Main Stream Media Misses Message on Mortgages [Rant Warning]

2013-08-14_1419Recently a piece that was aired on ABC news about mortgages and was brought to my attention. It’s been a long time since I’ve seen something so misleading and sensational about what consumers should watch for when obtaining a mortgage.

The segment features Erin Lantz from Zillow who claims to have saved a couple thousands of dollars on their home mortgage. Erin is Zillow’s Director of Mortgage Business and prior to Zillow, her lending career was at Countrywide and Bank of America, during the subrime era.

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My thoughts on NAR’s Pending Home Sales for April: Mortgage Guidelines are NOT “Excessively Tight”

This morning NAR released the Pending Home Sales report which revealed that “contract signings, dropped 11.6 percent in April from a downwardly revised 92.6 in March. The index is 26.5 percent below a cyclical peak of 111.5 in April 2010 when buyers were rushing to beat the contract deadline for the home buyer tax credit.” Pending home sales is a forward indicator since it’s reporting on contracts that are signed but not yet closed. [Read more…]

Mortgage Originators should only originate mortgages

I think it’s unfortunate that the SAFE Act didn’t address having professionals who are helping people with the possible largest transaction in their life be limited to originating mortgages.  I feel quite strongly that it is NOT in a consumers best interest to use the same person to originate their mortgage AND sell them their home. [Read more…]

My Thoughts on the Future of Home Mortgages and Home Ownership

Yesterday, I had the Future of Housing Finance playing in the background as I was working away on rate quotes and lock commitment confirmations for a few of my clients in the Seattle area.  Oh how I wish that I, or a fellow mortgage originator who has been originating mortgages since pre-subprime days could be on the panel.  Since I’m not, I’m going to share a few of my thoughts on this post. [Read more…]

Apology not acceptable

Last night I had someone (who I thought was a client) email me stating:

“I appreciate your time and help with this thus far, but we’ve decided to go with a different source for our mortgage needs.

We feel going with someone more local to our area and whom already has a working relationship with our realtor is best for us.   I hope you understand and again, thank you”

Fact is…I don’t understand at all. [Read more…]