Buying your first house and obtaining a mortgage can be overwhelming and even confusing. Check out this video to learn the basics about a mortgage and get some tips about the process.
Duration : 0:2:8
Tax on 1099C, Cancellation of Debt Income; Short Sale, Loan Modification & Foreclosure. Exception; Mortgage Forgiveness Debt Relief Act, Bankruptcy & Insolvency. Go To http://RealEstateMarketingThisWeek.com
Part 7 (Excerpt)
Beware of grandiose claims when dealing with a loan modification firm.
You know I am glad that were back, when we went to the break we were talking amongst ourselves about some of these concepts, I really want to bring this back down to the listeners. So they really understand what this means to them. You have three strategic partners, each of them experts in their field, sitting around these microphones in the studio talking about how these factors have an impact on the listening public, the people listening to this station right now.
Velocity Financial is an expert in all things mortgage related. It represents the largest asset many people have in terms of their home. What were talking about is, we know the economic pain that exists, you probably read that Arizona has the dubious distinction according to the Case-Schiller index of having the highest property value declines in the country. People are feeling some pressure here and for those people who want to consider what a loan modification might do for them, should call you and talk about what that represents.
Then from there, you can refer them to people like Mike Patenella to talk about the tax ramifications, Mike can speak to some of those items and I can talk about their overall financial planning. But to start with let’s talk about what the loan modification process really represents and who can benefit from.
We have talked about all the different things you can do with your home as a home owner, there is the loan modification and there’s several different types of loan modifications, there is the option of a short sale, which can have huge tax implications that people may not be aware of. There is the option of foreclosure, which is almost the last thing you want to do and there is also bankruptcy.
Loan modification is essentially for the person who is unable to make your payment, because there was a material change, and the change that I am talking about is your not making as much money. You may have lost your job. You have one of these mortgages that are toxic, where the interest rate has gone up significantly.
I would not buy the story from some guy with an ugly little yellow sign on the side of the road that says, hey I can help you and I have a 99% success rate with my loan modifications. That is essentially a guarantee and there is nobody in their right mind that would buy the guarantee. There are so many different types of mortgage servicers out there, literally thousands of mortgage companies out there and you cannot predict what any one of these mortgage companies is going to do.
Certainly not guarantee anyone any result. Were definitely going to try our best, thats why we use a national network of attorneys, 45 out of the 50 states have some kind of recourse involved with short sales and foreclosures, loan modifications. This is not something you can just figure out on your own and certainly dont buy into some story that there is somebody who can reduce your mortgage by 50%. Thats not going to happen, or that they have a 99% success rate, things are just not realistic.
You should know better and I know I am putting it bluntly, lets be honest. You should know better. It sounds too good to be true folks, it is. These no cost loans, these goofballs are selling on the radio, saying they don’t cost anything, let me say this, someones got to pay for it. Try walking to one of these big banks right now thats trying so hard right now to make up for some of their losses, so if anyone is offering you something that sounds too good to be true. It probably is, call an expert, call someone who knows what they’re doing, and our team has 16 years of loan modification experience. Our national network of attorneys are dedicated to getting loan modifications and work with almost every major lender, use a pro.
Now Mike, I wanted to throw it over to you to reiterate a few of these things to talk about the different options that people are looking at. The reality of it is that a loan modification, if it works is the absolute best.
That would appear to be the case. You dont want to file bankruptcy, which would be your last choice. Trying to say youre insolvent might be difficult when you factor in all of your assets, so the foreclosures and the short sales, I think those just destroy your credit. Am I right on that?
Duration : 0:6:21
Amidst the Real Estate & Mortgage Meltdown; Foreclosure Fraud & Scams; Real Estates Future is Great. First Time Home Buyers, FHA Loans & Seller Paid Closing Costs. Go To http://RealEstateMarketingThisWeek.com
Part 4 (Excerpt)
Mortgage Backed Securities, Collateralized Debt Obligations and Tranches Oh My!
Now, I put the colorful title on How to Screw the Bank that Screwed You for no other reason than to get people to click on it to get the information, because frankly, a lot of people were given really bad loans, were given really bad advice, and sometimes you have to fight back.
Here is one of the things and again Ill try to make this as uncomplicated as possible. Let’s say you bought the house and you got the loan through a mortgage broker. Well that mortgage broker didnt really give you the loan. They bought that loan from a wholesaler of mortgages. That wholesaler of mortgages, in turn bought that loan from one of those big huge Wall Street banks, most of which are out of business right now.
