New Underwriting Guidelines

I just received these new underwriting guidelines by e-mail.   It didn’t say when they are effective……

NEW UNDERWRITING UPDATES

• All borrowers’ birth certificates will be required with pictures taken in the hospital with medical staff. Birth certificate with a live home delivery will not be eligible for first time home buyers.
• Marriage certificate with bridal dress will be required if both husband and wife are required to qualify for the loan.
• GFE will not require signature, but will require blood sampling from a recognized institution within three days of application.
• DNA test will be performed at closing to avoid any non-arms length transactions. Loan funding will be contingent upon satisfactory receipt of DNA results.
• Verification of deposit will be acceptable only if Bank representative is present at the closing.
• Copy of Pay stubs and W2 will only be acceptable through IRS and only with a wax-sealed envelope mailed directly to the lender.
• Seven witnesses from the neighborhood will be required as proof of primary residence in case borrower owns more than 1 property.
• All appraisers will be required to use masks and ear plugs at the time of inspection to avoid any personal influence by the borrower or broker for the appraised value.
• In order to correctly calculate DTI and true housing ratio a list of grocery items, monthly usage and brand names will be required with receipts and projected 12 month consumption chart.
• Closing will not occur without loan officer presence at settlement and loan officer picture will be taken at the closing in a mug shot format with loan number. Picture should meet standard guideline of 2 X 2 inch in color format with one facing and one side view.
• Loan officer picture will be attached to the Deed and note and will be made available for general public and security agencies in case borrower defaults on the loan.

Technorati Tags: Mortgage Guidelines

You know, 20 years ago, we didn't need Straight Talk in the mortgage world.   Everyone did the right thing and everything moved along......

Now we do.   Would you like to work with a lender who will tell it to you straight?    Would you like to have someone looking out for what's best for you?

Would you like to work with a lender who has to blog under a pen name - because their bank doesn't like what they are saying?

If so, call us at 330-536-3623 or send an e-mail to info@straighttalkaboutmortgages.com and we'll have one of our team of lenders get back to you, typically within 4 hours during normal week days.

Kenny H.

Children or Grandchildren?

I’m Back!

Not to sound like a take off on the movie Poltergeist, but I’m back!

Where did I go?   Frankly not much of anywhere, but I took all day Wednesday, most of Thursday and all day Friday off to work on a fundraising concert for God’s Littlest Angels orphanage in Haiti.   The concert was Friday night, November 13 and the Christian music groups Selah and Avalon performed to almost 800 people (nearly sold out.)

The evening was an astounding success.    We raised over $20,000 for the orphanage and that money will go a LONG ways.   But more importantly, it was very obvious that many lives were touched and many people really appreciated the opportunity to make a difference for orphans in this world.

So, I’ve been absent from the mortgage world for a few days.   Now it’s time to get back into that.   I’ll have more as the day progresses.

Thanks for your patience while I was gone!

Tom Vanderwell

Technorati Tags: Charity, Orphanage, God’s Littlest Angels,

Why I’m Not Writing Much This Week…..

Technorati Tags: Orphans in Haiti, God’s Littlest Angels

A Look Back – What Has Changed and What Hasn’t?

In July of 2008, I wrote a piece as a guest post on Paul Kedrosky’s site, Infectious Greed.    I called that piece The Top 7 Things Every Home Buyer Should Know.   The piece got a lot of “press” and actually got me interviewed by the New York Times.    I was talking with the reporter who I’ve gotten to know at the New York Times about a month ago and we realized that it was almost exactly a year since he had ran the piece, “Considering the 7 Year Plan.”    He made a comment at that point, “It would be interesting to see what, if anything, has changed over the last year in your opinion of what a home buyer needs to think about.”     I agreed and decided at that point to do that.

So this is the introduction to what will be a 7 part series over the course of the next week or so.   I’m going to take each item, one by one, and look at what my view was in July of last year and then factoring in what I think has or has not changed over the last 15 months.

Here’s a hint for you – out of the 7 parts, I think that we’re going to find that at least 3 or 4 of them have changed substantially.

I’ll have the first one up in a day or two.

Thanks for listening in/reading what my thoughts are…..

 

Tom Vanderwell

A Good Description of Today’s Economy…..

Quote of the Day

Two thoughts about this quote:

• One of the reasons that I like Barry Ritholtz is because he writes what he wants to write and what he feels is important to write about, not what the readership (and he gets a LOT more traffic than I do).  
• It’s a model for what I’m attempting to do at Straight Talk.  There has never been a time where it’s more crucial to understand what’s going on in the world of mortgage lending and finance than now.   I don’t always talk about the nice, the optimistic and the upbeat things.   Why?  Because I can live with myself better if I’m telling the truth…..

Tom Vanderwell

William Safire: How to Read a Column | The Big Picture

“He also showed that sometimes you have to write what (you) want, regardless of what the readership (thought it) wanted,”  Barry Ritholtz, September 28, 2009 talking about William Safire

Technorati Tags: Barry Ritholtz, William Safire

Just Awful

Eric Lewis

New Home Sales

Thanks to Calculated Risk for the awesome graphs.   (Yeah, I know, I’m a geek if I think graphs are awesome, but hey….)

I’m going to run a series of these that Bill did one at a time over the next day or two with some thoughts about each one.   Hope you find them enlightening….

Tom

Okay, look at a couple of separate numbers:

• The July 2008 (Blue) compared to the July 2009 (red).   Sales were down in July 2009 compared to July 2008.
• June 2009 (Red) compared to July 2009 (also red).    Sales were up in July compared to June.
• Now look at all 7 years comparing June to July.   The last time that July was higher than June was 2005.   So that’s a good sign.

Is this enough to make it a trend?   I don’t think so yet.   But it’s not bad news, that’s for sure.

Stay tuned for more……

Tom Vanderwell

New Home Sales

Mortgage Market Week in Review

Didn’t get published over the weekend.    Spent a majority of my time either with the family or working on an exciting fundraiser for God’s Littlest Angels in Haiti. 

It will be completed within the next hour or so.   Sign up now in the column on the left if you want a copy.

New underwriting guidelines are in place as of this morning.   I plan on talking about a lot of those this week because there are some very important changes that are happening.

Stay tuned and as always, let me know how I can help.

Tom Vanderwell

Mortgage Market Week in Review

Next Page »