Getting a Mortgage Using our PMB Address?

[Jim Gell]

My wife and I have been Full Time RVrs for 5+  years.  We are thinking about buying a stick and brick home and RVing part time.  We have a SD PMB that shows on our driver's licence and no permanent physical address.  We have money invested at Vanguard, Fidelity, and a couple other brokerages and we have quite a few credit cards and bank accounts.   With mortgage rates as low as they are right now, we would like to get pre-approved for a mortgage before we look at potential homes.  None of the institutions we already have accounts with would be a place for us to obtain a mortgage. Actually we do have a Chase credit card, but I don't think that will help. 

Last year we tried to open a savings account at a bank that offered better than average interest and they said they could not open the account for us because we did not have a permanent address. They needed utility bills or other proof showing where we actually lived. I explained our lifestyle to no avail.

If banks won't hold our savings, are they are not going to approve a loan for us?

I am hoping someone who dealt with this, and is still on the forum, can offer some advice. Thank you in advance.

Jim 

[Twotoes]

If you are buying a house and getting a purchase money first mortgage the address of the house you are buying will be the address for the loan. 

[SWharton]

Try a Credit Union. Alliant is very good with RVers, never used them for a mortgage.

[HERO Maker]

Is there a huge need to keep your current address as your permanent address?  State income tax avoidance, healthcare ...?

You can also get a 2nd home mortgage and keep your SD address as permanent.  It would probably require more down payment, and maybe an uptick in rate!  The other issue with a 2nd home could be your insurance on the home.  It used to be null and void if the house has been vacant for maybe 30 days or more.  Other ways around that though.

Being homeless for 5+ years may even qualify you for 1st time home buyer programs!  Don't give up.  If you have found an area that you want to buy, then get a Realtor and use his resources.  Good luck.

[Kirk W]

10 hours ago, Jim Gell said:

Last year we tried to open a savings account at a bank that offered better than average interest and they said they could not open the account for us because we did not have a permanent address. They needed utility bills or other proof showing where we actually lived. I explained our lifestyle to no avail.

There is an alternative address provision in those laws but some companies don't want to bother learning about it. Had you contacted Escapees business office when you had that problem they could & would have helped you as they have with many others. As far as I know that rule does apply to mortgages, since the reason for it is to enable the tracking of large amounts of money. Here is an article from 2017 about the effect on mortgages. What the Patriot Act Has to do with Mortgages

[LindaH]

9 hours ago, HERO Maker said:

The other issue with a 2nd home could be your insurance on the home.  It used to be null and void if the house has been vacant for maybe 30 days or more. 

When insurance companies use the term "vacant," they usually mean empty.  None of the insurance companies we've had experience with have had a 30-day limit when our house has been "unoccupied" for a period of 4-5 months while we're away from our home traveling.

Certainly, this is something that should be discussed with the insurance company, but is likely not to be a problem.

[Jim Gell]

I see some useful ideas to follow up on including asking the Escapee folks in Livingston for assistance.   I had not thought of that. Thanks! 

It might help solicit more ideas if I clarify some details. 

1) We do not have a permanent stick and brick home that we reside in all or part of the year.  Our RV is our only residence with a SD domicile and mail forwarding service. 

2) We do have a home that my wife's father gave us, but he still lives in it.  We don't collect rent, but consider it to be investment property we will eventually sell. 

3) We have no intention to buy a home and hide that it is our primary residence for tax purposes.  We believe in legal tax minimization, but not tax evasion. 

4) It is a strong "seller's market" where we are considering at the moment.  Homes we look at on Zillow frequently list and have pending offers in a few days. 

5) We are still considering areas in more than one state.  Our original plan for this year was to spend at least a month in a few different locations to get a feel for each of the areas.  This year is turning out to be a very bad year to do that because communities are not functioning as normal due to the pandemic. 

