Mortgage Matters

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This is a kunv Studios original program.

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The content of this program does not reflect the views or opinions of 91.5 jazz and more the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, or the Board of Regents of the Nevada System of Higher Education.

Roland Daniels 0:43
Good morning, Las Vegas. Welcome to mortgage matters. I'm your host, Roland Daniels, a certified mortgage advisor with Geneva financial. My NMLS number is 355859, company. NMLS number is 42056, and I'm here this morning, as always, with my co host, Heidi Griffith, good morning. Heidi, good

Heidi Griffith 1:05
morning. Roland, happy Sunday. I'm Heidi Griffith. I'm also a mortgage advisor and your Director of Client Services. My NMLS number is 2247754, we've got a really good show lined up for us today. Before we get started, I want to remind everyone that early voting starts yesterday, Saturday, October 19, and we'll run through November 1. Make sure to get out there and vote if you prefer to vote on election day, that's november 5, and you're also able to register to vote up to November 5, so you can show up at the polls and let your voice be heard before we get into everything. I want to quickly mention our upcoming classes on Saturday, October 26 from 11 to noon, we've got our online class that's all about down payment assistance. This class is for anyone that's curious about how down payment assistance can help make purchasing a home more affordable. We'll be covering the 16 different assistance programs we offer, including an option for credit scores below 640 breaking down the eligibility requirements and busting all the myths about down payment assistance programs, whether you're concerned about upfront costs or just curious about what's available, this class is there to give you the knowledge you need to take the next step. This is also about making the dream of homeownership achievable, and there's no better way to learn about these opportunities than by joining us. You can call or text us if you'd like to register or have any questions. Our telephone number is 702-210-2057 again, that number is 702-210-2057

Roland Daniels 2:52
and coming up on Saturday, November, the second from 830 to around 3pm we have our most in depth homebuyer education workshop the path to homeownership, which is a certified HUD class. This event is designed for buyers at any stage of the process, so whether you're just getting started or you're ready to buy now, you'll learn about credit budgeting, get guidance on how to get pre qualified find out what loan options are available for you, navigating the entire home buying process from A to Z. We have experts from all different areas of real estate. There will be a certified HUD advisor I will be covering the mortgage loan process. There will be a realtor to go over the home buying process, and there will be other industry professionals. We are there to answer all of your questions and give you the resources that you will need. Plex is a great opportunity to network and get practical advice on your own situation. If you're interested in joining us for the path to homeownership. If you have any questions, 702-210-2057 that's 702-210-2057

Heidi Griffith 4:15
Okay, so now we've got all of those events. Hopefully you've marked your calendar. Let's talk about today's show. We have two amazing humans in Studio. Today, I'd like to introduce everyone to will pregnen and Rhonda Tolbert. They are with the Nevada Clean Energy Fund. They're doing fantastic work helping Nevadans save on energy costs and making their homes more efficient. Will pregnen is a seasoned media PR and communications professional, and he's also a UNLV alum. Thank you. Have you liked being back at UNLV? Well,

Will Pregen 4:47
it's great to be back. I was trying to remember, as I was driving in, when the last time I've been on campus was it's got to at least been in like a year or two. Feel like there's always events and stuff happening for the community here. So even though i. Graduated some years ago. I'm always coming back. So great to be here

Heidi Griffith 5:03
it is. It is wills worked closely with a wide variety of lawmakers within public elected bodies such as the state legislature and county commission to coordinate and amplify strat, excuse me, strategic policy initiatives, particularly related to issues from safeguarding civil and human rights to protecting public lands and natural resources. As the programs manager, senior loan officer for the Nevada Clean Energy Fund will has been instrumental in establishing a base of vetted contractors, which have allowed the Nevada Clean Energy Fund to close over $390,000 in loans to homeowners for the installation of energy upgrades, which will help save on their energy costs. That's pretty awesome.

Will Pregen 5:46
Yeah. Thank you very much. Thanks

Heidi Griffith 5:48
for being here

Roland Daniels 5:49
and joining will is our dear friend Rhonda Tolbert. The Nevada Clean Energy Fund is excited to recently welcome Rhonda to the team. She's got approximately nine years of experience serving the state of Nevada and two years as a key member of the home as possible down payment assistance program. Rhonda is well equipped to the transition from helping families buy homes to assisting them in utilizing federal, state and local resources to reduce their energy costs. Her dedication to supporting underserved communities is going to be a tremendous asset in her new role as the business development loan officer.

