No, there is no such thing as a “no questions asked” loan. But, believe it or not, there is something called “Limited Review” for Conforming (loans at $417,000 or less) condo loans, and it makes getting a condo loan “much” easier. Read the rest of this entry »
Believe it or not the word “seasoning” does come into use in the mortgage world. Seasoning means the length of time a homeowner has owned their home and paid on their mortgage. If you bought your house one year ago, you have ‘one year seasoning’. This is important Read the rest of this entry »
Most people do not know what it means to co-sign a mortgage. Some people think its a curse, and some think its no big deal. The truth is somewhere in between.
The good news is that co-signing a loan does not hurt your credit, as long as the person you are co-signing for does not make any late payments. Most co-signing situations are a parent or parents who are co-signing for a child. Other good news is that the co-signers will not have the mortgage they co-sign for count against their credit and their debt ratios, as long as the child they helped can produce canceled checks for one year showing the payments have been made on time by the child. Read the rest of this entry »
It seems we are still in a banking environment where no one cares about debt-to-income ratios (DTI), which is astonishing. Isn’t this one of the things that got us in trouble in the first place? Read the rest of this entry »
After 24 years in the mortgage business I have seen every mortgage scam, and been approached about every way to cut a corner, get a better deal, or pull one over on an underwriter.
But guess what? Underwriter’s know how to use Google now! It took a while, but they figured it out. Why does this matter? Well it only matters to the cheaters and corner cutters. If you are always honest in your loan application, don’t read any further (unless you want to be entertained). Read the rest of this entry »
Title insurance is insurance against defects in title to real property. It is meant to protect an owner’s or lender’s financial interest in property against loss due to title defects, liens or other matter of public record. It will defend against a lawsuit attacking the title, or reimburse the insured for the actual monetary loss incurred, up to the dollar amount of insurance provided by the policy.
Just as lenders require fire insurance and other types of insurance coverage to protect their investment, nearly all Read the rest of this entry »
I almost feel like there is no more PMI (Private Mortgage Insurance) on condos! But that is not true, there is PMI availability for condos, but it is getting harder to get. Most people know by now that PMI is needed on a Conventional loan if you have less than 20% down payment. I recently had a client who Read the rest of this entry »
It seems any banks that are still doing home equity lines of credit (also known as a HELOC) have limited them to an 80% combined loan-to-value (LTV). This means that the existing 1st trust mortgage and any equity line cannot exceed 80% of the current appraised value. For example: Read the rest of this entry »
It used to be simple to get an FHA condo loan. Lenders could do an FHA “Spot Condo Approval”, which meant that the condo did not need to be on the FHA Approved Condo List, and all we lenders needed to do was verify that the condo met certain FHA requirements (51% owner occupancy, no litigation against the condo, no more than 10% of the unit owners behind in their condo fees, etc). Now the condo approval process is more centralized, and more complicated. Read the rest of this entry »
Getting a condo loan approved seems to get harder and harder each day. Below are the loan approval conditions I got on a recent loan submission for a condo purchase:
1. Buyer to get 20% HO6 dwelling coverage.
2. Statement from the property management company about the cleaning services in the condo’s budget. What type of cleaning services are they?
3. Statement from the appraiser on whether having no parking in the project has an effect on the value. Read the rest of this entry »