?Silent gratitude isn?t much use to anyone.? ~ Gladys Brown Instead of using this space for ranting again about misguided efforts to regulate and stimulate the housing market, I want to say ?Thanks!? September has been a terrific month for us at John Bethell Title Company, Inc. Record low mortgage interest rates (yet again) are …
This morning I read my weekly ?Outside the Box?newsletter from financial analyst John Mauldin. He discussed in some detail the history of the mortgage crisis and the benefits to the average citizen that refinancing would bring?especially the additional disposable income that could be spent and thus stimulate the economy. He pointed out that Fannie, Freddie, …
?Three Rules of Work: Out of clutter find simplicity; from discord find harmony; in the middle of difficulty lies opportunity.? ~ Albert Einstein ? ?During the last three years we?ve been introduced to many new concepts. Mortgage modifications, robo-signers, qualified residential mortgages, Appraisal Vendor misManagement firms, mortgage backed security put backs, TARP and HAFA immediately …
?Good news and bad news in the May numbers. Commercial lending is slowly showing improvement. There were twelve commercial mortgages securing loans in excess of one million dollars recorded in May. More broadly, there were thirty mortgages over $500,000 recorded in April and May of this year. Last year in April and May there were …
?The four basis premises of writing: clarity, brevity, simplicity, and humanity.? ~ William Zinsser ?? This week the Consumer Finance Protection Bureau released two samples of its proposed combination Good Faith Estimate (GFE) and Truth in Lending Disclosure (TIL). I must say that I?m surprised and impressed. Each of the two page samples are huge …
?For every problem there is a solution which is simple, clean, and wrong.? ~ H. L. Mencken Banks and other mortgage investors are still struggling with the effects of a bad business model. A model where more than ten percent of the people they were lending money to are not paying them back. For some …
?To simplify complications is the first essential of success? ~ George Earle Buckle The Good Faith Estimate (GFE) mandated fourteen months ago is in my opinion creating more and not less uncertainty for consumers. The GFE just doesn?t tell them what they want to know. The form tells them what the lender is going to …
We?re not looking at cute metrics anymore. ~ Safa Rashtchy What?s your favorite indicator of where the market it going? Each month I publish a variety of Monroe County statistics hoping to lend perspective to our local real estate and mortgage finance markets. Mortgage and deed recordings, transfers, foreclosures started and finished just to name …
This is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is perhaps, the end of the beginning. ~ Winston Churchill There are encouraging signs for the Monroe County real estate and mortgage finance markets. Commercial loans showed signs of life in December. Residential sales in the higher price ranges …
“We’ll take the best ones, test them on consumers, and then soon be able to unveil a new, easy-to-understand, federal disclosure form,” ~Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner speaking about combining the TILA and GFE forms ? I?ve suggested here on occasion that Compliance Officer might be the hot career track in mortgage finance. This past year …
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