This is a question a lot of people ask themselves or their lending advisors. The answer is No. This is fraud plain and simple. Also a lender on a new loan will require you to qualify to carry the full obligations (including mortgage payment, taxes, insurance) of both properties to qualify—you can’t claim your existing [...]

I tried to find some jokes about state budgets, but was unsuccessful. They are simply not a laughing matter. Perhaps even as large a problem as credit card defaults, or commercial loans, both of which may require government bail outs, by the end of this month 19 states have to approve their fiscal 2010 budgets, [...]

There’s been a lot of chatter about whether the $8000 homebuyer tax credit can be used toward down payments. Most recently, HUD said the tax credit can go for down payments and here’s a press report on it:

My daughter came to me the other day and wanted some money, which I refused to give her. She then began ranting about “microloans”, how in 2006 the Nobel Prize for economics went to the fellow who pioneered the concept, and about how I was stifling the US economy by not giving her money. I [...]

As you read this quarterly mortgage market update, you may still be reeling from the figures on your first quarter 2009 investment statements. Markets have been bruising since the credit crisis began in August 2007, with stocks declining approximately 40% since last Fall alone. During this time, economic and financial market updates have come to [...]

With tax preparation season in full swing, here’s the IRS site that discusses mortgage interest deductions. There’s a lot of items that most people don’t know such as: second homes can be treated just like primary residences from a tax deduction standpoint, mortgage insurance is deductible up to $109k adjusted gross income, points on refis [...]

In our last post, we did a consumer Q&A on how to quickly determine if you qualify for the newly announced loan modification program. Now we wanted to provide some more information on the program, including links to more detailed information.

The Obama Administration unveiled the final details of its “Making Home Affordable Program,” which is designed to help up to 9 million American families refinance or modify their loans to a payment that is affordable now and into the future. Below is a consumer Q&A to determine if you qualify for the program. If the [...]

The following post was a section of a previous post but we’re pulling it out as it’s own post because people keep asking about it.

The ceaseless debate among mortgage originators for the past 18 months has been about which origination model will survive. There are three channels to originate: (1) retail, which is a consumer going to a traditional bank to get a mortgage, (2) correspondent, which is a consumer going to a mortgage bank to get a mortgage, [...]