Real Estate the Ramsey Way - You Need to Know This to Buy a Home Today (From a Real Estate Expert)

Episode Date: June 15, 2026

Buying a home in today’s market can feel overwhelming. Churchill Mortgage CEO Matt Clarke joins us to walk through what buyers need to know, how to prepare financially, and the mindset needed to make a confident homebuying decision. Next steps: ·   🏠 Not sure what to do next when buying or selling your home? Check out our ⁠⁠Real Estate Home Base⁠⁠ for free tools and resources to guide your next steps. ·   🏠 And if you’re ready to buy or sell your home, ⁠⁠connect with a RamseyTrusted® real estate agent⁠⁠. They’re experts who’ll help you confidently navigate homeownership the way we teach. Explore more from Ramsey Network: 💸 The Ramsey Show Highlights 🧠 The Dr. John Delony Show 🍸 Smart Money Happy Hour 💰 George Kamel 🪑 Front Row Seat with Ken Coleman 📈 EntreLeadership   Ramsey Solutions Privacy Policy

I'm George Camel here with Rachel Cruz. And in the third chair, we've added a special guest. We've got Matt Clark, president and chief operating officer at Churchill Mortgage. You've heard of Churchill because they've been our trusted mortgage partner for more than 30 years now. And Matt has over two decades of experience at Churchill. He's got some deep industry knowledge. So we wanted to bring him on to help explain to our audience. What the heck is going on in the housing market? When are the rates going to magically come down, Matt? Where is your crystal ball? Well, if I had a crystal ball and I knew where rates were going to go, I wouldn't be here right now. I think that's the biggest question for us. Be on an island somewhere. Be on an island somewhere. Oh, man. It's so hard.

Rates are just unstable right now. With everything that's going on in the geopolitical climate with the war in Iran, with oil prices, I mean, rates are very sensitive to those things. And so it's really hard to tell what rates are going to do. They're quite unstable. Rates are kind of like trust. they get worse really fast and it takes a long time for them to come back down and get better and so I just think right now people just need to recognize that they got to be patient and there's

no way to really predict what rates are going to do yeah would you say you're pretty confident they'll probably like would we ever see in our lifetime the like 2% again like do you think that's probably from the past would you assume ever is a long time yeah but I'm not banking on them coming down to the 2% yes to what it was yeah yeah yeah Do you find that there's some golden handcuffs out there with people that are hanging on to their 3% rate? And so they're never going to move now. They're like, well, now I'm stuck here. This is my starter home and now it's the forever home.

Yeah, I do. I think we call that rate locked that people are afraid to let go of that rate. And at the end of the day, I think if they can afford and they want to buy a house right now, even though their rate may, their rate may go up. If it fits their budget, it may not be a bad idea. Yeah, absolutely. Well, speaking of budget, first-time home buyers, that's the, that's the, that's the, most frustrated population out there because they're going, dude, how do I step into this jump rope going 90 miles an hour? I'm going to get hurt. What do you say to them when it comes to

rates moving around, how much that affects their mortgage payment? I would tell them to focus much less on the rates moving around and much more on, is their budget ready for them to be a homeowner? And as soon as they feel like their budget is ready for them to be a homeowner to jump in. I want to talk about pre-approval. It's something we don't talk about a lot on the show, but it's one of those things where you go through the process and you're like, I didn't understand I needed to do this. So talk about pre-approval. And Churchill has something special called certified homebuyer. We do. I mean, when I think about pre-approvals, I think there are really three different types of, quote-unquote, approvals that a lender can give you. There's, they have a

phone call with you and collect some general information and tell you, yeah, I can approve you for X amount. That's a pre-qualification. And they take that piece of paper and they bring it to, their real estate agent, and that agent presents that when they make an offer on a home. And quite frankly, it's not really worth a whole lot because it's not gone through any evaluation. We most likely haven't collected a lot of documentation. Then there's your standard pre-approval where you collect some information. You're on credit. You see what the financials are.

