Entries from Searchlight Crusade tagged with 'loans'
Pre-Qualification
One of the most useless and overworked items in the real estate industry today is the pre-qualification for a loan. Sellers want buyers to be "pre-qualified", and buyers are seeking "pre-qualification" to convince buyers they are serious. The level of...
Consult a Loan Officer Before You Make a Purchase Offer
I don't know how many people have told me the story of the Purchase Offer That Was Accepted But Couldn't Be Done. They come to me because they lost their deposit or are about to and they want some way...
What is Reasonable Loan Officer Compensation?
I get people asking me about how much their mortgage loan providers make, usually with an idea towards negotiating it down but often with the idea of choosing one loan or the other based upon the loan officer's compensation. This...
Debunking "Lenders Are All The Same"
Just like Mohandas Gandhi and Genghis Khan and Attila the Hun were (despite their differences) all human beings, lenders (despite their differences) make money by lending money to people who want it. That's about the limit of the truth in...
Real Estate: Giving Someone a Monopoly Does Not Encourage Top Performance
From an e-mail I've been talking to agents lately and I ask them about the things I've learned about from your site. I thought I would say things like "I want to apply for a backup loan" and they would...
The New, Allegedly Improved Good Faith Estimate (Page Two)
Continued from The 2010 Good Faith Estimate (Page One) The next section is on origination charges. Indeed it is titled "Your adjusted origination charges" It starts with "Our origination charges" saying this is the charge for doing the loan....
My Sixty Second Public Service Announcement about Buying Real Estate
Here was an idea I had: Pack a list of the most important things consumers need to know about buying real estate, as packed into the words I can say in sixty seconds without sounding like an over-clocked squirrel. Here...
Retirement Account Contributions and Mortgage Loan Qualification
I know 401k contributions impact a persons Adjusted Gross Income, thus would it also affect the amount a person could qualify for? If so, I will delay enrollment for a few months... This depends upon what documentation you use to...
Negative Equity and Short Payoff Scams
Saw a sign driving: "Negative Equity? Sell and Get cash!" Notice that it doesn't claim that you can do so legally. I saw another of these signs on the way to the office this morning. When things are going sour,...
Consumer Due Diligence on Real Estate and Mortgage Loans
Or: Please don't believe everything you read on the internet! Rarely a week passes by that I don't get a request from someone to link to their website or article. I'm happy to link to good sites and good articles...
Online Mortgage Quotes
(This is a reprint from December 2006, with a few updates. It is instructive in the wake of a certain new mortgage quote service, launched with great fanfare. The negative amortization loan is gone, but I'm seeing lots of other...
My Thirty Second Public Service Announcement On Mortgage Loans (UPDATED)
I usually write medium-long articles, I try to write articles you can read in a few minutes, on break or lunch, but sometimes that's just not compatible with giving the readers an understanding of the subject. Part of that is...
Losing Property Value with Highly Leveraged Properties
(This was originally published March 18th, 2006. I've added a couple updates, but otherwise it's as published. It's still very relevant, and if there's anyone that wants to tell me I didn't nail it, please speak up) Somebody wrote a...
The Difference Between Note Rate (APY) and APR
I am continually horrified how many people shop their loans by APR, just as I am by people shopping their loan based upon payment. Why? Because in either case, you're setting yourself up to spend a lot of money in...
Sourcing and Seasoning of Funds
People sometimes ask, "Why should the lender care where I got the money for the down payment? I earned it, it's mine - cash is cash!" They're right as far as they go. In general, the lender doesn't care...
Steering: The Most Violated Law In Real Estate
I just picked a random ZIP code in my local MLS, and out of the first twenty listings I came to, ten had explicit violations of one or more of the sections of RESPA regarding steering right there in the...
Debunking "Banks Give Better Deals Than Brokers"
Banker loans are better deals - for the bank. Ken Harney has an article Study Shows Loan Brokers' Better Side But now a new, independent academic study has concluded the opposite: According to a team of researchers headed by Georgetown...
Mortgages: General Concerns and Manufactured Housing
A mortgage or Deed of Trust (they're not the same!) is basically pledging an asset that you own as collateral for a debt. If you default on the debt, the lender takes your property. When you're talking about real estate...
Debunking the Money Merge Account Scam (Games Lenders Play, Part 8)
Mortgage Accelerators, or Money Merge Accounts, have become the thing that everyone's pushing of late. I have gotten so much junk mail about this from more originators (who don't know who I am) and wholesalers (who should) that I'm going...
Joint Loans for Couples: How Does the Qualification Process Work?
First off, let me say that your site has been very informative and helpful. I stumbled across your blog looking for information on ARM vs. 30 year fixed loans and ended up reading every article. One issue I have...
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