Important thing to point out if I may, Velocity Financial is a mortgage broker, we do get our money from several wholesale banks, I just wanted to point that out because we’re glad were a broker.
Just to continue the analogy. So the broker buys it from a wholesaler, who buys it from the Wall Street bank, and like I said, most of them are out of business now. And what the Wall Street bank did with thousands of these loans worth billions of dollars, they put them all together into what is known as mortgage backed securities. That is the stuff you hear like Fannie Mae is selling and there is an interest rate put on them, and what happened to these mortgage backed securities is they in-turn were bought up by other Wall Street banks, combined with other mortgage backed securities and they were called collateralized debt obligations.
Well then these brainiacs on Wall Street decided to chop these collateralized debt obligations up into what is referred to as tranches. So let’s say you had your best quality AAA borrowers in the top tranch . And obviously your ZZZ borrowers were in the bottom tranch. Each one of them was given a specific interest rate, each one of them was rated by a bond rating firm, and each one of them was given insurance.
Well, what happens is as these got split up and sold over time the notes on the mortgages go with the debt itself. So CDO over in Bangladesh owns your mortgage now, but here is the problem, they dont have the paperwork.
So the reason I went through this whole story is in case your bank comes to you and says were going to foreclose what you want to do is go and get yourself an attorney and you want this attorney to go to this bank and say we want you to prove to us that you have standing, that they have the legal right to come after you and foreclose on you. And here is the thing, if they dont have the paperwork, if they dont have the note on the property, they cant prove that they have standing. So whether its the wholesaler, who is foreclosing on you, whether its the servicer, whoever it is, chances are very good that they dont have this note.
So again, he got a little complicated. You want to go to the website http://mortgageanswerman.com and there are several articles there, and a lovely little chart that I drew up, except that it will be much nicer than this piece of paper, and I will have all the information there. I had a friend just recently who was in foreclosure and she made the phone call, and she said, you cannot foreclose on me without the original note. Now eventually it got foreclosed on, but it delayed it several months until they were able to find that note. Chances are they may never be able to find that note.
And in many states, including Florida and Ohio they are very successful at using this tactic to stop or completely do-away-with the foreclosure sale. We dont necessarily want to encourage people to go down this path, right? Were looking for a stall essentially?
Well, hopefully no one will ever have to get to that point. But if you believe that your servicer, your mortgage company is not being nice to you. Especially if you call them up and want to do a loan modification, and they are dragging their feet, filing foreclosure and coming after you, you have to protect yourself. And this is one of the ways you can protect yourself by hiring an attorney and suing them for lack of standing
That is one of the things that I want to talk about that Velocity Financial is involved with a national network of attorneys who do this sort of work. Velocity Financial does not charge an upfront fee for these types of loan modifications, we do hire an attorney and they work with the national network of attorneys to work on your behalf. They do charge a retainer, of course, if they are going to fight for you they need to be paid, however, there are no upfront fees…
Duration : 0:6:36
First Time Home Buyers use FHA Mortgage and Seller Paid Closing Costs to Buy Real Estate Now. Best Market Conditions for Foreclosures and Short Sales in Decades. Go To http://RealEstateMarketingThisWeek.com
Part 4 (Excerpt)
80% of homes can be purchased with FHA Financing
You also talked about this graph you put together, it talks about the month of November was a 25% increase over the previous year. Obviously prices have gone down and it looks like it then has gone back up, and so once we finish selling off this inventory there is a good chance that were going to be finding or hitting the bottom.
I think just in that region of $150,000 to $200,000 region that prices have really stabilized at this point, they may go down a little bit more, but I think for the most part, because that is where the financing is right now, with the FHA and the conforming loan limits, anybody in that price range can still get a loan. If youre looking to buy something over $400,000 youre going to have a lot more trouble just because the financing is not available.
Well the financing is a lot more difficult over the $417.000 loan amount number. Luckily Velocity Financial still has some of the interim small jumbo financing available, still with decent rates and the larger jumbos there is still financing available but nothing like this median home price of $275,000 and below. Well and I think what that goes back to, specifically with the FHAs, because, what percentage of the closing costs can be contributed by a seller on an FHA loan? Its pretty high right?
