Sometimes it feels like our leaders pay more attention to how legislation will play in the media than how it will play in real life. If I understand it correctly, the mortgage rescue bill that passed in the House has a couple of provisions that I find a little disturbing.
First, in order to qualify for an FHA refinance [...]
We should be very grateful that the Fed officials don’t have to worry about re-election and pandering to the uninformed. Instead of running around characterizing lenders as evil just to suck up to voters, the Fed actually did a little homework. And in its study the fed discovered that, gawrsh, consumers actually don’t give a [...]
Hello loan pros,
I have been researching solutions for divorcing couples who are underwater on their mortgages and need to get one party off the loan obligation. Unless they are destitute or behind on their payments it seems like no lender in its right mind will restructure the loan, approve a short sale, or let one [...]
A Time article entitled Fed to Curb Shady Home-Lending Practices claims that the Fed seeks to ”bar lenders from making loans without proof of a borrower’s income.” Is this really necessary? Fed economist William Emmons concluded in a recent study that intervention makes housing market conditions more volatile and artificially keeps the market from correcting itself. Self-correction [...]
Hi all,
My company needs bloggers who can post regularly and are good with deadlines. We need an appraisor, a real estate agent, and a home inspector to create weekly posts as well as commenting. Bloggers are paid by the word. Interested parties can contact me at glp@faster-than-you.com for more info.
Thanks and Happy Cowbells, oops, I mean Happy [...]
When it comes to mortgage news, the media have been pretty sheeplike, mindlessly bestowing blame on the scapegoat-of-the-week, spewing anecdotes so they don’t have to do any actual journalism or perform legitimate research (yes, with data and everything. Sheesh). I resent this largely unbalanced view because it seems the result of laziness or the desire to [...]
Mortgage journalism has gone mainstream. Which means disinformation is being even more widely disseminated than before. A new article in Glamour Magazine warns that even smart women can get into trouble with mortgages and extols the safety and simplicity of renting — we souldn’t worry our pretty little heads about home loans, apparently. Even those [...]
I’ve had a feeling for some time that there was some correlation between counties issuing building permits indiscriminately and the subsequent crash in area real estate values. Here in Reno they are still approving new developments as fast as they are asked for, and yet we all know Nevada was one of the hardest-hit states [...]
I have been scouring the web for mortgage statistics and am coming up pretty empty. While anecdotal evidence of the causes of the mortgage debacle abound, hard facts are hard to find. For example, I tried to find data that would show that stated income borrowers were more likely to default than others. [...]
The general consensus regarding mortgage banking is that we allowed things to get too easy. The process became so streamlined that verification went by the wayside, that fogging a mirror could get you approved for a loan, and that property was assumed to be worth whatever someone was willing to pay for it. Oops.
Enter the [...]
No matter how much lipstick you put on it. Why don’t the members of the House Financial Services Committee understand what probably every mortgage broker or banker in this country has figured out? That labeling a mortgage “conforming” does not make it a lower risk conforming deal if the loan amount is in fact higher. [...]
….just post a link to something else without relevent comment and something value-added. But this said it all. And it’s Friday. And someone just fired up the blender in the kitchen…..
http://www.themortgagereports.com/2008/05/the-first-ever.html
Cheers!
….than be associated with a sleazy lending practice. As I’m sure all of us would. So I kind of gagged when Ken Clayton, counsel for the American Bankers’ Association (ABA) claimed that credit card issuers are more consumer-friendly and don’t deserve the same scrutiny applied to mortgage lenders. “Credit cards are a highly regulated industry,” [...]
New legislation that will enable the government to finance $300 billion of troubled mortgages was just approved by the House of Representatives Financial Services Committee. It includes a mandate to FHA to guarantee loans on properties that have declined in value since the mortgage was taken out.
OK, we’re talking about properties with “distressed” mortgages, [...]
Real estate and mortgage, especially in niches or in smaller towns can get really entangled — almost incestuous at times. We all know each other, we refer back and forth, and sometimes it seems like there are too many professionals at too small a trough. Most real estate agents know that LOs need to work [...]
Chris Isidore, CNNMoney.com senior writer is confused. In his overheated article The Trillion Dollar Mortgage Time Bomb he claims that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac “back” loans when in fact they serve as clearinghouses. “Backing” implies some sort of insurance or guarantee, like FHA’s. Additionally, he claims that conforming loans are characterized by “large down [...]
Just finished reading Tony Gallegos’ post (recommended by Todd) and it is good. Loan officers can benefit hugely by adapting a relationship-based business model rather than a transactional one. But what happens when you have spent your career doing just that and then the basis for your carefully nurtured relationships goes away?
This isn’t a hypothetical [...]
While the Bush administration is talking up its mortgage rescue operations for delinquent borrowers, a New York Times article implies that the cash-strapped agency may not be able to pony up. For the first time in its history the Federal Housing Authority faces a deficit, primarily due to defaults on loans featuring seller-financed down payments. [...]
While some of the biggest retail mortgage lenders shutting down their wholesale lending departments claim it’s a sound strategy for reducing loan fraud, I have to question their motives. B of A, WaMu, IndyMac, and others may accomplish a couple of less-than-altruistic goals — first, deflecting the blame for the mortgage mayhem and the brunt [...]
As my daughter used to say when she was about three, “It’s a doggy dog world.” Zillow Mortgage is just another symptom of a trend that has been shaking up marketplaces for the last few decades now — the demand of the unwashed masses for the lowest price no matter what. It’s apparent in the [...]
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