You look at income statements. You look at W-2s, and you make a high-level credit assumption based on some automated models. and we send you out with a pre-approval. And then there's what we do at Churchill, which is what we call a certified homebuyer. And with a certified homebuyer program, we actually fully underwrite your credit and send you off with a fully credited approved approval,

which allows you to really shop with confidence. And we put on top of that a rate secured program where we lock you in for an extended period of time, 90 days, so that it takes the uncertainty, of that approval away because you know if interest rates go up, you're already protected. And you get to keep that lower rate. You get to keep that lower rate. And if they go down, we just lock you in when you find a house at the market rate. So you get the best of both worlds. That's impressive. And on, and on top of that, we throw on a $10,000 guarantee to the seller

so that if you present an offer to a seller with a certified homebuyer, we guarantee that seller that your credit is good. The only thing that could go wrong there is appraisal or title work. And if for something, something happens, we pay the seller 10 grand. Wow. So just to back up that process. That's impressive. So on a spectrum, let me recap this.

You have the, this person might be good for the money. You have their probably good for the money with a standard pre-approval. And then you have the, they are definitely good for the money with the certified homebuyer program. And you're able to go into that. So, you know, we have a lot of new listeners to the show. I feel like even most of our callers, they're like, I've just got on to you guys. So people that are looking to get into the market, but they're doing the baby steps.

So they're working their way out of debt. They've now have an emergency fund, and then they have some money for a down payment. Okay. At that point, you know, their credit score may be tanking as we speak and or it's undetermined. If it's been long enough, right? They don't have a credit score. So that is one thing that's a little different with Ramsey that we say, yes, you can still get a house without a credit score. And we always recommend you guys because you guys are always the place that we say to go to because not everyone can do it.

Not everyone will do it. But what does that look like to get a mortgage without a credit score? First, I want to make sure people hear this clearly. Getting a mortgage without a credit score does not mean credit score doesn't matter if you have one. Yes. It doesn't bypass your current score. It doesn't bypass a bad score if you have one. So the tanking one, not good.

You can't really buy them. Tanking one is a challenge. But when you come to us with no credit score or what's called an indeterminable score, we look at trade lines. We look at your ability to pay your bills. And so you have to have more than just living in mom and dad's basement and not paying any bills in your own. You actually have to have some sort of established history of taking care of your financial responsibilities. Things like cell phone bills and other utility bills or other types of monthly payments that we can use to create an alternate credit profile and move you forward on a no score alone. And that's on top.

of 12 months of rental payment history. Because a lot of people say, well, I live with mom and dad. We never had an agreement about it. And you guys go, well, we don't know that you can pay a housing bill on time. Twelve months of housing payments part of that process as well. Is it that? So, yeah, so that's the important part. But it can be done, which I think is. I mean, I've done it. I know that that's not saying much because everyone goes, well, it was easy for you to say, no, I got out of debt, didn't have a credit score, and you guys are the specialist in no score loans. I imagine you've probably done more no score loans in the modern world than any mortgage lender out there. More in the modern world than anyone ever. And we do it

better. I talk to real estate agents. They go, you can't do that. And I go, yeah, I can. You've not heard of Churchill mortgage. Where have you been? Watch me. Oh, my goodness. Well, I do want to hit on closing costs because a lot of people, we talk about the down payment so much. Yes. But then people forget that there's other costs associated. So what should people expect to pay when it comes to closing costs in general? This can vary widely. Yeah, closing costs consists of a lot of different things. One, there are lender fees. Every lender has their own administrative fees, processing fees, underwriting fees. Then you have things that are going to be consistent across the industry. You're going to have to pay for an appraisal.

You're going to have to pay for title insurance. You're going to have to pay for credit report fees. There are state taxes and tax transfer fees that you have to pay for. And so when you think about rate and you think about getting to the closing table, there's a lot of things that will impact what you have to bring to the table in your closing costs. The key is getting that transparently put in front of you early on so you're not surprised at the end. And you can get those estimates from your loan officer and say, hey, help me understand all of the things I'm going to be paying for so that I'm ready. Yep, condo fees, HOA fees, all of those things end up surprising people at the end, which creates problems for them not having an amount of cash to come closing with.

To be able to do it all. Yeah. So the full pictures is so key. So someone that is entering into the market for the first time, they may feel. kind of intimidated and they're like, oh my gosh, am I ready? Can I do this? Like, what are a couple of tips you have? We'll say for first time home buyers and maybe people that haven't, you know, maybe they locked in the 2% and they're like, we're never going to move and they're like, okay, actually we're going to look for another house. But it's been decades since they bought something new. What are a couple of things that you're like, okay, this would be good. From your seats, you're like, these are things that you probably need to do. Well, Juan, talk to somebody who's going to be patient with you and ask you the right questions. Find out what you're trying to accomplish and where you are. I

remember so well when I bought my first house, 23 years old, I had a child, another one on the way, I was desperate to buy a house. I found a realtor. They put me in touch with a agent, a loan officer, they had a relationship with. And all I wanted to do was tell me how much I could buy. And I ended up not knowing anything. Yeah. And so I let my anxiety cause me to make a bad decision and bought a house that was more than I could afford with a mortgage at a rate that I knew nothing about other than they told me I can afford it. That's good. Get the facts.

