Posts Tagged ‘mortgage’

Loan Modification 2 – Home Mortgage & Real Estate Marketing Nov08- Foreclosure, Servicers & Congress

Wednesday, February 3rd, 2010

Attorney Negotiated Mortgage Loan Modification for Home Owners. Expert Advice on Real Estate and Finance. Avoid Foreclosure Scams and Fraud. Prevent Bankruptcy. Go To http://RealEstateMarketingThisWeek.com

Part 2 (Excerpt)

Congressman Barney Frank is calling for the restructure of the loan servicing business

Well, in the past we have talked a lot about loan modifications and since the first time we started talking about loan modifications the whole space has changed. Everything about loan modifications since our very first broadcast talking about it, we don’t talk about it every week, but we do talk about it allot. It has changed so much, when we started anybody who had a significant hardship, or financial hardship, or had one of these toxic mortgages, that had adjusted, would be able to qualify for a loan modification. These things have changed all of a sudden, and not all across the board. Brett you made a comment earlier that people are concerned that once these servicers do these modifications they could be subject to lawsuits right?

Yes, it is amazing how quickly things have changed over the course of the last couple of weeks, it seems this information, and this news is changing almost hour by hour, at this point one of the things that came out regarding this mortgage modification program is from Barney Frank, “Congress should act to restructure the servicing of home mortgages.” So the idea is that they are catching on to something that you and your team at velocity financial were ahead of the curve on in terms of loan modifications.

Knowing that those rules for a hardship and why you are entitled to one have definitely changed. Now it is more of a situation where in order to stop foreclosure, to stop the problems associated with this mass foreclosure market place, modifications are being talked about amongst the banks now. Barney Franks comments today, he stressed how these voluntary inducements to get these private entities to protect homeowners from the government has fallen short, and Hank Paulson has fallen short of putting their weight behind this concept.

Although I personally believe that is the next evolution of this. Loan Modifications are a critical step for people who are feeling this economic crisis, and for people who want to stay in a home, for people who need this type of assistance. The idea is you have a short window of opportunity here before something else significant changes where you may no longer be entitled to.

You heard Citigroup, you know this we talked about it, Citigroup came out and made the announcement that they were going to suspend their pursuit of foreclosures in certain areas of the country that have the highest unemployment rate, that was the caveat. We will see how big the scope of that gets, but the whole idea is for you as a mortgage owner, as a home owner with a mortgage, if you need to establish a modification to an existing loan, in order to have more favorable terms in interest, a more favorable monthly payment, a way to keep that home, you have to look at this option.

Yes, and I appreciate you saying that one of the things that Citigroup announced they were going to be doing was giving people teaser rates of 1%. Look anybody with a brain can realize that that is ludicrous. What got us into this situation in the first place was huge banks, just like that one, giving people toxic mortgages, with fake interest rates, and pick your own payment, do whatever the heck you want to. It is exactly what they are trying to do again.

Essentially what they are talking about is giving people a short window of a very low interest rate, but they are going to be back in the same situation in the future. That’s why the loan modifications that we do, that we hire on your behalf, the national network of attorney’s that we use. We go for the throat, we are not looking to get you a 1% interest rate for the next 12 months. We are looking to get you a lifelong, or for the term of the loan if possible, the very lowest interest rate available, and fix it or extend the term so you can actually sustain that payment well beyond the short term.

One thing I want to point out before we have to go to a break, if you know of anyone out there, that has a GMAC mortgage, whether it be a GMAC first mortgage or second mortgage, you have got to tune in to the second segment you are not going to believe this scam that’s out there, going against people with these loans…

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Real Estate Conditions 4 – Mortgage & First Time Home Buyer Dec08 FHA Financing with low Rates

Friday, January 15th, 2010

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.

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Real Estate Conditions 2 – Mortgage & First Time Home Buyer Dec08 Seller to pay Closing Costs

Wednesday, December 30th, 2009

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…

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Real Estate Conditions 5 – Mortgage & First Time Home Buyer Dec08 Attorney & Loan Modification

Sunday, December 13th, 2009

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 5 (Excerpt)

Loan Modifications are all the craze beware and only work with an Attorney

I have been a part of these broadcasts where we have talked about the loan modification concepts exclusively and to your credit Michael and your team at Velocity I saw you guys as being first to the punch if you will, first to start introducing this concept not only to the listening audience but to your clientele whenever it might be appropriate for the people who need to look at that option. Now I am seeing on street signs that are handmade and posted on street signs all over the city, call me for loan modification. I am hearing commercials and radio broadcasts that are discussing this loan modification concept; I have seen infomercials regarding this now so its becoming a bigger and bigger scope, its a big buzz right now and maybe you could tell me, and I already know the answer to this how long have you been doing this? And then what are the criteria for someone to consider this process?

