In an attempt to debunk some of the slanders that are floating around out there, this article is an itemization of how lenders and brokers make money on loans. The first method is obvious: Origination or discount points charged to the consumer. This is money that the person getting the loan is paying, or someone …
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Lender Discrimination and Shopping for a Home Loan
Minorities get higher rates. They add that the fact minorities are more likely to borrow from institutions specializing in high-priced loans could mean they are being steered to such lenders or that some lenders are unwilling or unable to serve minority neighborhoods. This is called redlining. It is illegal. HUD really gets their panties in …
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Mortgage Loans: The Tradeoff between Rate and Cost
The question every good loan officer hates the most is “What is your lowest rate?” First off, everybody doesn’t get the same choices. As I’ve said before, somebody who can prove they make enough money, has a history of paying their debt, and offers the lender a situation where there’s 30 percent equity (or more) …
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Hurricane Katrina Insurance Issues
A few points as to what’s likely to happen with this. Hurricane is not a named peril on most policies. Fire, Lightning, and removal (i.e. moving stuff to a safer area after a partial destruction) are three named perils that are universally covered under National Association of Insurance Commissioner (NAIC) rules. You can get more …
Disability Insurance
I have a confession to make: When I was doing financial planning, I didn’t put enough emphasis on Disability Income Insurance. I was hardly alone in this; Disability Insurance is one of the two most undersold financial products there is. The other is Long Term Care Insurance, which product I at least researched properly and …
atheism vs Atheism
Many people get confused between small ‘a’ atheism and Atheism. atheists (small a) do not believe in the divine. Even as a non-christian, I may have an opinion that believes they are being willfully blind, but that’s okay. Turn it around 180 degrees, and they think I’m hallucinating – seeing things that don’t exist. The …
Asset and Income Rentals
I found this article by Ken Harney in the Sunday paper. WASHINGTON – Call it funny money for the housing boom: Now you don’t need actual cash in the bank to buy a house. All you need is somebody who says you’ve got money in the bank. Need a hundred grand on deposit to convince …
Production Metrics versus Consumer Metrics
When I originally wrote this, every day I was passing by another real estate office where the agent had a big banner outside “I SOLD 101 HOMES IN 2004!” This is what is called a production metric, and this one sounds fairly impressive at first glance, right? The question I want to ask is how …
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How to Use The Consumer Information Here
Yesterday, I checked my referral logs and found an article where somebody was essentially saying “If you want to be depressed, go read this site and then go rent somewhere for the rest of your life”. I can understand where the sentiment is coming from, particularly if they were of the sort of person who …
Exclusive versus Non-Exclusive Buyer’s Agent Agreement
From an email: I was in the process of buying and selling the house when we saw a FSBO house we liked was for sale. But sale fell through, which is a good thing anyway because of contigency on our house. But I also suspected it failed ecause the seller refuses to pay commission to …
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