Rhonda Tolbert 6:32
Thank you so much. I'm so glad to be here. I want to just say thank you for allowing us to come on your platform today to talk about this important resource for people. We appreciate

Heidi Griffith 6:42
you coming. We're excited that you're here. So Rhonda Roland and I go way back to the Nevada housing days, right? So Rhonda was actually our key contact when we were talking about down payment assistance through the state of Nevada. But she's on to do even better stuff, huh?

Rhonda Tolbert 6:58
I'm enjoying it. I'm having a good time. Well, will has been showing me so much, and he's just paved a pathway that I'm really excited to be a part of. This is really fun, well,

Heidi Griffith 7:08
and we're excited to hear what you guys have to talk about today. So why don't we just get started? Will, why don't you tell me exactly what the Nevada Clean Energy Fund is and what you guys do?

Will Pregen 7:18
Yeah, certainly. Thanks. Heidi, so the Nevada Clean Energy Fund is a nonprofit organization. It was founded in 2017 by legislation at the state level to act as the Green Bank for the state. And what a Green Bank is not a bank in a literal sense, but it's an organization that helps to provide financial and technical support for the growth and expansion of clean energy and green banks exist in states all over the country. I believe most other states in the nation have green bank, or equivalent organization to us. So it was very wise of the legislature, I think as Nevada is such a key state when it comes to clean energy, what with being a prime spot for solar development, giving we have sunshine plus days a year. Think it's a very wise investment. But we didn't actually get off the ground as an organization until about 2022 where our CEO, Kirsten Stasio, was hired. And then from there, we've started building up a team getting grants from different organizations or from through the state or through the federal government, which we'll talk about later. And now today, we are an organization that is building ourselves up to be the one stop shop for a person in the state of Nevada, looking for financial or technical assistance for clean energy. And we work with a variety of different entities, from local governments, school districts, other nonprofits, businesses and even residential homeowners, which we'll get into to find the best clean energy options for them, improve energy efficiency in the state, and just ultimately drive forward more sustainable living for people in our state, and development of these new technologies which

Heidi Griffith 9:13
support it. Wow, that's awesome, yeah. So you've got a lot of resources

Will Pregen 9:18
we do, yeah. And so my specific role is I was brought on to start up and manage the residential lending program, which we'll talk about in a minute. We call it re up stands for our residential energy upgrade program. And we're also in the process now of launching a variety of other programs related to energy audits, related to our solar for all program, which is based on the EPA $156 million award, which we were granted back in April it was announced back in April of this year. We're in the program design phase of that now, and since then, we've also had a clean School Bus program. We're working with a variety of different school districts, mostly rural or tribal school districts, for the expansion of clean bus clean school bus fleets, so essentially cutting down on the pollution that children are exposed to through greenhouse gasses that are emitted from diesel fuel. So

Heidi Griffith 10:17
we all know, we've all probably experienced the school bus. Oh sure, I

Will Pregen 10:21
wrote. I rode the bus as a kid too, and you know, My stop was the last stop route, so I always ended up sitting in the back. So I'm sure I inhaled my share of all sorts of nasties. So the aim to address things like that, the problem is always cost. And so that's where an organization like ours, a Green Bay, comes in to provide that assistance for cost, or applying for a federal grant or using technical assistance to access a particular rebate or tax incentive or something to that effect. And so that all of our programs are sent around that idea of, how do we get in there and assist either with providing capital directly or helping these entities access capital for these investments from federal government or other grants or things like that?

Heidi Griffith 11:16
Yeah, that's pretty awesome. I know in conversations that Rhonda and I have had recently and from just looking over the website, I mean, you're kind of hitting it from every angle. So it's, it's not just we deal with the top or we deal with the the middleman. You kind of deal with everyone. You have a relationship to this.

Will Pregen 11:32
Yeah, that's true. We work a lot, of course, with the state government. We have to, we are very much in a close relationship, working with the state, working with the state, working with the utilities, all the utilities of the state, and then for myself and for Rhonda, who we work primarily on our residential lending program. We're working just with everyday Nevadans, everyday homeowners, and also contractors, which can range from larger firms that might have offices throughout the state to small mom and pop contractors who do different types of construction work through various different trades that are related to energy efficiency. So we're really working with folks all the way down to just the individual homeowner level, then all the way up to the government level, and then, like I mentioned, with the solar for all program that involves negotiations coming from the EPA of the United States managing that award and how we're going to be rolling out that money from the inflation Reduction Act. So yeah, it really is running the full gamut of everything in between.

