's refinancing theirloan.
Very easy to get the solarcompany just to fill out a,
you're transferring a lien,essentially.
Speaker 2 (22:52):
So very, very easy to do.
See, that was my next question.
How does it impact refinancing?
So, you're going right therewhich is beautiful.
Speaker 3 (22:59):
He follows the outline.
He's following my outline.
Speaker 1 (23:01):
Yeah, that's great.
Speaker 3 (23:02):
So refinancing not an issue either.
It's very easy, it's super easy.
Speaker 2 (23:06):
Wow, all an issue either.
Speaker 1 (23:07):
it's just, it's very easy like it's super easy, wow,
all right, this is all this allgood stuff no, it's good stuff.
Um, I actually had an encounterwith someone, um, recently.
Um, they were looking to buy ahouse and you know, they were
looking at all these differenthomes and they're like, oh, this
one.
You know a couple homes Ilooked at they had solar and I
just I just didn't want to dealwith that.
I'm like, well it's, it'snothing really to deal with,
like it's a five minute phonecall, like if this is your dream
(23:29):
home and it's everything I'veever wanted and everything.
Oh, but it has solar on theroof, never mind like, no like
let's pump the brakes a littlebit, like we can solve these
issues.
It's like ben was just sayingit's easy, we can, we can take
care of it.
Yeah, people, yeah people don'twant to listen, though there's
a type of loan impact.
Speaker 2 (23:47):
So if it's an fha, for instance I know fha has a
lot of rules or if it's a valoan, are there any any things
that impact, like if solar's onthere is?
Speaker 3 (23:56):
so if you go from like conventional, now we're
looking at fha, va or even usda,kind of the three guidelines in
there is like is it safe, is itsanitary, is it secure?
So, if everything is workingcorrectly and it meets all the
city, county, um, you know rulesor so you know, so to speak,
(24:18):
like it's up to code, yeah, it'sup to code, then we're good,
like there's zero concern there.
Speaker 2 (24:24):
Um, so just a lot of myths, a lot of yeah a lot of
misinformation misinformation,Exactly so okay, so there's no
special requirement by thegovernment and you're just a
couple of that, you saying it'sjust again, this is not a big
deal, right?
Yeah, sounds like an easytransition.
Are there mortgage programs outthere that are maybe more green
(24:44):
focused or, you know, they lookat renewable.
I mean, is there any kind ofprograms that you deal with out
there, or is it just based onbasic stuff?
Speaker 3 (24:51):
Well, a lot of people don't know about um, the, the
green programs that are alreadybuilt into FHA, va.
So you can get, you know,roughly $6,000 towards energy
efficiency improvements.
When you do a refinance or apurchase.
You can get extra loans forthose.
You have to have a contractorcome in and do the bids and then
(25:15):
they can literally build itright into the transaction put
the money in escrow.
Speaker 1 (25:22):
So this is kind of touch more on that.
So this is let's say, someonedoes not have solar and they
want to refinance.
They can use that.
What do you say?
Six grand towards like gettingsolar or is that how it works?
Yeah, yeah, that's true I didnot know that.
Speaker 2 (25:35):
I didn't know, that's true you go, so they can
refinance through one of theseprograms and get six thousand
dollars right put toward like acash out refinance so you could
do energy efficient windows, hotwater heaters, solar, other
different improvements, allrenewable stuff, all green stuff
.
Speaker 3 (25:52):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (25:55):
So, if you are looking to get solar and you are
looking to refinance your home.
I'm sure we'll flash hisinformation on the screen or
something.
Give him a call, you can getsome extra cash for that.
Towards that solar purchaseInteresting yeah.
I did not know that I learnedsomething new every day.
Speaker 2 (26:12):
It's usually not with Ralph, but I learned something
new every day.
Speaker 3 (26:15):
Wow, that's really that's yeah, there's a lot of
crazy stuff out there.
I mean, I could give youanother one, like, let's say you
want to buy a house.
Let's let's say we're going todo an FHA loan and you see the
home and it's not quite thedream home that you want it to
be.
