How to Buy a House With a 600 Credit Score

The gang from Sell for 1 Percent, joined by Jody Vermillion of Ruoff Mortgage, breaks down today’s interest rates and specialized loan programs. With rates for a 30-year fixed mortgage sitting in the low sixes with a point, many buyers might not realize the flexibility available through certain programs—like an FHA option that offers up to 5% in down payment assistance for buyers with credit scores as low as 600. For Columbus homebuyers navigating a market with a median of just 28 days on market, understanding these creative financing options is a critical advantage for getting into a home.

#SellFor1Percent #ColumbusRealEstate #MortgageRates #FHALoan #FirstTimeHomebuyer

Full Transcript

Hey there, everyone. Jaime with Self for 1 Percent Realtors. Hello, Jaime.

Joined, as usual, by the gang, Dave Barlow and Jaysen Barlow. And this week, we have… Oh, and what week is it? July 10th, 2026.

So, we stay current. We have Jody Vermillion joining us here today. Jody, thanks for being here.

Jody’s on vacation. Yep, Jody’s at the beach. It’s my cool, breeze background.

I didn’t get myself one of those. I like that. Looks like a little rough water, though.

I don’t know if you’d be out there swimming. Surfing. Yeah.

The yellow flags are up on the lifeguard stand. Proceed with caution. I just saw a report here.

That looks like it might be Hawaii or something. But I guess over there on the east coast of Florida, there’s an abnormal number of shark attacks. Oh, no.

Yeah. Yeah. There’s people being bitten almost every day.

And it’s like, well, what’s going on? Because of the Chinese sharks? Little do you know in my history, I was once upon a time a shark wrestler. Oh, boy. That would actually not be surprising.

Jody is an extreme sport athlete. Yeah. Alligator wrestler.

Right. Right. There you go.

Down in Florida. All right, Jaime. I’m sorry.

Go ahead. Jody’s trying to get us on the rails. He’s got to go to a closing.

I’m enjoying this. Some of us have real estate to do. Yeah.

Shark wrestling, alligator wrestling, and interest rate wrestling. Yes. All kind of on the same boat, I think.

Jody, what are you seeing with interest rates? Well, introduce yourself first. What mortgage company are you with? I’m with Ruoff Mortgage. There you go.

I’m a branch manager with Ruoff. And I have a team, Vermillion Lending Team, been in the business for 26 years. Hence that.

So I’ve seen a little bit of everything. Rates are actually not doing bad. And on the whole scale of things, if you look at history, rates are, on an average, in a good place.

When I bought my home, rates were higher than this. So if you’re a first-time homebuyer, you know, there’s some programs out there that you can qualify for, and the rates vary a little bit. But I would say on a 30-year fix today, paying a point you could be looking at anywhere from, I’d say 6% to 6.25 if you’re paying a point.

And one point is 1% of the base loan amount after down payment. So that’s what it’s looking like, I would say, in the market today. So low sixes? Yeah, low sixes.

And, you know, there’s different nuances if you’re working with, you know, a lender that understands the market and the buyer and what you’re doing. Conventional has different nuances of programs. So there’s a regular conventional 30-year fix, and then there’s like a home-ready, home-possible type of program that offers a quarter lower end rate.

So if you’re working with the right lender, they’re going to know to look at that if you qualify in the right income bracket. That’s cool. Yeah.

So what are some of the other, like, special programs that you guys have available for either first time or just, you know, as normal? So Ruoff has a FHA Home Now program that’s for down payment assistance. It goes up to 5%. You only need a 600 credit score.

And there’s not an income cap. So most and many can qualify for it. It is a soft second loan that’s in your monthly payment, but it allows you to basically get some seller paid closing costs.

If you find a property that has time on market, then basically you’re bringing close to nothing to closing. Is it like the old days where we’d go to a closing and the buyer would walk away with money in their pocket? Possibly. It depends.

And this is how I coach my buyers, too. It’s like when they’re working with a real estate agent who knows what they’re doing. If they need closing costs because they have close to no money, you know, you’ve got to be looking at properties with time on market.

And some people don’t understand that. But that’s how you’re able to negotiate some seller paid closing costs a little bit. Well, and we are seeing houses sit a little longer right now.

And so, and I think that, you know, some of these sellers do have the ability to help with closing costs like that. I guess I’m more intrigued with you guys’ and the industry, a word for that would be overlay. You guys have an overlay for up to 5% and 600 credit score? Yeah.