Heidi Griffith 12:42
Wow, big job.

Will Pregen 12:43
It sure is Yeah, and this has really

Rhonda Tolbert 12:46
been Yeah, it's really been good. It's really been a good transition, and it's not too much of a departure of what I was doing when I was with home as possible, because coming into this role, what I found is that many people forego having home improvements done because they can't pay for it outright, or they've been turned down by banks or other traditional lending institutions. So with this organization, we have that ability to go ahead and look at the budget based financing to help them get those improvements done that they need for air conditioning, plumbing, insulation and things of those nature. So Will and I have been actively processing applications for people to get them rolling with that has really been very interesting and really quite gratifying and rewarding to be able rewarding, to be able to help somebody in that capacity

Heidi Griffith 13:31
too. We know that's how you roll,

Rhonda Tolbert 13:34
right? Absolutely.

Heidi Griffith 13:36
Yeah, no, I'm excited to hear more. How about we kind of start off with how this is going to help, you know, our listeners, how it's going to help a homeowner who, you know, I had the lovely experience this summer. My AC went out, and we all know that, you know, it's just now cooling down, thank goodness, but it's been a hot summer, and air conditioning goes out, and the, you know, air conditioning repairman comes out, and that's a pretty hefty number that they're coming up with. You know, that's double you know,

Rhonda Tolbert 14:07
we're double digits, yeah,

Heidi Griffith 14:08
10s, fifteens on that. And you know, you've got the options are, put it on your credit card if you've got enough on your credit card at 25 30% Rowan, if I've been talking about those interest rates on credit cards a lot lately have been and or pay for it outright. And really, who has, you know, $15,000 laying around and more up to 25,000 Yes, we actually know someone who paid 25,000 for a new definition unit, and winter

Roland Daniels 14:38
is coming, and what programs are available to homeowners, like weatherization. And what does that cover? What does that entail for a consumer looking to get help or just figure out what they need?

Will Pregen 14:51
Yeah, absolutely. So there's a lot you hit on there, so I'll start with just the benefit to homeowners. As you said, the. The purpose of a program like ours is really to provide a lending option for folks who may not qualify for other types of traditional financing. So what I mean by that is re up our residential program lends on the basis of ability to pay. So we unlike traditional financing, we're not doing lending based upon pulling credit and saying, Okay, your credit score is 650 so you're approved, or it's under 650 so you're declined. Ours a little bit more nuanced, and as a result, does take a little bit longer. We do collect from the homeowner or self attestation of what their household budget and expenses are, and then we will verify their income by collecting pay stubs or benefit letters if they're on fixed income or what have you. And so that allows us to sidestep a lot of the issues that will lead to people being declined for other types of financing and being forced, as you said, to go out of pocket or put it on a credit card which is going to possibly damage their credit further, and what that allows us to do is to lend to people who are have distressed credit. Now, the caveat to that is we do still do a soft pull on their credit history, and we require that all of our loan applicants have two main things, which is a disposable income. They need to have money left over after expenses at the end of the month. And then they also need to have positive payment history, meaning that they are, at least for the most part, paying their bills on time. Don't have like, excessive outstanding, delinquent payments or things like that. And we will still decline people in those scenarios where there's some extreme issues with their credit history, but for the most part, we're able to lend to households that maybe struggle to find financing elsewhere. And we've gotten really good feedback from homeowners that we've worked with who struggled to get loans elsewhere for these types of things. And so you touched upon air conditioning, which is a huge amount of what we do. I'd say, like half the loans have been air conditionings. And it's a thing where, during the summer, if you talk to air conditioning contractors, there's a really great organization in Nevada, in Southern Nevada, called snarska. It stands for Southern Nevada air and refrigeration Contractors Association. It's basically a professional association of AC contractors who do do heating and air. And their busy season is pretty much what you'd expect from like may to about late September, although I feel like summer's kind of creeped into October here a little bit too. So maybe that's extending a little bit. But point being is that during that those months, that's when people's ACs are being cranked maximum. We're having 120 degree weather, heat waves and things like that. And so it results in a lot of wear and tear on people's systems. And if a person has a 15 year old AC unit, welcome to my life. That's where it's that's where it's going to go out. And like you mentioned, AC repair can sometimes be very excessively expensive, especially if you're more than one unit on your house, or you have a very large house that requires a bigger unit to cool the whole the whole square footage, those type of factors will drive up the cost. So what we do is we have a list of vetted contractors. We call it our vetted Contractor Network. What we'll do is we collect insurance information, licensure information, we verify that the company is in good standing with the contractors board doesn't have excessive disciplinary actions or anything like that. We check online reviews to make sure there's a track record of good work service being done. And what we'll do is those are be kind of like our approved vendors. And sometimes we'll have contractors will reach out to us directly with their leads. Their customer leads be like, This person needs financing. Maybe they blew the credit check for whatever their traditional financing program is, and now they need some extra assistance. So we're able to get them through the application process. Rhonda and I work to educate the person on that process, get all the paperwork they need, which is usually their proof of income and so on. And then if we can get them pre qualified, we could take the cash quote from the contractor, what their pre approval terms will be, which are generally below market interest rates. Our interest rates are, I don't know if we're allowed to say rates or anything like that,