Ask the questions. That's good. Now, thank you for being here. If you guys are ready to start your home buying process, the Ramsey Way Church Hill Mortgage can help. They're the folks we trust. And they have a special offer for you. $500 off your home appraisal credit at closing only at churchill mortgage.com slash

Ramsey offer. Go check it out. Thanks again, Matt. Thank you. Thanks for being here. With my current job, housing is provided in my salary. So in approximately, give or take, eight to ten years, I'll probably leave this job and take a job in which I will need to have my own home and purchase it. So the question really is, is there an advantage one way or another to take out a mortgage now and pay on that during this time and pay the interest and possibly rent that house out while I'm here or just wait and stack up cash?

and when I leave this place in eight to ten years, just use that as the down payment towards the home. What do you do for a living? I'm a rancher. Okay. Gotcha. Yep. Are you single or married? Nope, I'm married.

Okay. And what does she do? Married. And right now just, okay, right now, stay at home mom. She raised a kid. But in a couple months, she's going to take a full-time job, which is going to double, basically double our annual. take home pay. My take home pay right now is about 40,000. You're very wise to start planning this because a lot of people in your situation, when the housing arrangement ends with the job, they seem to be

surprised. And so I don't know why, but they are. And so you're very wise to look out there into the future and say, I've got to get ready. So there are two possible things that you can do. One is, like you said, take a mortgage out and buy a home, it probably will not be the home you live in. I would not recommend that. I would just say, what is a good rental property, a good price range, a good location that's going to go up in value, and we're going to do that with the idea of getting it paid off during this seven-year period of time. By the way, the people following the total money makeover baby steps and becoming baby steps millionaires eventually typically pay off their home in about seven to eight years.

And so your schedule kind of fits with that. All right. So we're going to put a renter in it. We're going to have a little bit of a mortgage and we're going to pay it off as fast as we possibly can seven years or less. So when this happens, you sell that house, take the money from that and buy a home that you live in. Okay. Because you will have had the increase in value during that seven years. You'll have to do some repairs to it when the renters move out.

some repairs to it while the renters are there. But you'll have the hassle of being a landlord and all that, and that's part of the program. But you're investing money that's going up in value. Okay? Yes. That's one way to do it. Another way to do it is a lot simpler,

and we'll give you about the same result, is sit down with a financial calculator with your smartvestor pro by finding them at ramsysolutions.com and say, how much do I need to put in a good growth stock, mutual fund per month to have the equivalent of a house price seven years from now. And so I want $500,000 and how much does that mean I need to put away on a seven-year schedule? And basically you pay yourself a house payment into mutual funds and they will be growing at,

you know, the typical rate that the market grows around 11 or 12 percent during that time. So you're getting all that growth. And you're, of course, adding to it each month. and you just have in your budget a house payment, but you're paying yourself a house payment. So when you leave there, you look up, there's the half million dollars that you planned on or whatever the number is that you want to aim at. That feels like the simpler path. Yeah, that's an easy one.

Sure. Okay. Yep. So either one of those will get you there. But you are going to have to allocate time and effort and money to this starting today, or you're going to come up short. when you make this transition. Hey guys, thanks for listening to Real Estate the Ramsey Way. Now, if you're here, you're probably thinking about buying or selling a house. It's exciting, and one of the biggest financial decisions you'll ever make. But you don't want to do it with an

inexperienced agent who will rush you into costly mistakes, like the ones some of our callers find themselves in. You need a pro who knows what the flip they're doing and will keep you on track with your financial goals. That's why we only recommend Ramsey trusted real estate agents. These are vetted, hand-picked pros who actually listen to your needs, guide you through the process, and fight to get you the best deal. To find a Ramsey trusted agent near you, go to Ramsey Solutions.com slash trusted agent. That's Ramsey Solutions.com slash trusted agent.