FHA financing, the Federal Housing Administration has had a standing rule for quite some time that the seller can contribute up to 6% of the sales price towards the closing costs. Realistically on a $250,000 purchase price youre not going to need 6% towards closing costs, so you would want to use that money to lower the price or buy down the interest rate, or any number of different things. So in a situation like that you could have the seller come in, pay all of your closing costs for you, you can keep that money in the bank, you could use it to fix up the house, you can do whatever, and all you would be responsible for is a small down payment.
Thats correct, 3% of the sale price down, you can have the seller pay the property taxes up to a year in advance, the home owners insurance, the home owners association fees, they are called prepaid or escrows. They can pay all of that. What is the loan limit right now for FHA? Currently the FHA loan limit is $346,250, its kind of an odd number, that does go away at the end of this month, December. However if youre lucky enough to have a home picked out in that price range, you want to try to get it done by the end of the year, so long as were able to get it underwritten in house, our firm will still be able to close on that with a higher loan limit after the first of the year.
The new limits probably going to be your next question, so as of January 1 in Maricopa County its $271,000. Even at 271, with the scenario I was talking about before, in Maricopa County, 70-80% of the home sales still would have fit within that 271 limit. Yes, one thing that I do want to point out is that when the Housing and Recovery Act of 2008 expires that huge loan limit of 346 expires, that was the deal, they are going to try to get it extended but we cant plan on that necessarily, but only 10% of the properties in Maricopa County fit into that 271 to 346 range.
Now I know the answer to this but you dont happen to be qualified to do FHA loans are you? Yes Velocity Financial is FHA approved, were one of less than 15% of the lending institutions in Arizona that can do FHA financing, not only for purchases but for refinancing as well. Which I think is some of the stuff we want to talk about as well because some of the old rules for refinancing simply dont apply anymore.
Brett did you have anything to add? Yes, two things stood out to me in that discussion and one of the things was the bigger picture concept in my mind thats the way it works. Its how I am wired, I start with that then I narrow my way down to the specific scenario given a clients circumstance.
What that big picture represented to me and one of the things that you pointed out with your charting Dan and the work that you have done, is the year over year home sales is shrinking the inventory that exists in Maricopa County, and when that inventory shrinks, we all know that new homes and building had pretty much dried up, so allowing that inventory to shrink is a very positive thing in terms of stabilizing, or placing a bottom, or putting the housing market back on a path of growth long-term, and so that was one of the things that stood out to me.
Duration : 0:6:32
Amidst the Real Estate & Mortgage Meltdown; Foreclosure Fraud & Scams; Real Estates Future is Great. First Time Home Buyers, FHA Loans & Seller Paid Closing Costs. Go To http://RealEstateMarketingThisWeek.com
Part 1 (Excerpt)
Forget the doom and gloom, First Time Home Buyers can buy with FHA
Thanks to my very great friend Brett Fallon for taking the time to be here in studio today. Brett is one of America’s finest financial advisors. And of course the infamous Dan Havey. Now we all love Dan Havey because he was instrumental in getting me into the mortgage industry about 14 years ago. Most importantly, Dan was instrumental in helping us put together the loan modification hotline and he is the author of Real Estates Future.
So today we have a few things we want discussed in regard to the economy, what’s happened, were wrapping up the year. You may have heard about this in the media, of course the media’s job is to scare you. Well our job is to tell you the truth. So Brett you have some data and some information that you wanted to share
Some of the things you hear in the media, you cant escape, its pretty much doom and gloom, sky is falling, this is the next Great Depression. It’s over for all of us and we should all just pack up and go. That kind of stuff is pervasive out there and creates fear and a lot of anxiety amongst people who are either investors, people who are looking to buy a house, looking to refinance a mortgage.
People dont realize there are certain tools that exist that we will talk about during the course of the show today. They should understand that some of the things that we discussed prior to today’s broadcasts were interest rates. Interest rates are at historic lows. Money is cheaper right now than it has ever been. We know the Fed recently reduced the Fed Funds Rate and that is the rate that banks are lending money to one another at.
Right now that rate is zero. Historically, that’s never happened in the United States before. The Fed’s idea is to help to unfreeze this credit market and we keep hearing all this talk about how credit markets are still frozen, that the global recession is deepening, there is evidence to the contrary of that. Some of the moves that the FED is making are working. We’re starting to see, and you and I were talking recently about some clients that were helping in terms of refinancing existing mortgages. Well, if the credit markets are frozen how come we got those loans complete?