Rhonda Tolbert 19:37
but it's like a range. But like, like Willow is saying, though, we help clients make smart decisions about home improvements when we process their loan application and we provide a list of the approved contractors. That way, we assist them with the project management throughout the entire process. But yeah, we do have a range and and if you want to tell them that that's fine, I think,

Will Pregen 19:58
yeah, so our. Interest rates range from five to 9.9% and the loans are, and I'll mention too, the loans are unsecured, so no risk of losing your house or getting a lien on property or things like that. So for an unsecured loan, less than 10% interest is very good, and again, not based on FICO score. So allows people with, again, those distressed credit scenarios to still qualify. So there's a lot there to essentially wrap up and say we're there to help homeowners in those kind of situations. And so AC is lot what we do, but we also can do plumbing improvements. I just did a water heater loan last month, water heater replacement. We also do, of course, solar. We do weatherization and insulation. I've done a couple of insulation loans. Now we'll do doors and window ceiling or just like new doors and windows. Doors and windows, huge aspect too, because even if your AC unit's very good, if your doors and windows are leaking air, because there's cracks in them and they're old or they're not weather stripped correctly. That's you're driving up the cost of your energy bill, and that's the reason why you're paying 500 $600 to envy energy in the summer, because your home just might not be very efficient. So all that we're doing with this program is financing these home improvements, and then also educating the customer about rebates, tax credits, other incentives that might be

Rhonda Tolbert 21:26
available, right? And that's and that's where also that correlation plays with that home as possible before, because we're helping low to moderate income homeowners, you know, make sure that they get into something where they're not accessing predatory lending tactics and things of that nature. Important,

Heidi Griffith 21:43
super important. That's why we have you guys here today. So when we talk about these loans, what are the typical terms? How long are these loans for in most scenarios, I guess?

Will Pregen 21:52
Yeah. So it depends on the size and type of loan. For air conditionings, typically it's about seven years that's usually standard. For solar we go up to 15, which sounds a little bit low for solar, but one of the other perks is that we don't have dealer fees. A lot of traditional financers, especially ones that are credit based, that are driven by they're owned by a corporate entity, or something like that, what they'll do is they'll charge a dealer fee, which can be sometimes a 2030, I've seen as high as like, 40% markup, wow, finance charge. That's on the APR, on top of the interest rate and everything else. So we don't have that. We do have some closing cost fees, which total about five and a half percent, and that probably pays for the underwriter, and all that pays for the underwriter, our loan processing software, all that stuff. And then there's the interest rate, but then your APR is gonna usually be less than around 10% and so even though the term might be a little bit shorter than what you get on a normal solar loan, which would be like 2530 years, you're paying it off quicker, and your monthly payment is gonna be roughly about what it would be equivalent to if you were paying off a 25 year loan, but had this massive finance charge, and then all that is just money that's going straight to the financer. It's not going into the system that you're purchasing. So there's a lot of benefit, and we mentioned the low and moderate income, and that is definitely a focus of our program, is to make a form of accessible lending to those homeowners. But we don't have any, like, upper limit too, so we've had folks with very good income and credit apply and qualify there. So it's really lending for everyone. That's really the message, that's wonderful.