That’s the program itself is 5% and 600 credit scores, the minimum. So the stretch is also that you can go up to a 55% debt ratio, which typically you can’t go that high. So it allows for that.

Yeah. We want everyone to be at a 55 debt ratio. It just depends on their circumstance and what their needs are and why we’re pushing to that debt ratio.

Hey, I debt back credit. Let’s go to Jody. No, usually, I mean, honestly, I simulate actions for buyers every single day.

It can be going from a 680 to a 700. So I can do a single premium on mortgage insurance to eliminate it in their monthly payment so they can qualify for more house. So I’m helping people with credit every single day, just to put them in the best, you know, give them the best options for a program, not just a option.

So if you’re a buyer out there that maybe needs some credit repair tips and credit tips in general, might be a good option to reach out to you. Oh, absolutely. Yeah.

And it’s easy. I mean, I still meet with people too. I like to build the relationship.

I can do a Zoom call. I can meet with them in person, you know, whatever’s most comfortable for the buyer. But yes, I’m simulating actions right here on my computer every single day.

And then I provide action steps of exactly what to do. If we need to get a 650 score because we’re going to qualify for OFA, then you have the instructions on exactly what to do. If we want to get to a 700 so we can do a single premium for mortgage insurance to eliminate the monthly because they’re doing a minimum down program, we can simulate actions to tell them how to get there.

And sometimes it’s paying down a simple credit card, you know? So the action steps aren’t always so difficult. It’s just a matter of knowing what to do and not guessing what to do. Because if you guess what to do, you could actually do the opposite to your So not to tell your age, Jody, but how long have you been doing this? 26 years.

Oh, boy. 26 years. I started when I was 10.

Well, you’re like Jaysen. Jaysen started when he was 18. I really started like 14 and 15 putting freaking signs out for dad all over the neighborhood.

I’ve been writing property descriptions since I was 16 years old. Now you just throw it in chat GPT. It’ll write it for you.

There you go. You know, that’s one thing that I try and do myself because every agent is doing AI descriptions and they all sound the same. Yeah.

So that’s actually one thing that I kind of see. I use AI for a lot of things. But that is one thing I actually do not use AI for.

And I point that out to my sellers in my listing appointments that you’re getting with you and my vast knowledge of real estate. Yeah. And my niece who’s on this call as well, I invited her just to listen to learn or whatever, but she’s, she appreciates AI, but she’s a big advocate just like you that you don’t need to use it for everything.

So, and I’m the same way, even when I’m putting together an email, I have some colleagues that are like, just send it through JPG. So it sounds good. I’m like, well, I actually want it to be my tone.

I want it to be me. So I agree. You don’t need to use it for everything.

It’s all fun stuff until somebody gets hurt. I’m dropping a sign off Indian Lake. Hold on a second people.

Oh boy. Talk about life. Right.

Always be working. Always be closing. Yeah, exactly.

Yeah. And Jaime’s got to leave here about two minutes for a closing. Awesome.

Yeah, it’s a busy morning. Everybody’s going 38 different directions. I love it.

That means business is happening. Business is not bad. I think, you know, we’re seeing, you know, there’s a little bit of a push, you know, up until middle of July, people trying to get that house spot so they can get into the school district that they want to be into.

And I guess that’s a question for you, Jody. If I have a purchase contract and I guess maybe not every school district’s a little bit different, but it’s our understanding that most school districts, if you have a purchase contract, they will allow you to enroll your child, you know, into the school system. Have you ever heard of that? No, I’ve never heard of that, but I believe it.

I mean, it makes sense. You’re going to close are going to be in the district. So you’ve got a legal binding contract.

I would, I would think that that would fly. Or you can go into contract, get your kid into school and then terminate the contract. Or use the chat GPT to spoof a settlement statement.

Oh boy. Oh boy. Well, yeah, it’s already been thought of for sure.

So do you guys get information about redistricting for schools and when that’s occurring? I think there’s some happening up towards pal, that area, a whole redistrict of some schools and, and yeah, Dublin Dublin is doing there’s I think for next year for the 27 year. It’s been done. Building a new high school.

And so there’ll be a redistricting that will happen with that fifth high school. And do you find that, you know, some of the students that are in that age bracket or whatever, they don’t want to change schools. They don’t want to lose their friends.

