My Mind on Mortgages

Although the housing market seems to be stabilizing according to most measures (one could fairly argue that this is a near-term phenomenon subject to government stimulus) lenders continue to tighten underwriting guidelines making it harder for homebuyers to qualify for financing.
Yesterday I blogged about tighter guidelines for FHA refinances and today I am reporting tighter [...]

Beginning July 30, 2009 all mortgage applications must comply with the Mortgage Disclosure Improvement Act (MDIA) which was passed into law as a part of the Housing and Economic Recovery Act of 2008.
The objective of MDIA is to protect consumers & improve the consistency of the Truth-in-Lending disclosures (TIL) that applicants get from lenders at [...]

For professionals in the housing industry (mortgage, appraisal, & real estate) the new appraisal rules known as the Home Valuation Code of Conduct (HVCC) is a hot topic these days.  These rules which became effective May 1st were designed to improve the accuracy and integrity of appraisals.  However, as many professionals is the housing industry [...]

For those of us who have been hoping for the credit markets to show signs of stabilization we can keep on waiting.
Freddie Mac announced last week that they would no longer issue or accept underwriting approvals knows as “accept plus” approvals.  These approvals, which were mostly earned by borrowers with high credit scores and large [...]

Although many home-buyers do not realize it every home they buy has been bought with 100% financing.  How can that be you may ask?  The last home I bought I put 20% down.
It may be true that you took an 80% mortgage and used your own funds for a 20% down payment but what you [...]

A few weeks ago I blogged about tighter underwriting guidelines pertaining to conventional loans for home-buyers who are seeking to close on a new home prior to selling their existing home.
Today we got notification from HUD indicating that FHA loans would also adopt similar guidelines (click this link to view the announcement for yourself).
Essentially, the [...]

This morning Fannie Mae released updated guideline changes for conforming mortgages.  This is a sign that we can continue to expect tightening in the area of loan approval guidelines which will make it more difficult for borrowers to qualify for loans in the future. I don’t think these changes will drastically impact most real estate [...]

It’s that time of year again in Oregon where lenders will begin collecting real estate tax holdbacks for transactions closing in September & October where the first payment of the new mortgage is in November or December.  Every year tax holdbacks end up being the source of frustration for many homebuyers who end up having [...]

Often times our customers are hesitant to grant us permission to access a new credit report for them because of concerns that it will hurt their credit score.  The problem with not reviewing a client’s credit history and credit score is that we end up proposing mortgage options that may change once we do pull [...]

The final piece of a mortgage application that a bank is interested in reviewing is the property itself. After all, if a borrower fails to make their monthly payments then the bank will take the house back and sell it in order to recoup the money that they loaned against it.
The value of a home will generally [...]