Its funny that the loan modification concept is new and its the new buzz word and everybody is talking about it and everybody is doing it and it has been around forever. People have been able to do this for many, many years. The banks dont want your house back; they really, really dont. They may act like it and when you talk to them it may sound like they do but they dont. Velocity Financial is working with a national network of attorneys that have been doing this for 16 years, they have done thousands of these.

These law firms have represented thousands of home owners helping them, keeping them from going into foreclosure. You will see yard signs, street signs, advertisements. As you know Velocity Financial does not advertise, the radio station does play a spot because its important for people to know there is legitimate, licensed help out there. What I want to point out is if you have tried to do it on your own and it didnt work out, I am sorry about that and it doesnt mean it cant be done.

Most importantly you want to deal with somebody that you can sit across the table from, that is here locally, and you dont want to write a check to anybody other than a law firm. A licensed attorney needs to handle this, it is the best way to handle this. Velocity Financial does not charge an up front fee; we take care of all of the necessary paperwork, the discovery work. We do all of that and we dont charge for that. You do have to pay an attorney to represent you and after the case is done and modified and everyone is happy, they will pay us for the work that we have done. So dont work with anyone who isnt an attorney, thats my opinion.

In most states its the law and in Arizona its the wild, wild, west once again as usual, loan modifications are just not regulated but you know what, if you need a legitimate firm, if you need a human being to talk to and sit down with and lets get this thing worked out.

Well as you know Michael I started in the business about 20 years ago and the entire time I have really been working with attorneys. When I was doing loans for 12 plus years, I worked almost exclusively with bankruptcy attorneys helping to bail their clients out of bankruptcy and out of foreclosure, and I had been approached by other people and seen plenty of stuff on the internet about how you can basically buy a book online for $495, or go to a seminar, or do whatever and suddenly youre this loan modification expert after you read the book and filled out a couple of forms and that just doesnt give you the knowledge, the background and especially the negotiating ability that you have when youre dealing with an attorney…

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Real Estate Conditions 1 – Mortgage & First Time Home Buyer Dec08 Seller Paid Closing Costs

Sunday, December 6th, 2009

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 1 (Excerpt)

Seller paid closing costs the best deal going

Today were going to be talking about mortgage strategies, buying real estate, all the different things that you need to know from here on out through 2009, lots and lots of opportunities. We brought back once again one of the best financial planners in the entire country Mr. Brett Fallon.

We also have in the studio today a very good friend of mine Mr. Dan Havey. Dan has been in the real estate and mortgage industry for over 20 years, in fact he got me into the industry, he was instrumental, in fact the major hand behind putting together of the loan modification hotline.

Velocity Financial is a financial services firm, were primarily focused on doing mortgages for residential purchasing and refinances. One of the things that we have seen is that the purchasing market has picked up quite a bit and looks in my eyes like we very well may have hit the bottom on prices.

You can buy a 3000 square foot house for $150,000 these days, and one thing that we’ve recently found is most of the sellers are willing to pay closing costs on behalf of the buyer. Its a known fact that it’s a cold sellers market and sellers are happy to have an offer, whether it be a low offer or not.

Now I have a couple examples I want to share, it’s important to point out that I am not a realtor, I dont want to be a realtor, those people that take the time to get a license to be realtors they know what they’re doing and they do it very well, however you being the person that is going to buy a home, you need to protect every penny that you can. The example I have written down, and Brett feel free to chime in at any time if I should happen to miss something here.

I’ve put together a scenario of purchasing a $300,000 house, now if you buy a $300,000 house and you have to put 3% down as in my example that works out to be about $9000. Let’s just say that the closing costs associated with purchasing that house plus the prepaid interest, setting up an escrow account, paying a year’s worth of homeowners insurance, there is also property taxes that must be paid, home owners dues, all these different things, those can add up. They don’t need to be 3% they can be less, they can be more. This example is just making it simple so that you can understand it.