They don’t want to do that kind of shuffle. Do you find that parents are wanting to list their homes and buy something else because of the redistrict? You know, that’s a good idea. We ought to, we ought to postcard those people.

That’s a great idea. Yeah. Well, a lot of them don’t know what to my understanding.

A lot of them don’t understand how, when they don’t know the specifics of what’s going on. It seems. So I’ve heard.

Yeah. But the interesting thing is, is like, okay, here’s our plan. And then, I mean, in some of these school districts, you know, Dublin, all in Kanji Arlington, you know, doesn’t have it because it’s a single high school, but, you know, Worthington has a problem.

Hilliard has the problem. There are X number of attorneys that live in those districts and they tend to be the ones that raise the most hell. And so, you know, that’s where the Dublin has been talking about their redistricting thing for six months.

And we had a plan, but now we had to redo the plan because we had all these objections and, you know, everything, everybody wants to litigate everything. And so it’s an interesting situation because, you could sell your house and then move into the new district or the old district. And then they redistrict you out again.

I think it’s a good plan. And Jay, I think you’re right. Postcards will be going out later tonight.

Fire up the printing press. Let me know if you need co-branding. There you go.

There you go. Yeah. Just all this craziness and in today’s world.

But I, I’m a proud graduate of Centennial high school. And so we were supposed to go to whetstone. And my first year.

I’m going to jump on mobile real quick. All right. My first year was back then.

High schools were sophomore, junior, senior, and they had what we called, or what was called middle schools, which was seven, eight, So the freshmen were in middle school. We weren’t in high school yet. And so when we went into Centennial, we had that same situation.

Half our class went to Centennial, half our class went to whetstone. And as a result, both schools stunk in varsity sports because you had half the team go here and half the team go over there. But it’s been going on.

Yeah. This is back when you had to walk to school uphill both ways too. In the winter, we had the blizzard of 76.

So, you know, I had to go in three feet of snow too. That’s how old I am. Right.

Yeah. So it’s all good stuff. We are very fortunate here in Columbus that I was looking at some stats here.

About, I don’t know, a little bit ago. When I was first born back in the early 60s, Columbus was a city of 400,000. And now the Metro is 2.2 million.

And M.O.R.P.C. says over the next 20 to 25 years, we’re going to see another 750,000 to 1 million people move into the Columbus metropolitan area. So, you know, cities are growing, going to continue to grow.

They’re going to have to buy something eventually or sell it. So you want to buy? Talk to Jody. Right.

Yep. It looks like Jody at Ruoff.com. Is that your niece there we’re seeing, Yes.

Yes. Lou is our high level expert. So she’s the one that puts together the workflow.

She does all our brand awareness. She does all of our social media. And yeah, she does amazing things.

She’s getting licensed. So we can have her do some other fun things. That’s good.

Lou, run. Go back to school. You know, the cool thing is, is that she was actually a really good gamer for the longest time.

She still gets on and does the gaming stuff with Twitch and all of that. So she, she built a following with streaming. And so she’s got, got some technique, got some knowledge on, on how to do that.

And, and she’s done it really well and she’s got the personality for it too. So she’s a magnet for, for people because of her charisma. But yeah, so she, it’s a lot of fun, the job she’s doing right now.

Cause it’s, you know, doing the video, doing, you know, doing some of the social media stuff and posts and being creative and all that kind of stuff. It’s, it’s not a, not a bad gig. Super good.

That’s cool. Yep. I still enjoy the technology myself.

Even at, I mean, I started in technology, Lou, you may not even know this, but way back in the day when you first started the program, a mainframe, you, I walked around campus with a stack of IBM cards. And that’s how I started. Three feet of snow.

What does IBM cards? Well, up at Kent state, there was three feet of snow for sure. my first, my first night at the Kent state, we got snowed out the next day for school. There was a blizzard had hit and we had about three, four feet of snow.

And so my first day was actually a snow day, but then later on. Walk across. Kind of things that come with many more days that you just didn’t go to class.

There you go. Now I always want the class. I enjoyed class.

I was doing things. I say programming with the IBM cards. So speaking of not going to class, that’s how I became a real estate agent.

Back to school, back to school to prove to daddy. I’m not the fool. Yeah.

Yeah. I tell everybody I’m going to get a real estate license. I didn’t get a real job.

Go to school. Get a real job. We got 10,000 realtors.