Heidi Griffith 23:35
So there isn't a cap. So if you made, I don't know, $280,000 a year, you're not out of the program, you could

Will Pregen 23:40
No, no, yeah, you can apply, and you're probably getting a better deal in the long run with with us, just again, due to the lower rate, the lack of dealer fee and the lack of risk in terms of the lien on your home or something, in the worst case scenario, you do default, right? So really, just, just an all around. Great program, and

Rhonda Tolbert 24:01
there's no prepayment penalty, so you can pay it off. Yeah, you can that too.

Will Pregen 24:05
Yeah, no prepayment limited or penalty. And

Roland Daniels 24:08
as a homeowner, are there any programs where I can, guy, give you guys a call, you come out to the property and my home and check out what's needed, and are there any services that are provided? So

Will Pregen 24:19
funny, you should bring that up, actually, because not just yet, but we are. I had a conversation with my supervisor just about an hour ago about this very thing. We just got a approval for a new program we're going to be rolling out for an energy audit forgivable loan. So what an energy audit is? Kind of what it sounds like is you have someone who is trained and certified in building performance standards come to your house, run some tests on your insulation, your air conditioning unit, things like that, and can give you a more comprehensive picture of what possible vulnerabilities you might have in your home that. Making it inefficient. So we hear a lot these days, especially in Nevada, about utility costs rising. There's a lot of news stories. Frequently people going to the Public Utilities Commission to complain about possible rate increases and things like that. And and that's something we're very sensitive to as well, and I experience it too as a as a utility rate payer myself, and we all do. And so what then? But part of it becomes, is for folks who might be on the lower income spectrum, they might have a lower or might have an older home that requires more more work being put into it. And also, just as a homeowner, and generally, I'm a homeowner, homeowner myself. There are sometimes untold numbers of things that could be wrong with your home, that are that are causing issues, and we are working on a forgivable loan that basically would cover the cost of an energy audit, so you'd be able to have someone come and look at the things in your house, and then the loan would be forgivable on the condition that you then purchase or finance a Home Upgrade, either through us or through a public assistance program or another financer to address one of those, at least one of those upgrades, and then that will forgive the loan. And so it'll basically be like a way for people to get a more detailed analysis of their home and address a specific that

Heidi Griffith 26:26
that is that really does sound like a great program. I hope that you keep us updated on that. Because, yes, we will. I mean, there's so many things. Obviously, we know air conditioning, but I mean, it's just weather stripping. And when the more efficient your house is, the less your

Will Pregen 26:41
utility. And if you want to get solar, at some point, your roof needs to be looked at too Absolutely. Roof is in poor condition. That will be a deal breaker for solar. So fixing a roof is another thing we can do. Well,

Heidi Griffith 26:52
that's wonderful. That's wonderful. Well,

Roland Daniels 26:55
that's all we have time for today. We hope you found our conversation with will pregnant and Rhonda Tolbert from the Nevada Clean Energy Fund, as awesome as we did, it's incredible to see the positive changes happening with energy efficiency right here in Nevada, and we're so glad and grateful to have will and Rhonda for sharing your insights. Yeah,

Heidi Griffith 27:18
yeah. So thank you guys so much for coming out today. I know that we didn't even touch on the surface. Hopefully we can get you guys to come back out and for sure, anytime that would be awesome. Do you want to give us your information so that if anybody has any questions that they can reach out?

Rhonda Tolbert 27:33
Most definitely go ahead.

Will Pregen 27:35
Will Sure, absolutely so. Again, my name is Will pregman. You can find me. You can find our website at Nevada, C, E, f.org, and you can access on there our line to call in if you have questions at 702-518-0434, or you can send me an email at Green loans at Nevada, cef.org

Heidi Griffith 28:05
Awesome. Yeah, that is awesome. Don't forget, we've got upcoming events. We've got the all all about Down Payment Assistance class that's on october 26 and that one's online. And then we've got the path to homeownership on November 2. That's the HUD certified class. These are great opportunities to learn more and get the support that you need. So if you have any questions about anything we talked about today, or if you're ready to register for any of our upcoming classes and take the next step towards homeownership, we are here to help. You're more than welcome to give us a call or text us. We're at 702-210-2057, 102057, join us again next Sunday here at 7:30am on K, U, N, V, 91.5, with more tips, advice and everything you need to know about mortgage matters, thanks

Roland Daniels 28:55
again for listening. Las Vegas. Stay safe, stay informed, and we'll see you next week,

Heidi Griffith 29:00
bye, bye. You.