We can do basically arenovation loan where you can
(26:37):
get $30,000, $60,000 towardsrenovations.
We got to look at how much isthe loan going to be and then,
once we do the renovations, whatwould be the appraised value
after the fact?
And then we can build in all ofthose renovations into a
purchase.
Speaker 2 (26:56):
But then would you be assigning value to solar.
In that sense PotentiallyInteresting?
Yeah, because you'd have tolike, if you're gonna say you're
assigning a value to therenovation got a talk to an
appraiser, yeah we do need toget an appraiser in here.
Speaker 3 (27:08):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (27:09):
Because I know that I talked to appraisers probably
10, maybe 8, 10 years ago andthey weren't assigning a whole
lot of value to solar, but theywere really starting to take a
look at it Because they weretrying to understand.
It was the same scenario wherereal estate agents were that
they just didn't understand itright so they wouldn't touch a
value on it, but they weretrying to educate themselves
through the appraisal board andmore and more so they could
(27:30):
actually start assigning somevalue.
And I've heard nationally theyhave started assigning value to
solar in some situations.
So I would really like to getone in here just to have that
more detailed conversation.
So another thing that peoplecould go to you for we kind of
talked about it a little bit,but there are people that get
solar that get bad loans.
I mean solar loans.
(27:51):
So just to give you an example,solar loans have really high
fees on them, way more than, I'msure, anything you guys even
get close to you I'm talking.
There's solar loans out therethat have up to almost 40 fees
on them.
Speaker 1 (28:02):
They disclaimer they could have high fees.
They don't not all of them.
You could have some with no fee.
They're all different kinds.
Speaker 2 (28:08):
There's different kinds.
You can go anywhere from zeroto about 38%.
Speaker 1 (28:13):
Depending on the solar loan 38% fee.
Think about that.
Speaker 2 (28:17):
There are people and the common thing there is the
lower your interest rate, thehigher your fees, especially in
today's world.
What's the interest rate on amortgage right now?
Speaker 3 (28:28):
Oh you Six, six and a half seven.
That's horrible.
Speaker 1 (28:33):
That's horrible.
That's what we're in Comparedto five years ago, that's bad.
Speaker 2 (28:36):
I know that it was higher even than that and it's
actually starting to come downit does look like things are on
a downtrend.
Speaker 3 (28:41):
Just a couple weeks ago, I would say, conventional
loans were at a seven and a halfpercent rate.
I would say conventional loanswere at like a seven and a half
percent rate, and so finallywe're starting to see a
downtrend.
That's good.
So we're getting really excitedabout that and hopefully we see
some continuation through thesummer.
What do you think will be bythe end of the year.
A lot of people ask me thatquestion like every day.
If you knew.
(29:03):
I know you don't know, but justa gut, if I was a mortgage
wizard, which you are, which Iam.
Speaker 1 (29:07):
That's his actual trademark name.
Speaker 2 (29:08):
Right, you're a mortgage wizard so you have to
tell us.
Speaker 3 (29:10):
And I had to guess.
I'm going to say by the end ofthe year we'll be at 1%.
No, no, I'm just kidding.
Five and a half.
Speaker 1 (29:18):
Five and a half, that's not horrible.
Speaker 3 (29:22):
And then people start getting excited and hopefully
we see some movement, becauseit's just like we're kind of
seeing this holding patternright now, even today still
which makes sense.
I mean, it's kind ofunderstandable.
A lot of first-time buyers arepriced out of the market
completely between thehigh-priced homes as well as the
higher rates.
(29:42):
So when we look at it from afinancial perspective, my first
question is always you know, howmuch are you paying in rent,
right?
Because if I know you're payingtwo thousand a month in rent.
Four hundred thousand dollarpurchase price on a home right
now is going to be three grand amonth.
You know, psychologically areyou comfortable to pay an extra
thousand dollars a month on justyour home payment?
Speaker 2 (30:04):
So not including all the other stuff in owning a home
.