It’s too many already. You really just need, you know, that’s why I pray for total economic collapse, just to flush out everybody. I mean, how many mortgage brokers are there in the Columbus area? Jodi, you have any idea? Oh my gosh.

I have, I have no idea. Too many, too many. Well, yeah, I think too, too, too many.

Yeah. Like Jay said, we got 10,000. Just like realtors, I think there’s what, is there 9,000, 10,000? 10,000.

How many? Oh my gosh. It’s crazy. Yep.

Too many and too many part-timers. Well, if you got 1,400 bucks, you can be a realtor. Yeah.

Do you think they should increase that fee so you have less? No, I think what they should do is increase the education that you have to have, you know, the associates degree to get a real estate license and a bachelor’s degree to, you know, become a broker or whatever it may be. But that, or like how they do the appraisers, like being apprentice, like get like three years on the job first. At that point, I think you would have about 40 or 50 realtors.

Yeah. Well, I mean, I think that in the first place, I think, yeah, I think that in the first place, just like a loan officer, I think you need to be a loan partner or a loan officer assistant before you actually jump in and do the job. Same thing with a realtor.

I think you have to be in a team, learn how to do this stuff before you’re out there, you know, breaking things. Yeah. Because I mean, I can tell you so many times I’m dealing with folks that I’m telling them how to do their job.

They don’t, I mean, they don’t even know what they’re or how to even negotiate someone into contract. I mean, sometimes I’m, I know the listing agents. I’m like, Hey, hold on.

Let, let me know. And then they get them into contract. Yeah.

Yeah. I’ve, definite art form, all this stuff. It’s not as easy as people think it is.

Definite art form. Yeah. And I’m not, I’m not saying, you know, I, once upon a time I wasn’t new in my business either, and I’m not opposed to fake it till you make it, but do it the right way.

Right. I’ve been, um, doing this now 28 years. Um, and I always get a kick out of people who say, Oh, I’ve been doing real estate for 20 years.

And then you look them up and they’ve done three deals in the last, you know, three years. Right. And it’s like, you know, you’re doing it part time, uh, just because longevity doesn’t make you, right.

I tell people, you know, I’ve done close to 5,000 deals. Um, I have a little bit of experience, uh, but I’m still learning and I enjoy that part. There’s, there’s still new ways to get people from point A to point B.

And, you know, if there’s a better way, then I’m all for it. You know, I agree. They would argue that I’m stubborn like that, but there’s also things that I do and have done for a long time.

I wouldn’t. That are, you know, very flexible. Well, lending is always changing too.

So I, I agree. You’re always learning. You’re always figuring out different ways to do things, different new programs, you know, to be creative and, and that sort of thing, but also how to talk to people too.

Um, I, I find that as, as our, um, new homebuyers or first time homebuyers, they’re looking everything up on chat GPT. It doesn’t always give them the, the actual correct answers. So, so you have to dial into how to, to understand and speak a little differently.

Also. Yeah, that, that I’ll tell you I’m dealing with a buyer right now who’s unrepresented and everything he sends me is from chat GPT. It’s crazy.

And then, and the same thing with some of these realtors, you know, and that’s, and that’s kind of your clue when you look them up, like dad saying, all I done like four deals in two years is you get these chat GPT responses. It’s not fooling anybody. You can tell it’s from AI.

I mean, you can take one look at it and see the words that are being used in the cadence. And it’s like, God, that’s AI. You know, I would highly recommend lenders, buyers, sellers, don’t use chat GPT to communicate.

Yep. Yep. I think there’s, yeah, like you said, you want it in, you know, your voice in your tone.

And, and, and the honest answer is why, as I learn more and I’m big time into the AI stuff, but there’s a thing called hallucination. And the deeper I’m into this, the more I see that chat GPT and, and all of them, Grock, Claude, you know, Gemini, deep seek, whatever, they all do the same thing. And they, they tell you something with authority and you accept it and then come to find out it’s wrong.

So you gotta be, gotta be careful with what you’re sending. Well, and there’s no, there’s no creativity. There’s no outside the box thinking with the AI either.

It’s very much inside the box, not going to give you creative solutions, creative ideas. You know, it will tell you how to write a contract up, but then you’re going up against some competition that will write a better contract. We’ll have stronger, you know, things in it where AI is going to say, well, I don’t know if I would do that.