Well, that’s a good point, and you got a call I think it was last Monday or maybe the Monday before, someone called you and asked if there was any money to refinance. What can I do? Well the reality of it is there is plenty of money out there for refinances, in some cases there’s issues with property values. That’s why there are different options for those types of people
Well from a buyer’s perspective, todays property valuation is a good thing, if I’m a buyer. Thats a good point too. People are interested in buying and the huge opportunity today. This is an unprecedented opportunity in my opinion, both in terms of the dollar and the real estate market. And for those who understand those dynamics and are willing to entertain the deal, they will be handsomely rewarded. There is no doubt about it.
And as we spoke on the last show, home prices in November for Maricopa County show that the median home price is down as low as $160,000 already. And it reminds me a lot about when I got into the industry, way back in 1989 and the type of financing we had then was FHA and Fannie Mae. And were back to that again now. We’ve got sanity back into the market and home prices have come down. But right now, it’s a perfect time, especially for first-time homebuyers or a move up buyer who can buy under the Fannie Mae limit of $417,000. If you can get into that range, and as we spoke before that 78% of the homes in Maricopa County that sold last month sold for under $250,000. I think that right now is the time just to get out there and find a house to move your family and children into with an FHA loan.
Michael, you don’t have to have exactly perfect credit do you? You can have a couple of dings if need be, right? You’re exactly right, each case has its own merits, every FHA loan is underwritten individually. There are many cases where collections are okay, there needs to be a explanation. You dont have to have the 720 plus credit scores like you do for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to get the best rates…
Duration : 0:6:10
First Time Home Buyers use FHA Mortgage and Seller Paid Closing Costs to Buy Real Estate Now. Best Market Conditions for Foreclosures and Short Sales in Decades. Go To http://RealEstateMarketingThisWeek.com
Part 7 (Excerpt)
The old rules no longer apply and Suze Ormond should know that.
We have Dan Havey the author of Real Estates Future in the studio today.
Michael, I was just curious, back when I got into the industry many, many years ago there used to be a rule of thumb that if you were going to refinance you had to lower your interest rate by at least two percent and I know as time went along and products changed that really became unnecessary, but I am just curious in todays mortgage market its a lot different than we were dealing with even two years ago. Is that still true that there is a 2% rule? Whats going on now?
I happened to catch Suze Orman on television and she was talking about mortgages, the caller who called in to the program, the question became I believe similar to what Dan just asked, her comment was that basically if you’re in 6% interest rate or above now is the time to re-fi. That is what she said, a blanket recommendation. I know a lot of people put a lot of credence into what she says, maybe you could speak to that, the lowest interest rates you’ve seen in your career, you have been doing this for a while.
I have, and they are. You know there was a lot of speak the last couple weeks about the Fed, the Fed funds rate by the way is the lowest it’s ever been in history. As of this week the discount rate is to the point that banks are lending money to each other at nothing, the Fed funds rate for intrabank lending is at zero, the problem is the banks don’t have any money.
To be serious about the refinancing, because its a serious topic, I think people are starting to see their mail boxes filled with lots of advertising crap about refinance. I believe that doing the refinance is no different from doing a loan modification or buying a house, you need to sit down with the human being that’s local, that you can know is a legitimate source. You’re going to give all this personal information about you, your family, your kids, your Social Security number, you want to make sure you have somebody there that you know whos legit.
In regard to the old rule of thumb 2%, nothing could be further from the truth, and I will expand, but to the point of Ms Ormond that if youre at 6% or higher, that is a blanket statement and blanket statements never work. We just did a refinance for a guy who was at 5 1/2%, and it makes sense. Every situation is different, as far as how much do I have to lower my interest rate to make it work? It depends on the type of mortgage that you get.
The only type of loan to get today in December of 2008 is a 30 year fixed. I know that one of the things that was really interesting to me, and that you and I have referred clients to one another for several years, so we share a number of clients, were familiar with those families and those households, and this is Wednesday, on Monday and Tuesday of this week I’ve had seven phone calls from clients who you’ve already done loans for, refinances for, asking if this is the time to refinance a loan that is only a couple years old.
