Deposits for Prepaid Interest and Escrows
A mortgage loan transaction has a lot of moving parts, but none more confusing to the borrower than the deposit the borrower needs to bring to the closing table to cover prepaid interest and escrows for property taxes and homeowner?s insurance. Often, this can amount to several thousand dollars, which can be a real shock, [...]
Letter to Federal Reserve Board
To Members of the Federal Reserve Board, Members of NAMB and NAIHP, Senior Managers in the Wholesale Lending Community, and other Industry Participants including Mortgage Brokers, Mortgage Bankers and Realtors: Yesterday evening, the United States Court of Appeals denied the request by industry professionals to delay the implementation of the Regulation Z Compensation Rule, and [...]
Mortgage Insurance ? FHA vs. PMI
Given the historically low interest rates (even with the recent increases), we encounter a good deal of refinance inquiry on a daily basis. In the current economic environment, the main thing that limits folks from being able to refinance is their property value. In many cases, potential borrowers owe more on their house than it?s [...]
Adjustable-Rate Loans (ARMs) ? Sometimes the Right Choice
For most of 2010, interest rates on fixed-rate mortgage loans of all maturities remained at historically low levels. However, over the past few weeks, we have seen a marked rise in interest rates on fixed-rate loans: Fixed rates on loans with maturities of 20 years and longer have increased by .50% to .75% Fixed rates [...]
Email vs. Telephone
Everyone who knows me, either through work or socially, knows that I have a strong preference for communicating via email versus other forms of “instant” communication such as the telephone or texting or blackberry. In the mortgage business especially, I think that email is absolutely essential, and after one or two initial meetings or phone [...]
APR ? When It?s Useful and When It Isn?t
As I was pulling into work this morning, I heard an ad on 1010 WINS from a large national mortgage lender.They were talking about “today?s low rates” and were advertising a 15-year fixed rate loan at 3.5%, and then quickly mentioned an APR of 3.9%. Quite frankly, that?s a huge difference. Basically, this lender was [...]
The HARP Program That Should Have Been
In the two years that we’ve been originating loans at Anchor Street Mortgage, the Number One reason we’ve had to turn down potential customers has been that their loan-to-value ratio (LTV), or their combined loan-to-value ratio (CLTV), is too high. Not surprisingly, many of these potential customers have second lien loans or HELOCs that they [...]
Welcome to our Blog!
Welcome to the Anchor Street Mortgage Blog! In the coming weeks and months, we will be posting articles here that we hope you will find useful. Our postings will be targeted at two groups ? potential customers who are in the market for a mortgage loan, and other mortgage professionals who are interested in staying [...]