The inspiration to launch the program is to help consumers buy homes, he said, without mention of rival UWM: “I’m in the business of changing people’s lives,” Fawaz said. “This is a program that can change American lives. It hasn’t been a kind market for any of us, and it’s been tougher to qualify for a mortgage. This is a great program that really puts consumers in a position where they can actually purchase a home today.”
AMI expansion is for brokers, consumers UWM says
MPA also reached out to UWM to gain insights into the modifications to its original Conventional 1% Down program – chiefly raising the required eligibility from 50% to 80% AMI.
“We rolled it out in April,” Alex Elezaj (pictured right), UWM’s chief strategy officer, reminded MPA at the beginning of a telephone interview. “We were the first to roll it out. Obviously, some other lenders followed, but we lead.”
He said the widened eligibility had already made an impact: “That really opens up opportunities for consumers across America,” he said. “People are taking huge advantage of it. It’s been a huge success. The feedback we’ve gotten from brokers is just tremendous.”
The inspiration to up the AMI requirement was not UWM’s competition but a part of company protocol when a product is launched, he said. “What we do a lot at our company is to launch something and then we make it better – not just 1%, but a variety of different products,” Elezai said. “We wanted to start at 50% — with the population of consumers we thought needed it the most – and then we made the decision to widen it out and help even more.”