Home Buying and Home Selling Tips » Home Mortgage

Finney’s formula to lower your mortgage payment

varac — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 04:52:56 +0000

To get the very best home loan you have to know the rules and then you’ve got to play the game. Many think in this economy you’re stuck with what you’ve got, but that’s actually not true.

The economic downturn tightened lending standards to the point of being simply ridiculous. Well, things are loosening up now and it is time for you to get with the program.

Full story is available on ABC7News

Reducing Your Mortgage Interest Rate

varac — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 04:51:27 +0000

Have you ever received a belated gift that was totally unexpected and unsolicited? Two days after Christmas, I received a surprise gift generated by the federal government through its incentives to banks to stimulate the economy by adjusting interest rates on current home loans for qualified borrowers.

When I answered an unknown number on my phone Dec. 27, there was a loan representative from Citibank, my lender on an investment property in Malibu. I heard on the other end of the line that my loan qualified to receive a lower interest rate through a refinance.

Full story is available on Patch

Why Obama’s Mortgage Plan is Not a Flotation Device

varac — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 04:50:19 +0000

Pacta sunt servanda is Latin for promises must be kept. In the debate over what to do about America’s mortgage mess, the pacta sunt servanda crowd is the one saying that if you owe it, you must pay it. All of it—no matter if you bought at the peak of the market, borrowed way too much, and are now living in a home that’s so far underwater it has a periscope. The opposite view is that over-indebtedness is hampering the economic recovery and that it’s in the public’s interest for lenders to absorb more of the pain for making dumb loans. (I guess you could call that the illegitimi non carborundum camp.)

Full story is available on Business Week

Should you refinance again?

varac — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 04:48:48 +0000

When it comes to mortgage rates, homeowners have been watching just how low they can go and reacting accordingly to historically rock-bottom interest rates.

When rates hit 5%, the rush to refinance was sizable. When rates fell to 4.5%, the rush to refinance was more substantial. When rates fell to 4%, the rush to refinance was downright staggering. And here we are again, with the average 30-year fixed-rate mortgage falling another rung on the ladder, to 3.87%.

Full story is available on MSN Money

Company offers second-chance mortgage loans

varac — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 04:47:17 +0000

Homeowners who got caught in the Las Vegas housing bubble and lost their homes through foreclosure or short sale deserve a second chance, said Rick Piette, manager of Premier Mortgage Lending.

His company’s private lending division has helped 55 borrowers get financing for a new home, in some cases just one day after completing a foreclosure or short sale on their previous home.

Full story is available on lvbusinesspress.com

Homeowners struggle to get mortgage relief

varac — Tue, 07 Feb 2012 03:33:00 +0000

While the government has taken measures to bolster its mortgage-relief program, local homeowners are still ensnared in red tape with lenders attempting to foreclose on their homes.

The Tulsa World interviewed several area homeowners who said they are seeking mortgage relief through various government programs.

Full story is available on Tulsa World

A homeowner’s perspective on mortgage relief

varac — Tue, 07 Feb 2012 03:31:45 +0000

As a homeowner of five years who pays her mortgage in full and on time, I have been frustrated by the inability to refinance my current 5.65 percent mortgage and take advantage of today’s much lower rates [“Obama proposes mortgage relief,” news story, Feb. 2]. The reason: My home has “lost” nearly $100,000 in value in the time I’ve owned it. As a result, I’m “upside down” on my mortgage and can only refinance up to 90 percent of the appraised value — which leaves me having to bring nearly $50,000 to the table at closing.

Full story is available on The Washington Post

Responsible homeowners deserve help

varac — Mon, 06 Feb 2012 04:55:24 +0000

In my State of the Union address, I laid out a blueprint for an economy that’s built to last — an economy built on American manufacturing, American energy, skills for American workers and a renewal of American values of fairness and responsibility.

Over the past decade we strayed from those values and we saw what happened. Millions of families who did the right thing were hurt when the massive housing bubble burst. Folks who shopped for a home they could afford, secured a mortgage and made their payments each month were hurt by those who weren’t playing by the same rules: lenders who sold loans to people who couldn’t afford them, buyers who bought homes they knew they couldn’t afford and banks that packaged and traded bad mortgages to reap phantom profits.

Full story is available on adn.com

New York lawsuit accuses banks of misusing mortgage database

varac — Mon, 06 Feb 2012 04:49:32 +0000

Opening a new front against the American banking industry, New York sued three of the nation’s biggest mortgage servicers over their use of an electronic database that, according to the Empire State, has resulted in widespread deception and fraudulent foreclosure practices.

The suit alleges that employees of the three institutions – Bank of America Corp., Wells Fargo & Co. and JPMorgan Chase & Co. – filed false and misleading actions in New York and federal courts using the controversial Mortgage Electronic Registry System, undermining the state’s foreclosure process and public records system.

Full story is available on BostonHerald

A Mortgage Tornado Warning, Unheeded

varac — Mon, 06 Feb 2012 03:53:04 +0000

YEARS before the housing bust — before all those home loans turned sour and millions of Americans faced foreclosure — a wealthy businessman in Florida set out to blow the whistle on the mortgage game.

His name is Nye Lavalle, and he first came to attention not in finance but in sports and advertising. He turned heads in marketing circles by correctly predicting that Nascar and figure skating would draw huge followings in the 1990s.

Full story is available on The Washington Post