It's Time to Rethink the 30 Year Fixed Loan

When a consumer calls me for mortgage rates, 90% of the time they’re looking for a 30 year fixed mortgage.  I can almost guess immediately what mortgage the customer is going to ask for before they finish their sentence.

Let me start off by saying that I do not have anything against 30 year fixed loans.  They have [...]

Homeowner's Guide to HARP

It appears that more homeowners with little-to-no-equity are gaining an interest in refinancing.  More importantly, they’re gaining confidence that there is an option.  This is good news as it appears the Home Affordable Refinance Program (HARP) is gaining both momentum and attention.

This seems like the right time to give homeowners an extensive guide to HARP, including [...]

Fannie Mae Announces Their “Deed for Lease” Program- Who Should be Looking at This?

Earlier this month Fannie Mae announced the release fo their “Deed for Lease program.

If an owner cannot afford to pay their Fannie Mae backed mortgage, they can deed the property to Fannie Mae and rent it back at market rate.  The homeowner can obtain a lease up to 12 months and either sign a new [...]

Mortgage Educational Booklets in One Place

In the mortgage industry, lenders are required to send clients educational booklets relative to their loan application.  I’ve always found it odd that there isn’t a centralized place for all of these booklets, so I thought I’d post them all here. 

Using FHA to Buy Multi-Family Homes

Recently, I was having lunch with my friends Rob Novak (fellow Loan Officer) and Andrew Norman from ING.  It was one of those lunches where topics moved left to right without filters or agenda.  While sharing ideas and opinions of the current marketplace, the topic of first time home buyers was mentioned.  At that moment, [...]

How to Find HUD Foreclosed Homes

I’ve always found it interesting that there are so many websites that claim to have a listing of foreclosed homes.  Many of them claim they have HUD (US Department of Housing and Urban Development) foreclosures which are foreclosed homes that had FHA loans.

Though many of these listings may be accurate, there is only one real [...]

New Credit Scoring Model

It appears that there will be a new credit scoring model.  The new model is being dubbed “FICO 08.” 

Supposedly, this model is designed to help more qualified borrowers get the loans they deserve and filter more borrowers from potential default.  Mostly, it’s geared towards punishing repeat default borrowers more.  Borrowers who have an infrequent delinquency [...]

Are Banks Slowing Down Loan Modifications?

Diane Tuman from Zillow.com recently blogged the recent slow down in Loan Modifications.  Much of this information came from a recent article posted in The New Yorker in an article called “Not Home Yet”.

One very interestin statistic used was 30% of all homeoners requesting a loan modification eventually bring their payments back to current.  Another [...]

FHA Now Allows Note Modifications

In the coming weeks, I’ll find more details on what criteria HUD (Departmeng of Housing and Urban Development) is looking for.  The announcement came at the end of last month.  Here is a link to HUD’s announcment.

HUD regulates and writes the rules and regulations for FHA loans.

VA Loan Benefits...The Best Home Loan Everybody Forgot About

It absolutely surprises me everytime I talk to a Veteran about VA Loans (Veteran’s Affairs). VA Loans are loans insured by the US Department of Veterans Affairs for honorably discharged military veterans.  It seems that most Veterans either have a hard time finding a VA lender who knows what they’re talking about or if they [...]