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I Was Sick, And I Forgot, And I Was On Vacation…Oh, And The Dog Ate My Homework

October 15th, 2009

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When customer service goes wrong, it should be made public, shouldn't it?

I was recently submitting a loan for a client to SunTrust mortgage. This loan was submitted 10 days ago. We were told that the loan would take five or six days to get approved, so obviously we were starting to get concerned when we had no answer on day number 6. We were reaching out to SunTrust Bank to ask them what was going on starting on day number six. We heard the bank representative that we usually use was out of town on vacation, someone else would get back to us, they were busy, and yes, it sounded like the dog even ate their homework. Read the rest of this entry »

Tags: Customer service, underwriting
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FHA Loan Myths

October 14th, 2009

myths

Top Myths About FHA Loans

1. FHA appraisals are difficult and often require repairs: FHA now allows private appraisers to do FHA appraisals, this solved much of the old repair problems where FHA staff appraisers would require numerous repairs to the house before allowing the loan to fund. And, with FHA, lenders are still allowed to use their own appraiser as opposed to a Conventional loan where the bank’s random choice of appraiser is used. Sellers and Realtors should find this attractive, since the new appraisal ordering system for Conventional loans has become a nightmare. See http://www.getloans.com/blog/?tag=home-valuation-code-of-conduct for more information on this issue. Read the rest of this entry »

Tags: FHA, FHA loan, underwriting
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Refinancing Is Easy…Right?

October 13th, 2009

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Refinancing should be easy, right? If you have been making your payments on time on a higher rate, why wouldn't someone refinance you to a lower rate? Your payments are on time, so who cares about the rest? Read the rest of this entry »

Tags: underwriting
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Private Mortgage Insurance Confusion

October 12th, 2009

confusion

Getting a Conventional loan with less than a 20% down payment means paying Private Mortgage Insurance (PMI). And you should be aware that getting PMI has become much more complicated and more difficult.

It is almost impossible to get PMI for a 95% loan is most of the Washington DC Metro area, since most of DC is considered a "declining market". You would likely have to have 10% down payment in the Washington DC area for a mortgage loan. Read the rest of this entry »

Tags: private mortgage insurance, underwriting
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New Cultural Center for Arlington Virginia

October 8th, 2009

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Arlington is about to unveil the plans for its new Cultural Center. A special preview will be held on Saturday, October 10, from 8-11 pm, and it is FREE! It will be an evening of short performances by Synetic Theatre, Washington Shakespeare Company, Rapper Remy Munasifi, videos, music by Anthology of Booty, Los Quetzales Mexican Dance, and much more. Read the rest of this entry »

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Interest Rate "Float Down"

October 6th, 2009

Bittinger Mortgage Rates Down

It used to be that if you locked in an interest rate, you'd have a chance at a lower rate later in the transaction and prior to closing via a "float down". A float down may, for example, allow you to initially lock-in a 6% 30 Year Fixed rate with 0 points, only to float down to a 5.5% 30 Year Fixed rate with 0 points later in the transaction if rates fall during the processing of the loan.

Different banks, lenders and brokers have different terms to put a float down into affect. Some lending institutions will not float down at all, and the rate you initially lock-in is all they will offer you no matter how rates change. There logic is that if rates rose 1%, and they called you to split the difference and take a higher rate by .5%, you certainly would not, so why should they offer you a lower rate if rates fall. Read the rest of this entry »

Tags: float down, interest rates
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Federal Reserve Has No Control

October 5th, 2009

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When it comes to interest rates, the Federal Reserve is fairly irrelevant. All it does is adjust its rates to those set by the market. If you plot the yield on T-bills against the discount rate, you will see that the former leads the latter. Despite all the rhetoric about it, the Fed has not kept rates artificially low, just as it did not make them soar in the 1970s. The market sets the rates, and the Fed follows. Read the rest of this entry »

Tags: federal reserve, interest rates
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Home Renovation Projects

October 3rd, 2009

home-renovation

Below is a true story that illustrates why it is so crucial to carefully choose contractors to do work on your home, and NOT to shop solely on price. Shopping solely or even mostly on price is what gets consumers into most of the trouble they get into with services or products.

SPRING 2009: A client contacted me for a $40,000 Home Equity Line Of Credit (HELOC) for renovations to his home. I gave him some advice on how to secure the best HELOC at another bank, as I did not have any good source for them at that time. Below was an update from him a few months later:

"The home equity option did not work for us. And our contractor owes us a significant amount of money on a botched home extension project. While we have some legal recourse, it will still take significant, immediate financial resources for us to complete the unfinished construction project. We are left with no choice but to decrease significant monthly expenditures to obtain the funds needed to complete construction. I want to talk about a 30 Year Fixed Rate refinance, which will save us money since we are now on a 15 Year Fixed Rate on our primary mortgage" Read the rest of this entry »

Tags: home renovation, underwriting
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Capitol Hill development

October 2nd, 2009

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Mayor Fenty announced recently that Stanton-EastBanc has been chosen to redevelop the former Hine Junior High School in Washington DC in the Capitol Hill neighborhood, the school was closed in 2007. In 2006 discussion started to close Hine due to declining student body population, and merge its students with another local DC school, Eliot Junior High School which is located a mile away at 1830 Constitution Avenue, NE. Hine's enrollment had declined to 379 from 546 in 2005 and Eliot's to 274 from 307. In 2006 education activists criticized the proposal to close Hine Junior High School on Capitol Hill, saying they feared it could exacerbate an already sizable exodus of middle grade students from the school system into charter schools. Read the rest of this entry »

Tags: Capitol Hill
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Low Credit Scores

October 1st, 2009

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A low credit score can be caused by several factors. For details on ‘bad credit’, go to my web site (www.GetLoans.com) and hit the 'Tools' button and then click on the ‘Loan Programs’ button. See the data under “Credit Score Information” to see in great detail how credit scores are determined. And see the data under “Credit Repair” to see if it is possible to fix your poor credit record.

The way they rate your credit used to be as simple as ‘have you made any late payments or not’. Now they go much deeper and look at things such as:

Length of credit history Read the rest of this entry »

Tags: credit, credit score, low credit score, underwriting
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