My Mind on Mortgages

It’s been well over a year since I’ve posted anything about deleveraging but this article in the NY Times over the weekend caught my eye.  Deleveraging is a phenomenon we’re seeing across the US economy where households and corporations are paying down debt in the wake of the subprime crisis.  Part of the reason for [...]

If you haven’t been paying attention then you probably are not aware that fixed rate mortgages are back near historic lows.  The WSJ published this article over the weekend explaining that 30 year fixed rate mortgages are back near the lows of 2009 and 15 year fixed rate mortgages are lower than they were last [...]

The Obama Administration announced yesterday that they were expanding the criteria for homeowners who wish to refinance their existing mortgage under the housing-rescue program.  The program, which is known as refi plus in our industry, is now allowing homeowner’s whose mortgages are now worth up to 125% of the home’s current value to refinance under [...]

After being gone for 6 months Tina and I landed on US soil on Wednesday AM in LAX.  Upon landing I couldn’t wait to get my hands on two things that are scarce overseas- filtered coffee & the WSJ.  I was able to acquire both shortly after clearing customs (suckers).
Anyways, in the Wednesday edition James [...]

Are you considering refinancing your existing mortgage?  If so you may be interested to learn that the amount of money it will take to satisfy your existing mortgage (known as the “pay-off amount”) will be MORE than the principal amount you owe.  Why?
Your existing mortgage lender will not only request that you pay-off the principal [...]

The Federal Reserve Board recently created this website  which is designed to help consumers evaluate whether or a refinance of their existing mortgage makes sense.  Typically I am skeptical of the Federal Governments ability to simplify this process for consumers.  After all they were the ones who brought us the Good Faith Estimate & Truth [...]

As I’ve written about multiple times in this blog the 700-page 2008 housing bill has many differnet provisions embedded in the law.  Although I don’t do a lot of reverse mortgage business I wanted to at least provide a link to an article which summarizes how these loan products were impacted by the 2008 housing [...]

Has your home recently been listed for sale? If so, did you know that by having your home listed for sale your ability to refinance your mortgage is severely limited?
95% of banks will not lend on homes that have been recently listed for sale because they are concerned that the home might go back up [...]

Here’s an article I read recently:
During my twenties, I accumulated nearly $25,000 in consumer debt. I had a spending problem. With time, I was able to get my spending under control (mostly), but I still owned overwhelming debt. How could I get rid of it?
The personal finance books all suggested the same approach:
Order your debts [...]

The purpose of this article is to give consumers a guide for determining whether or not a proposed refinance makes financial sense for them. Through my interactions with many of my clients over the years I’ve found that much of the population is left confused when evaluating mortgage refinance options. I hope that I can [...]