Speaker 3 (30:06):
Yeah yeah, you know home payment, so not including
all the other stuff in owning ahome, yeah, yeah, and you know
for a lot of folks out therelistening you know you might
want to be at.
You know when you look at youroverall budget, your total take
home, you want to be at about25%.
You know your mortgage and allyour utilities and just your
(30:27):
home shouldn't be more than 25%of your net take home, your home
alone 25% Home electricity.
Speaker 2 (30:30):
All of that combined.
Speaker 3 (30:31):
Yeah, your utilities.
Speaker 2 (30:32):
Should be about 25% of your take home.
Speaker 3 (30:34):
Correct On your budget.
That's not like a requirednumber, because when we do a
mortgage and we look at yourmortgage and all of your debt in
general, 50% of your gross canbe debt and mortgage.
So your 50% DTI is what you'relooking at.
That's kind of the magic number.
You know FHA, VA.
We can go a little bit abovethat in some cases, depending on
(30:57):
credit and how much you havesaved and things like that.
Speaker 2 (31:00):
But yeah, what do you consider when you look at
somebody's coming in with theircredit score?
What's a good credit score foryou?
What is something you're hopingto see?
Speaker 3 (31:07):
Um, you know, if it's above 600, that's like the
number.
Where it's like okay, we got anopportunity to help someone.
Speaker 1 (31:13):
Yes, we're good.
Speaker 2 (31:15):
But I'm expecting a higher number than that.
Speaker 3 (31:18):
Now, if you're putting 10% down, um, I go down
to like five, 50 on an FHA loan.
Wow, most banks cannot do that.
As brokers, we shop over 100lenders in the country, so we're
shopping for rates for you.
Our fees are way less as abroker.
We don't charge an originationfee.
(31:38):
We don't have a lot of theadded built-in fees.
Retail lenders the way theyoperate, they've got margins
kind of built into the rates toget more money for the lender
ultimately.
But three years ago I switchedto price mortgage for that exact
reason was how can we get therates as low as possible to
(31:58):
where we're more competitivethan anyone else?
And that's pretty much how I'vesurvived staying in the
industry for the last threeyears.
Pretty much how I've survivedstaying in the industry for the
last three years.
If I didn't make that move, I'dprobably be out with the other
75% of people that have new jobsnow Selling solar Okay.
Speaker 2 (32:17):
So that's this is good.
I want to talk more about this,to kind of pump what you guys
do.
So if someone walks in with a550, it doesn't mean they're
done, they're not done.
You could actually help them.
Speaker 3 (32:26):
They're not done and I still love talking with those
folks because I mean, if theyare done today, next year we're
going to help them get to wherethey need to be Somebody walks
in with a 750.
That's gold right, I mean, yeah,I mean anything above 700, we
can do a lot for, like there's,you know all the options are
there.
So then it's, you know, when welook at those loans what's the
(32:52):
most financially savvy optionfor you.
Right, if, depending on howmuch money you're putting down,
where's the rate, where's thepayment?
We got to look at those thingsand then you know, most of the
folks that are closing on atransaction this year will, you
know, highly likely berefinancing in the next one, two
, three years tops.
Sure, that makes a lot of sense.
So I'll often tell them wedon't want to spend several
thousand dollars buying down alower rate right now because if
(33:16):
you refinance 12 months later,you basically lost the benefit
of paying extra money at closingto get that lower interest rate
.
Speaker 2 (33:23):
Yeah, I mean that makes sense, right?
I think you're 100% right.
I think the people that havebeen buying homes in the last
probably 12 months and the onesthat will buy them this year
will be financed in the next twoyears.
Speaker 3 (33:31):
Sure Sure.
Speaker 2 (33:32):
That just makes sense .
There's guys like me that Irefinanced I don't know last
time Trump was in office and myI got a 3% rate Right.
So those are the guys likewe're not.
We're not going to move at all,we're going to either, unless
we sell and move out of state.
I think that segment of peopleare just, they're stuck and that
kind of hurt you guys a littlebit too, because those people
don't want to do anything,because the minute they touch it
(33:53):
now their rates go higher.