If you buy a house for $300,000 you put 3% down and 3% for closing costs, your out-of-pocket for this example is going to be about $17,500. Now if you were going to buy that home and have all of that prepaid escrow and closing costs deferred to the seller and actually paid $309,000 so that you actually roll the closing costs into the cost of the home, and only came out-of-pocket 3% you would be out-of-pocket about $8900. So the savings there is $9000. Your mortgage payment will go up, however with a payback of about 160 months. So in other words if you take the money out of your account today youre going to lose that and have a lower payment…

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Real Estate Conditions 8 – Mortgage & First Time Home Buyer Dec08 30 year Fixed FHA Financing

Tuesday, December 1st, 2009

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 8 (Excerpt)

30 year fixed FHA mortgage is the best financing available for first time home buyers today.

So now the only question that I would have, Michael is you only lowered the guys interest rate by 1/8th of a percent, weren’t there a whole lot of closing costs associated with that? Good question, in this particular case no. There were no closing costs.

Well then it definitely makes sense to lower your interest rate if it’s not going to cost you anything and you can lower your monthly payment by 100 bucks a month you would be crazy not to do it.
His breakeven was one day, in that particular case.

It goes back to this Velocity of Money concept. If you’re not sure if it makes sense or not, it’s kind of a no-brainer, give the team at velocity financial a call. You will do the analysis for them to determine if it makes sense or not based, on their unique circumstance, and from there youll advise them on the appropriate type of loan.

You know it’s funny that people over the years they get so hyper-focused on the interest rate of the loan. Interestingly enough I had a recent client whos focus was not on the interest rate, it was on the closing costs. The problem is there is a correlation between the cost of the money and rate, you have to pay it isn’t free for anyone. No cost loans are not really no cost, youre paying a higher rate to get it, so where does it make the most sense for you and your family, how long are you going to use this mortgage? There are so many factors, there’s an incredible amount of discovery that needs to be done.

If you walk into your local financial institution it doesn’t necessarily have to be a bank and you ask what is the rate today? It’s vanilla, it’s not 31 flavors, its vanilla, this is what we have. Well we have a couple of other options, but that’s not how it works at the bank.

One thing I wanted to point out Michael was it was back in 2003, we saw interest rates that were close to what they are now and a lot of people got into the same kind of loan that I got into at that, I got into a three year adjustable loan. And I’m really kicking myself because I wish I’d gotten into a 30 year fixed, and I would say with anyone, especially with as low as interest rates are, they definitely have to get into this market. jump in and get themselves into a 30 year fixed and just be happy with it forever.

That’s a really good point, and it’s safe. If you have a 3 year ARM or two year adjustable, or a 5 year adjustable and youre 1, 2, 3, 4 years into it, the 30 year is the safe way to go, more than likely the interest rate is going to be lower than what you have. In the case of the adjustable ARMs, adjustable-rate mortgages just dont make sense today. If you have a 30 year fixed, its the safe bet.

Dan if you and I are wrong and real estate values continue to tumble, you know what, you have a nice safe loan and you dont have to worry about it for a long time. On the other hand if you want to live there for 20 years, you dont have to mess with it. I think its the right thing to do for most people

Well I think that anyone who is out shopping for a home over this weekend, and what they’re looking for is to not only ask the seller to pay as much of the closing costs as possible but first to get pre-qualified by calling you at velocity financial. They want to make sure that they get themselves a 30 year fixed, FHA is probably the best product out there right now because its such a low down payment, and if youre a first time home buyer and youre in the $60,000 a year range, you can go out there and buy up to that $250,000 house and have a place for your family to be in after the first of the year, and never have to you live in an apartment and have Christmas in an apartment again, you can have Christmas in your own home next year.

Absolutely, that is a really, really good point. We dont want to forget about the $7500 tax credit that goes along with having a home, if you havent owned real estate in the last three years.

The other thing that I want to mention before the show gets wrapped up today, there is interest rate risk here just like there is in the bond market. Interest rate risk is you the buyer looking at what you can use to increase the velocity of money, increase the efficiency in your existing mortgage, or move to a new mortgage because money is cheaper today than it’s ever been…

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Real Estate & Mortgage 1 – Foreclosure Meltdown Fraud & Scams Dec08 – First Time Home Buyers

Saturday, November 28th, 2009

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…

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Real Estate Conditions 7 – Mortgage & First Time Home Buyer Dec08 Refinance & Interest Rates

Tuesday, November 24th, 2009

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…

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