And I know in several of those cases the answer is yes you’re actually helping families right now with that process. I am and we do. To answer the question, you need to determine what the payback term is, in other words when your refinance is done it’s a new loan, there’s the title insurance, appraisals, lots of different things may need to be done, not in every case, but in most cases there are costs associated with that. The cost has to be offset by the amount of savings. Its a breakeven analysis
Absolutely it is, the shorter the breakeven the better the loan. I am working on a case right now which is going to be done in the next couple of days where the guy lowered his interest rate by an1/8 of a percent and it made sense for him. It’s not for everybody, 2 percent or lower, 2% is significant, now you’re talking about really significant savings in terms of cash flow…
Duration : 0:6:31
First Time Home Buyers use FHA Mortgage and Seller Paid Closing Costs to Buy Real Estate Now. Best Market Conditions for Foreclosures and Short Sales in Decades. Go To http://RealEstateMarketingThisWeek.com
Part 2 (Excerpt)
How having the Seller pay your closing costs can quadruple your money
On the other hand if you roll that into the loan it’s going to take you 160 months to break even on that. 160 months which is a little over 13 years, that is the antithesis of the Velocity of Money that we talk about on the show every week, so I am not convinced that its the right deal for the masses, but something that should be considered is what is the opportunity cost of taking the money out of Account X and the type of account you taking it out of has some impact too. If it’s from a brokerage account then you experience the market loss in that account and youre selling at these low price levels, I think the markets are going to turn and the opportunity costs over 160 months, youre talking about a substantial amount of money. And the additional mortgage payment is insignificant.
Obviously no one is going to allow you to pay more than the house is worth, that’s not what were suggesting. What were suggesting is merely to look at instead of simply making a lower offer than you would normally make, I’m suggesting that you consider the closing costs and what the real closing costs are in this example.
Assuming that the house is already attractively priced, one of the things that this buyer in this example should consider instead of making a lowball offer on a house that’s already priced rather attractively in this marketplace, it might make sense to consider exactly what you’re describing now. And that would be take that money or that difference and ask the seller to include those costs as part of the deal to sell the house, versus why lowball offer the house when you already know the house is the right price.
That’s exactly right and one of the other points here is in a lot of cases the closing costs dont need to be quite that high. So there is the opportunity for the home buyer to buy down, for instance, use 1% of the loan amount to buy the interest rate down. I did a calculation here today, the cost of funds changes all the time, in fact we had four price changes today. Four mortgage rate changes today, just in one day. This doesn’t apply in every scenario, but that’s why you use a certified mortgage planner, that’s why they use a FHA certified mortgage firm to do the loan to make sure that it’s the right thing to do but here’s the example of today. 1%, paying 1 point to buy the interest rate down will lower your mortgage payment, on this example of a $300,000 house, would lower your mortgage payment by $118 a month.
It’s not simple it’s not just like going to your local bank and having them give you a quote on the rate, there is so much more to it these days. I think that one of the things you’re pointing out right now is the fact that this type of negotiating exists and should be considered when making this purchase. And I know that you have already espoused that youre not a realtor in that sense, but your realtor should be talking to you about these options. If they are not, you may want to consider finding one who knows about that stuff.
They absolutely do and I’m not suggesting to anyone that they go out and find another realtor because yours is not working out for you. The reality of it is if your realtor doesn’t believe in the concept it may only be that they just don’t understand the concept. Have them give us a call, we can explain it to them. And I have simple illustrations we can share with them, how we would structure it financially, and they can, the realtor can set the price. That’s what their job is, but what our job is to make sure that you use every penny available to you to the best of your ability.
I have a question for you Brett, if you took $9000 and didnt take it out of your savings, 401K, or whatever, what will it turn into with today’s market? What would that be like?
Depending on the way the money is allocated, invested in a fixed income investment, or an interest-bearing account in a bank or whatever, what I can tell you is over the same amount of time, that $9000, over 160 months, youre probably talking about quadrupling the money. I would say that that is relatively easy and I’m not talking about taking on significant stock market risk. What I’m talking about is just compounding interest in some kind of interest-bearing account. I mean it could be a bank CD.
The other thing to do is we have this book called the Short Sale Playbook written by Ron Quinterro that we have available to anyone who is interested in it…
Duration : 0:6:12
Creative Mortgage Corp
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Duration : 0:0:33