I don’t know if I would change that in the contract. And it doesn’t protect you as much when it’s the thing that, you know, we’ll end up winning the deal for you. So I find that, that as an issue with AI as well, it’s very in the box thinking.

Yep. Yeah. Well, it only knows what it knows and that, you know, creativity is not part of it.

This is an art form, as Jaysen would say. There is, uh, I used to get a kick. My, uh, brother Steve, uh, worked with me for a number of years and one of his favorite sayings was they didn’t teach me that in real estate school.

Yeah. And yeah, that’s what I tell everybody when I’m using a lock to break into a house. I steal that line from Steve.

Edit, edit, edit. Jaysen breaking into houses. Not good.

I got it. My lock takes that right here, buddy. That’s from the old foreclosure days.

You drive an hour somewhere and the keys gone. It’s like, well, you get the old credit card out. The police.

Yeah. Get the old credit card out. That’s a good trick too.

Add one that was flexible. So, all right, let me tell you, I think everybody’s going in 20 different directions here. Jaysen, you’re out in the middle of nowhere.

You’re breaking out. I’m in Russia. Can you hear me? Yeah.

I closed the deal there once. About every third word. Hang on.

Yeah. We try and find a spot to pull over. If you can’t hear me, just cut me off.

I’ll give the update. You have to Photoshop my face. Yeah.

Market today. We’re at 5,738 active listings. When I checked, we’re almost to my 6,000.

So, you may owe me a dollar before too long. You’re old, man. I doubt it.

And the median days on market in the Metro still hangs around 28. The average is 70. And so, Jody was talking about home to some time on market.

They are out there. The average house is taking 70 days. But when you throw out the high and you throw out the lows, about four weeks, sell a house right now.

So, it’s a good time to be a seller. Our average close days are 16. So, it’s much tighter than what it used to be.

And we can do things a lot more quickly to get someone close. So, it’s another negotiation on a contract for sure. So, you know, if you get a seller that needs to close fast because a deal fell through, or they’re closing on something else, or for whatever reason, we can get deals closed quickly.

That’s good. Everybody wants everything done today. I mean, it’s twofold, right? I mean, I explain this to a lot of realtor partners that I work with is that yes, we can close fast, but y’all have to run as fast as I do.

get your, everyone respond quick. Everybody responds quickly. you know, all the people, you know, and, and you have to understand that, you know, this is going to make the buyer just a little more nervous because they’re doing things a lot faster and it’s going to seem a little overwhelming.

So, you know, do we want our buyer to have that experience? It depends on the personality type. So, I try to keep everybody in mind of those things too, and conscientious of them. That’s called experience.

Yeah. There you go. All right.

What’s that? You either buy or you die. There you go. No hesitation.

I think you should wear that t-shirt. Yeah, boy. Buy or die.

Very, or pay taxes. Especially in Russia. Yeah, I got, yeah, kind of my new listing in Russia, everybody.

You’re going to have an open house. Yeah. You’re going to have an open house with, hors d’oeuvres.

I like, yeah, wine and cheese in Russia. I like Jay’s wrap ups as well. Jay, why don’t you bring this one home? If you’re looking to buy, give Jaime a call, give Jody a call, get pre-approved.

Remember, she can close it. She said in 10 days, you just got to run fast. Be ready to close in 10 days, Jody.

If you need to sell, give Dave a call, Big Dad. Complain about me. Call Dad.

Leave a like in the comments. Subscribe. Ask any questions.

We’ll scour them. Jaime reads every comment. Make sure you, you leave one about his mustache.

I need to slow down before I get pulled over, going into Russia. Yeah. Holy crap.

And if you want me to drive you around, I’m going to show houses. All nations on this. Below.

Most people, most people can only show like four or five houses in a day. Jay shows like 15. Because he drives very fast.

Yeah. Those are wrecking. I know my wife’s.

I didn’t laugh. Hopefully she’s not watching this on the way. Instagram right now.

Well, she’s not watching anything. Cause you’re cutting in and out. Perfect.

Yeah. Yeah. Those are your bowels.

Yeah, exactly. I’ll finish this up then. Thank you everyone for showing up today.

Jody. Hope you enjoy your vacation wherever you are in the world there. And.

Give us a call. We’d love to help you guys out. Like, and subscribe as always.

Jaime, have a good closing. be safe out there. Jody hang five.

And we’ll talk to you guys later. Thanks. Yeah.

East.