Agreed.
Speaker 3 (33:56):
Yeah, oh yeah.
Speaker 2 (33:57):
So that's kind of hurt the industry a little bit
too, for the last few yearsRates just got too low.
Speaker 1 (34:02):
I mean people took advantage of it for the right
reason.
Sure, I did.
Yeah, I know how do you notright, Right, right?
Speaker 2 (34:09):
But I think what you're saying at five and a half
, if you can get to down to five, five and a half percent by the
end of this year, I thinkthat's a win, that's a huge win.
It opens your market back up,yeah so.
Speaker 3 (34:17):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (34:31):
No.
Speaker 3 (34:31):
I to.
I see that direction coming.
Yeah, with the way theeconomy's changing, the change
in, you know, governmentpolicies and all those things
coming through.
Um, you know the S?
The stock market is trendingdown a little bit.
Right now we look like we're incorrection territory where, you
know, we're putting everythingin a box and shaking it all
around, mixing it up, confusingeverybody.
Investors are freaking out, butmaybe it's a very healthy
(34:53):
change that we need.
Speaker 2 (34:54):
No, I agree.
I think things.
I mean the solar industry tooka huge hit in the last four
years as well.
I mean with the economy and theway it went and the interest
rate.
We were selling 0.49% loansfour years ago.
Speaker 1 (35:07):
That was crazy 0.49%.
Speaker 3 (35:09):
Yeah, the only thing I'll comment on is when I did my
solar back in 2018, I got 2.99%.
Right so that was the onepositive where like oh okay.
Speaker 2 (35:19):
No, that's a good rate.
I mean, I guarantee you there'sa fee that was built into that.
That probably was 25%.
Speaker 3 (35:25):
Yeah, back then.
Speaker 2 (35:29):
But we were down to 0.49 just four years ago and it
was, you know, easy to sell 0.49loans, not bad.
Then it went from 0.49 up to999, 899 and the industry just
died.
Yeah, like the 10 topinstallers, uh, in solar, from
20,022, are all out of businessin the country.
They all went out of businessin the country.
(35:49):
They all went out of business,the top 10.
Wow, because the economy andwhat it did, right.
But now we're starting to seethe correction and we're
actually starting to see down to399 again, which is that's
where most I think that's thelowest that's out there right
now right, 399.
So we anticipate they're goingto go even lower.
I heard that they corrected arate yesterday.
They dropped the rates.
Speaker 1 (36:07):
Yeah, is that true?
I'll have to look at it.
I know it was this week, is itthis week?
Speaker 3 (36:13):
Yeah, just banking and finance in general.
All the rates should kind of becoming down across the board.
Speaker 2 (36:19):
What I like about what you guys do is, like you
just said, is you go out thereand search for the best
opportunity for people, versusjust offering what you have.
Speaker 3 (36:29):
Yeah, you'd be surprised.
So, like every week, there's anew flavor of the week.
I call it Because this lenderwants to drop their rate or
their margin down to the pointwhere they're number one on the
sheet.
But next week there's going tobe a completely different five
companies that are the top five.
Speaker 1 (36:46):
Because they don't want to be number one.
Speaker 3 (36:47):
If I work directly as a retail lender with one
company, I'm subject to whatevertheir products and pricing
management team.
They set their rate and theirmargin any given week, any given
day, so I'm having to play withtheir numbers.
But as a broker, I get to playwith everybody's numbers and
find out what's best for mycustomer.
Speaker 2 (37:05):
Well, it reminds me of our business, everybody's
numbers and find out what's bestfor my customer.
So well, it reminds me of ourbusiness.
I mean, you're, you're, you'relined up with us really well,
because we're we talk about thisall the time is that we don't
just offer you this right?
Speaker 1 (37:13):
We don't have just one finance company or one
modules to offer one inverterLike.
We have options.
Speaker 2 (37:19):
We have options, because those companies that
only have this talk about that.