6) We have some very specific home  requirements that eliminate over 95% the homes we see on Zillow in our price range.  It might be getting the cart in front of the horse, but we would like to have the option to make an offer if we find a home with the exact amenities we want. 

7) We want to be pre-approved (not just pre-qualified) for our loan by a lender before we look at homes with a realtor.  We can't use the address of the home we want to buy if it has not even been listed yet.   

Our best next step may be to call a mortgage lender and explain our situation and see if they can assist us.  If not, then call Livingston.  Ideally, I wanted to shop lenders for the best rate.  We have excellent credit and will likely put over 50% as our down payment.  As a last resort, we could withdraw all the money we need from our retirement savings accounts, but that would result in a significant additional income tax liability.  We don't have a crystal ball, but I think our savings will grow more in 15 years than the current interest on a 15 year mortgage would cost us. 

[SWharton]

If you want pre-approval that should only involve your ability to pay the mortgage. I don't see why you would need a permanent for that. Probably another bank weirdness. Did you try more than one bank? I think your problem with the bank was just the bank. Banks have strange attitudes which is why we haven't used one in 20-30 years. Go to a credit union.

[Kirk W]

2 hours ago, Jim Gell said:

Our best next step may be to call a mortgage lender and explain our situation and see if they can assist us.  If not, then call Livingston. 

I would think that you should treat this just as you would if shopping lenders, which to me means start contacting those you are interested in. My comment about contacting the Escapee business office was not intended to mean for help finding a mortgage, but to get help if you run into problems with financial institutions asking for proof of a permanent physical address. I can tell you that in order to get pre-approval you will need to go through the loan application process. 

[Jim Gell]

2 hours ago, Kirk W said:

I would think that you should treat this just as you would if shopping lenders, which to me means start contacting those you are interested in. My comment about contacting the Escapee business office was not intended to mean for help finding a mortgage, but to get help if you run into problems with financial institutions asking for proof of a permanent physical address. I can tell you that in order to get pre-approval you will need to go through the loan application process. 

I understood your intent.  Good advice, thanks, Kirk! 

 

[docj]

9 hours ago, Jim Gell said:

3) We have no intention to buy a home and hide that it is our primary residence for tax purposes.  We believe in legal tax minimization, but not tax evasion. 

We are also full-timers with an SD mail service address. Four years ago we purchased a site in an ownership RV park in coastal TX, however, we have no intention of giving up our SD legal residence.  So far we haven't encountered any problems as a result of doing this.  People can own property in states in which they are not domiciled.  Both addresses show up on our credit reports.  

We were able to obtain a mortgage on the property from a community bank which, I believe, is a defined banking category in TX.  The bank officer had no problem using our SD address along with the physical address of the property.  

[Jim Gell]

Thanks, Joel. 

[Twotoes]

Many people purchase a home and do not have a current address, that’s why they are buying a home. Military people do it all the time when returning from a long deployment. The home you are buying is your address. 

[Ronbo]

We purchased a house in May. Our address is escapees in Livingston, Tx. The house is in Greeley, co. We had absolutely no problems with the mortgage. No questions were asked about our address. Where are you planning on purchasing? 

[Barbaraok]

For a mortgage the address of your new home is the address they will use.   What are you doing for mail right now?  Just put that down as your current address.  

[JimK]

I cannot understand what "preapproved" means regarding a mortgage.  Getting preapproved has never been difficult.  We have used real estate agents who want to know that we are preapproved.  I guess that means we are serious and able to buy.  

Sadly I have found that being "preapproved" is not at all the same as being approved.  We have bought two houses years apart when we were initially preapproved.  The actual approval process took 3-4 months and involved all sorts of documentation and hoops to jump through.  

[docj]

Having a property in TX and a legal address in SD seems to be working fine for us.  As a result we now have credit cards and credit profiles in both locations.  This occasionally causes some confusion with automated credit approval systems, but nothing that wasn't easy to resolve.

