Loren's Blog

You can almost spot "Flips" from the listing sheet. They tend to be among the smaller homes in an area and the listing sheet highlights "new carpeting, new appliances, and/or fresh paint". Sometimes a major selling point is that a buyer can "rent to own." And the houses are almost always vacant.T...

Had an interesting situation come up in Minnesota today....wondering what anyone else might have seen-Clients wanted to purchase a new home and close on June 15th. They have an approved buyer of their current home who is self-financing, with a certified letter from a trust showing income, and a l...

Nearly a full third of households are still renting...but if you are one of them, you could be paying a hefty price. Additionally, the children of the baby boomer generation are close to or at the home buying age, but these "echo boomers" could mistakenly decide to put off the purchase of a home ...

I just had to write after an "interesting" evening having to explain a loan- twice- and wondered how many other times it has happened to you!Nice referral from a Realtor comes to me....she is 34, looking for a home.....and wishes to be pre-approved. She easily flies through FannieMae's Desktop Un...

I need to thank Erik at Open Home Mortgage who e-mailed me a reminder regarding my last blog about getting 'pre-qualified'. He & I actually are in 100% agreement on what a potential homebuyer should do to properly work with a Mortgage Professional, we just called it different things!Erik & I beli...

The joys of a late-April weekend in Minnesota mean more than just nice weather...it means folks are coming out of their cocoons and starting to look at new homes! With all the radio advertisements that the local Board of Realtors have out there, at least MY call volume has been going up. And than...

Mortgage Insurance is NOT a dirty word any more in our business. However, many people have been 'trained' over the past boom cycle to think that "MI" is a rip-off. However, in the year 2007, when MI is fully tax-deductible........it can really help lower the monthly....and lifetime...payments of ...

I just love how our local media works in Minneapolis/St. Paul.Yesterday, the front page of the local papers had highlighted headlines like " House Sales drop 8%" and "Bad news for Housing Market". Both paper's business sections had the AP story about how sales in March were down 8%, etc....... wi...

Every time I think I've seen it all in this business, something else comes across my desk that reminds me what kind of a crazy market it is out there!!!My client came to me wanting to be pre-approved for a loan. He's a nice middle manager at a company, just out of school, wanting to quit renting ...

It's been interesting the past few weeks to be reading about how the "sub-prime" mortgage market is falling apart....how many strong lenders are going to be hurting soon....and how many folks won't be able to achieve homeownership because of tightening underwriting rules. As I've just been hummin...