This is the best thing for youand this is what you need versus
what you really need, right,because that's all they sell.
So you're kind of in that sameboat, which I really think is
really important that people cango to you.
The mortgage wizard.
Speaker 3 (37:32):
That's your name, right yeah?
Speaker 2 (37:34):
The mortgage wizard and he will work for you and he
will look at all the differentoptions and what makes best
sense for you.
That's what I want when I havesomebody working for me.
Yeah, so I mean, that makes alot of sense.
So if somebody wants to getahold of you, how do they find
you?
You?
Speaker 3 (37:47):
know it's pretty easy , my contact number.
Most people call me.
Text me.
If you find me on social mediayou can message me.
But yeah, I mean I can give youmy contact.
Speaker 2 (37:57):
Yeah, no, say it, it's pretty easy 602-885-3863.
Speaker 3 (38:02):
Okay.
Speaker 2 (38:03):
Is there an email?
Speaker 3 (38:04):
address yeah, it's brubenstein at pricemortgagecom.
Speaker 2 (38:09):
Are you on the internebs interwebs?
Oh yeah, oh yeah, I've got awebsite.
Speaker 3 (38:14):
I've got Facebook, instagram and all that fun stuff
.
How can people find you on theinterwebs.
Speaker 2 (38:18):
Is there any particular way you want them to
go?
I mean, like for me, they justlook at Solar God and they find
no, I'm kidding, no, but I mean,how do they find you?
Is there a mortgage wizard ison the internet or yeah, I
haven't done that, unfortunately, not yet.
Speaker 3 (38:29):
You need to do that, you need to put a little wizard.
If you search Ben Rubenstein,my name's coming up for sure.
There's only one of those inthe world If you search Ben
Rubenstein, there's so many BenRubensteins.
It's unbelievable.
But but there's only onemortgage wizard.
Speaker 2 (38:44):
There's only one mortgage wizard.
You need to do the whole wizardoutfit.
Speaker 3 (38:48):
Yeah, I mean, I thought about that for Halloween
, you know crystal ball and allthat, Can we?
Speaker 1 (38:53):
reshoot this podcast with you dressed up as a wizard.
That would be phenomenal.
I mean, I could do that, yeah.
Speaker 2 (38:59):
We could have him come in and dress that way and I
could just do camera effectsand make it seem like boom.
That'd be really fun fine Smoke.
Any other things.
Speaker 1 (39:06):
No, thank you for coming.
I'm really glad I came in andmet both of you.
Speaker 3 (39:12):
Yeah, it was cool.
We learned a lot.
Really cool experience.
Thank you for inviting meAbsolutely.
Speaker 2 (39:16):
We need to get a hold of an appraiser next.
We weren't thinking about that,but I think, after talking to
Ben, that just makes a lot ofsense.
We're going to get down dirtyon this stuff because he just
cleared up a lot of myths thatare out there.
Speaker 1 (39:26):
Yeah, we talked with a real estate agent, we talked
with a mortgage expert.
Now we need an appraisal.
Speaker 2 (39:30):
Um, probably I want to talk with um homeowners
insurance agents yeah,absolutely you know how that
affects everything, so and benneeds to get your information on
those uh system reports that wedo, because I think that's
really beneficial to yourcustomers.
If they're buying solar, yougot to protect them yeah, yeah,
we're all about the consumer andI think that's why we developed
that and that's I think it'd bea good product for you.
Yeah, could be, so all right,so that that's uh, our, uh, our
(39:52):
talk about mortgage, and Ilearned a lot.
Ben learned a lot, yeah, and bennever says that I know so see
what happens to get two benstogether uh, mr everything plus
some mortgage stuff hey.
So thanks for watching.
We'll be coming at you realsoon here.
We've got so much cool stufflined up.
We have so many guests lined upand we're doing something
special in April as well.
(40:13):
We'll get to that on the nextone, but that's going to be
really cool.
But we'll be out here soon.
Again, thanks for watching andwe'll talk to you then.
Thank you.
Speaker 3 (40:20):
Thank you.
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