Credit Union Teams Up With Real Estate Agents

Real estate agents who have agreed to take a hit on their commissions have teamed up with a Los Angeles-area credit union to help first-time homebuyers navigate one of the nation’s most expensive markets.

Orange County’s Credit Union of Santa Ana, Calif., 35 miles southeast of Los Angeles, announced Tuesday it is working with HomeSmart Evergreen Realty of Irvine, Calif., on a new program designed to make homeownership more accessible for people in Orange, Los Angeles, Riverside and San Bernardino counties.

The credit union ($2.4 billion in assets, 124,061 members as of March 31) said it set up the Home Connections program to help people who might be discouraged from even exploring the possibility of buying a new home because of misinformation, the complexity of the process or a lack of understanding about requirements.

The new program connects members with one of the credit union’s mortgage loan consultants and a real estate agent from HomeSmart Evergreen Realty. These experts are intended to guide members throughout a home search, and potentially, a closing.

Carlos Miramontez, the credit union’s vice president of mortgage lending, said linking members with experts provides a clearer path to homeownership.

“We are pleased to provide this free, unique program to our members to help them realize the dream of home ownership,” Miramontez said. “Having a reliable source of information can make a world of difference for aspiring homeowners, no matter where they are on their housing journey.”

Through the Home Connections program, homebuyers can receive a 20% rebate from their buyer agent’s commission at closing, and sellers pay a 1.5% flat rate listing fee. This compares to the traditional 3% selling and additional 3% listing fee that agents charge. Sellers pay the fees to both selling and buying agents at closing.

Members will also have free access to tools and resources, such as a home search website with real-time access to MLS data during their home search, an instant estimate of their home’s value in today’s market, and a 20% discount on escrow fees for sellers.

Orange County’s Credit Union originated $99.1 million in residential real estate in the first quarter, down 28% from a year earlier. It originated $469.9 million in residential real estate in the 12 months of 2021, down 27% from a year earlier.

ATTOM, a curator of real estate data based in Irvine, reported June 30 that the median sales price for a home in Orange County in the second quarter was $1.05 million, up 19% from a year earlier and the ninth most expensive among the 575 counties in its database.

ATTOM estimated that a household would need to earn $220,115 a year to be able to put down a 20% deposit and stay below a 28% debt-to-income ratio in the county.

ATTOM’s affordability index for Orange County was the worst since the second quarter of 2006 just before the housing bubble burst, followed by the December 2007 start of the Great Recession.