Entries from Searchlight Crusade tagged with 'refinance'
They Told Me Not To Make My Loan Payment
I've heard this story, in all of its variations, at least hundreds of times. Someone will send me an email and say "They told me not to make my loan payment because I was going to skip one. So...
How Soon After You Purchase A Home Can You Refinance?
Legally, immediately. This also applies to refinance loans. With that said, there are economic reasons why it may not be a good idea for you to refinance. If you have a prepayment penalty, you're going to have to save a...
Saving Money by Refinancing Your Mortgage
pfadvice talks about debunking a money myth and perpetuates one of his own. He took issue with someone refinancing to lower their monthly payment, insisting instead that the term of the loan was all important. His point is understandable in...
100% Financing or Low Down Payment or Low Equity: PMI May Be The Only Option
One of the casualties of the lending meltdown is the high loan to value second mortgage. With many properties locally having lost twenty percent or more of their value, a second mortgage on a property that ends up in default...
Loans with Stealth "Cash Out"
One of the things I hear a lot is that people are getting cash in their pocket from a refinance rate where there is no rebate. "I'm not paying any closing costs!" they proudly tell me, "The bank is putting...
The Tradeoff between Rate and Cost in Real Estate Loans
The question every good loan officer hates is "What is your lowest rate?", usually the first thing in a phone conversation. People think that this sort of rate shopping is going to help them. The fact is that it almost...
Investment Property and Sophisticated Users
The majority of the protections that folks have are aimed at helping non-professionals have a chance in the complex and nearly incomprehensible maze that is real estate. The legal presumption is basically that you are a babe in the woods,...
You Must Be Willing To Act In Order to Get Any Benefit
On a very regular basis, pretty much every buyer's agent who's worth anything gets clients who have difficulty making a decision. Not too long ago, I found a solid property with great potential that nonetheless needed about $20,000 of cosmetic...
Special Restricted Loan Programs Means Potential For Special Problems
An e-mail I got from a single mother I spent two months working with before she found a special low income program for a property she wouldn't have been able to afford through me. The first paragraph is her addition...
Why It May Be Costly to Reject Paying Points
I hear it and read it all the time - advice that says to pre-emptively reject the possibility of paying points. People that talk to me about loan rates that tell me they will not consider any loan that...
Investment Property and Loan Qualification
One of the things that has constricted the most with the current paranoid lending environment is the ability to use rental income to qualify for a mortgage. It seems that lenders are seizing upon any excuse to deny income...
Don't Roll Mortgage Refinance Costs Into Your Balance If You Wouldn't Pay Them Cash
One thing that is very common in the mortgage industry is masking loan costs by rolling them into your loan balance. People are less sensitive to being asked to roll this money into their loan balance than they are about...
Refinancing Your Property with Less Income Than You Had When You Bought
Hello, When my husband and I bought our home 2.5 years ago (two bedroom condo) we qualified for the loan ($250,000) based on both our incomes. Then I had a baby and stopped working. We've never missed a payment...
Weighted Average Cost of Capital Doesn't Include Everything
Or: Figures don't lie, but Liars Sure do Figure! NOTE: At this update, rates on first trust deed loans are about as low as they have ever been while rates on second mortgages aren't particularly low. However, that won't...
Refinancing When You Owe More Than The Home Is Worth
I've been looking around for an answer to this but my searches haven't returned anything useful. Say you buy a house and with that house you finance in a pool. House was $210,000 and pool is $40k. $250k mortgage....
Privacy Concerns in Real Estate Transactions
Every once in a while I get someone who is unhappy with required paperwork for privacy reasons. There are three forms that are the driving force behind this. The first is the standard form for a mortgage loan application, known...
Cash to Close - A Basic Primer
Cash to close has always been an underwriting standard, but more people are running into it as a reason why they cannot buy that property, why their buyers cannot perform, and why they can't get that refinance approved. With...
Pay a Prepayment Penalty Now or Wait to Refinance Until It Expires?
The original article was written when rates were higher. Rates are lower now so the answer is slightly different, the thought process to make that decision is the same. I have an adustable rate mortgage (5.875) which is set to...
Why You Should Not Refinance Just to Lower Your Payment
I keep talking with people who don't understand that a higher interest rate on a refinance can result in a lower payment even though the cost of money goes up. In fact, they don't understand why refinancing tends to lower...
Refinancing Does Not Cause Your Property Taxes To Go Up
do your property taxes go up in California when you refinance your property? This is one of those urban legends. People are concerned that because the house is appraised by the lender, the assessor is somehow going to find...
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