[lg61820]

As a parent of grown children, I feel I must reply to aryhrudy.  Having been burnt multiple times by my fiscally irresponsible children I would say that I would NEVER, under any circumstances, take out a loan and trust that my children would pay me back.  If the child was financially capable and had proven themselves trustworthy then they could get their own loan, and not depend on their parents who have been fiscally responsible.  

 

 

 

[Second Chance]

1 hour ago, lg61820 said:

As a parent of grown children, I feel I must reply to aryhrudy.  Having been burnt multiple times by my fiscally irresponsible children I would say that I would NEVER, under any circumstances, take out a loan and trust that my children would pay me back.  If the child was financially capable and had proven themselves trustworthy then they could get their own loan, and not depend on their parents who have been fiscally responsible.  

 

 

 

I agree with this wholeheartedly!

Rob

[JimK]

This is such an old thread it may not be worth an additional response.  Anyway, when I was a fulltimer with a SD mailing service, I never used "PMB".  Instead I used the street address with just the number of the mailbox.  The address could have been just an apartment number, instead of a mailbox number.  I never lied about the address but I also never made it an issue.  The nature of my address was never questioned and was accepted by Chase Bank, other financial institutions and insurance companies.  

I never tested it for mortgage purposes.  By then we were renting and used that address even though our driver's licenses were from SD.

[sandsys]

5 hours ago, JimK said:

This is such an old thread it may not be worth an additional response.  Anyway, when I was a fulltimer with a SD mailing service, I never used "PMB".  Instead I used the street address with just the number of the mailbox.  The address could have been just an apartment number, instead of a mailbox number.  I never lied about the address but I also never made it an issue.  The nature of my address was never questioned and was accepted by Chase Bank, other financial institutions and insurance companies.  

I never tested it for mortgage purposes.  By then we were renting and used that address even though our driver's licenses were from SD.

That's another case of how it used to be. Now that many businesses have access to the postal database that tells them what is at that address they know without you saying so whether it is a business or residence. Oh, there are so many things we can no longer get away with!

Linda

[JimK]

1 hour ago, sandsys said:

That's another case of how it used to be. Now that many businesses have access to the postal database that tells them what is at that address they know without you saying so whether it is a business or residence. Oh, there are so many things we can no longer get away with!

Linda

I am not sure that would have made any difference.  I already had a Chase Bank account setup in my previous State of residence.  I merely changed the mailing address and had new checks printed with my SD mailing address.  I did the same with my other financial institutions and with my heathcare insurance.  I also made the official change of address with social security and Medicare. 

In addition the State of SD also assigned me an address, the Yogi Campground where I stayed to qualify for residency.  That was also my address for voting.  

[Kirk W]

30 minutes ago, JimK said:

I am not sure that would have made any difference. 

I don't know about SD but can assure you that it doesn't in TX and they don't care if you use # or PMB as both are legal. We had PMB on our driver's licenses, vehicle registrations, and insurance as well as our financial accounts and it was on our voter registration. Of course, TX doesn't ask you to fake things with an RV park address and has not overnight restriction either so that may cause a difference. The USPS address database has been available to businesses for at least 20 years now. 

[sandsys]

1 hour ago, Kirk W said:

The USPS address database has been available to businesses for at least 20 years now. 

And what technology were you using 20 years ago? I'm sure using a lot more of what's available now than I was back then so I suspect businesses are, too.

 

1 hour ago, Kirk W said:

We had PMB

Key word HAD. What used to be is not always what is now. I have been corrected more than once on this form for sharing old processes. I now try hard not to assume what worked for us back in 2008 will work for new full timers today.

Linda

[Kirk W]

14 minutes ago, sandsys said:

Key word HAD. What used to be is not always what is now. I

And we had it that way until 2019. It is still quite acceptable in TX. Taken from the USPS website today:

Quote

 

The U.S. Postal Service allows PMB mailbox customers to use either "PMB" (private mailbox) or the alternative "#" sign as their box number designator, effective August 1, 2001.