All Posts Tagged With: "credit"
Credit & Underwriting Standards Tighten for VA Borrowers
VA loans have weathered the foreclosure crisis better than their major lending counterparts. But they certainly haven’t been immune to the overall tightening that’s taken hold of the industry.
The result is that these highly flexible and forgiving loans aren’t quite as forgiving as they once were.
Tighter Underwriting
More restrictive credit and underwriting standards have no doubt [...]
First-Time Home Buyer Credit Still On For Vets
While the tax credit for first-time home buyers and sellers largely ended in April, the credit actually continues for active-duty military personnel until April 30, 2011, something that could be important for VA loan borrowers and veteran sellers.
The $8,000 tax credit (along with its $6,500 companion credit for existing homeowners) spurred an uptick in sales [...]
Stock Prices At Heart Of Mortgage Crash
A new and revealing study by the Mortgage Bankers Association argues that the introduction of risky loan products during the past few years was caused in large measure by efforts to pump up lender stock prices.
Written by Clifford V. Rossi, a business professor at the University of Maryland, Anatomy of Risk Management Practices in [...]
What’s a Hard Money Mortgage?
When we think of mortgages we usually think of long-term financing insured by the FHA, VA or with private mortgage insurance. If we have enough cash for a down payment of at least 20 percent then we don’t need mortgage insurance and can just get a conventional loan.
However, there are situations where owners run [...]
A Basic Guide To Real Estate, Mortgages & Taxes
Let’s be honest: April 15th is a day of reckoning, the moment when we find out what we really owe for taxes. In households nationwide wallets are drained and many who were rich on the 14th are greatly impoverished by the 16th.
But for those with real estate the load is made lighter by tax rules [...]
Mortgages: Can You Stop Line of Credit Freezes?
The Federal Reserve has published a new guide to home equity line of credit financing — and what you can do if your lender reduces or freezes your HELOC.
To be polite, not a damn thing.
The Board’s 5 Tips for Dealing with a Home Equity Line Freeze or Reduction first tells us the following:
Late Notice
Your [...]
Luxury Homes Wilt On The Market
Luxury homes — those mansions on the hill — are not selling like hotcakes. In fact, such homes are being re-priced with newer and lower values
The Institute for Luxury Home Marketing says that of 40,252 luxury properties available during the past week, the typical price was $1,156,708 and the cost per square foot averaged $324.
Just as [...]
The Untold Story Behind Fannie Mae & Freddie Mac
The government is out with new foreclosure prevention numbers from Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.
According to the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA), the headline is that “FANNIE MAE AND FREDDIE MAC LOAN MODIFICATIONS UP BY MORE THAN 50 PERCENT IN FIRST QUARTER, MONTHLY PAYMENTS REDUCED FOR HOMEOWNERS.”
We then learn that “Fannie Mae and Freddie [...]
Making The First-Time Buyer Tax Credit Better — Or Worse?
There is now a new effort on Capitol Hill to increase the first-time buyer credit from $8,000 to $15,000. Under S1230, first-time buyers would be able to get a credit equal to as much as 10 percent of the purchase price, up to $15,000.
Not only that, but the time the home would have to be [...]
Delinquencies Up For The Ninth Quarter In A Row
For the ninth quarter in a row, TransUnion.com is reporting that mortgage delinquencies continue to rise. Using data taken from 27 million anonymous, randomly sampled, individual credit reports, the company says 5.22 percent of all mortgage borrowers in the first quarter were at least 60 days late. A year ago the figure was 3.22 percent.
States [...]
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