If you have bad credit, mortgage lenders are hard to come by these days. But that doesn’t mean you have no hope of getting a better deal on your home loan. If you have a bad credit mortgage, mortgage rates may be much lower than the rate on your current mortgage. As long as you have some home equity, you may be able to improve your situation. Continue reading ‘Bad Credit Mortgage Refinance Alternative: Modification Through LoanPort’
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If you’re an older homeowner with bad credit and a lot of home equity, you are probably being bombarded with junk mail, phone calls, and email solicitations from salespeople trying to get you to refinance your mortgage. Be very careful dealing with these people–they may be practicing a predatory lending technique called equity stripping. They’ll be doing the stripping, but it’s you who ends up naked. Continue reading ‘Older Borrowers Have Different Experiences with Lenders’
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You are a smart shopper. Whether it’s for a bad credit mortgage, an FHA loan, or a debt consolidation home equity loan, you know what to do–get online or on the phone, touch base with several lenders, and get your disclosures quickly. Once you have decided which lender you like best, it’s time to apply for your mortgage. But what about that rate quote? Is it guaranteed? What are your rights when it comes to mortgage interest rate quotes? Continue reading ‘My Mortgage Rate Is Locked……Isn’t It?’
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On January 1, 2010, would-be borrowers will get a rude awakening from FHA. The agency’s streamline refinance will no longer be the easy transaction it is today. Today, the biggest advantage of FHA streamline refinances is that they don’t require an appraisal or credit qualifying. So even if your home’s value has tanked and you have bad credit, you have been able to refinance easily into a better FHA loan. That opportunity is about to go away. Continue reading ‘FHA Toughening Guidelines in January: Better Refinance Now’
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Those of you waiting to take the step from renting to home ownership may want to step it up. First, unless Congress extends the deadline, that first-time home buyer credit is going away the end of November. Of course those on the sidelines face challenges–often bad credit, a little short on income, insufficient down payment, or lack of time on the job. But you don’t know until you try, right? With a good loan agent, even a decline from a lender can be a useful tool. Here’s how to make the most of that information. Continue reading ‘Even Being Declined for a Mortgage Can Be Useful’
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All the buzz these days is about the homeowner rescue programs–Making Home Affordable and it’s babies Home Affordable Refinance Plan (HARP) and Home Affordable Modification Plan (HAMP). But eligibility for these programs requires that the property be a primary residence. What about investors? Is there any help for them? Continue reading ‘Investors In Trouble: Any Foreclosure Help for Borrowers with Rentals?’
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Until the recent mortgage crisis, it wasn’t all that important to document your income for lenders if everything else was in order–good credit, assets, and a demonstrated capacity to handle large amounts of debt successfully. Stated income loans had a purpose, and it wasn’t to allow pathological liars to buy bigger houses. Continue reading ‘Why “Liar’s Loans” Need to Make a Comeback’
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Countless renters became successful homeowners in the past because of two programs: FHA mortgages and down payment assistance like the Nehemiah program. The US Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) allowed FHA loans to be made with very small down payments (2-3%), charging borrowers insurance to cover their default risk. The program remained solvent for decades and has largely been considered a resounding success. Borrowers who couldn’t save even the tiny FHA minimum down payment could sometimes receive help through down payment assistance or community homebuyer programs, allowing them to buy a home with no down payment. And many more families became homeowners through these programs.Unfortunately, recent trends are showing that down payment assistance can have unintended results. For example, HUD discovered in a recent study that borrowers with no money of their own invested in a property are many times more likely to walk away from their homes and their mortgages than others with similar financial situations. And for the first time in its history, FHA’s insurance premiums collected from borrowers will not be enough to cover its losses from mortgage defaults–meaning perhaps a taxpayer bailout is in the future.
HUD would like to change its guidelines to prohibit down payment assistance and not allow FHA mortgages in which the buyer has not made a down payment using his / her own funds. So what does that mean to those considering a home purchase today? Urgency. If you are considering a home purchase and think you might qualify for down payment assistance you may have very little time to close that deal. So STOP reading this blog and START your online search for a lender NOW. You can thank me later when you have time.
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