California real estate buyers have decided they want to pre-qualify themselves at midnight, in their pajamas. How do I know this? Two words: MOBILE APP. Buyers love it.After inviting some of my borrowers to apply using the mobile app, I noticed 2 things: Buyers were on it at all hours playing wit
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02/21/2020
Earlier this year a young lawyer bought a pre-1900's fixer in San Francisco. She had over $200,000 in the bank and yet chose to use a regular FHA loan with a 3.5% down payment. At the same time, east of San Francisco, another run down house was being purchased in an affluent suburban neighborhood
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08/13/2012
I often hear agents and buyers express shock and dismay when the real numbers that make up mortgage insurance for an FHA loan are finally on the table, down and dirty for everyone to see. What they should be doing is thanking their lucky stars there is still an FHA loan around to loan money at ra
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08/08/2012
The time nears for yet one more EXTINCTION in the mortgage business: yield spread premiums will soon be considered illegal, courtesy of the Dodd-Frank Act. Yield spread premium is when the lender pays the loan officer for doing the loan instead of (or in addition to) the borrower paying points. Y
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02/10/2011
I am trying to decide: Is there is a shortage of loan officers or an over abundance of lender-orphaned Realtors? If loan officers used to be a dime a dozen, then today there are only four of the dozen still left. Maybe you could still buy one with a dime, but that guy will probably be gone by th
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01/15/2011
We baby boomers have always been a headstrong bunch of pioneers, and nothing about that is going to change until the last one of us is in our grave. Here in California, we boomers seem to have this horrible recurring nightmare: the price of buying real estate is so high that our kids either becom
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01/13/2011
There is weight to be lost. Bad habits to be broken. Vacations not taken, and money not earned. You are swept away in the negativity of it all, when you throw in the towel and think this: "Welcome to 2011, LOSER". But there is something you can do for yourself that will make New Years resolutions
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12/31/2010
You are a Realtor who closed 2 loans this month. You notice that one loan is at a rate of 4.25% and one is at a rate of 5%. Do you believe the loan officer who charged the higher rate: Has OVERCHARGED? Is guilty of EXTORTION? Got lucky with a pristine borrower and took advantage of the situation
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12/30/2010
Who calls a mortgage office out of the blue? Lots of people do. Call it a sign of the times. Call it an epidemic of finance phobia. Whatever it is, the clues they leave behind could help you find more buyers in 2011. So let's get the basic premise of this post out of the way right now by agreeing
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11/05/2010
One quirky thing about the mortgage profession is this: we have no bloody idea what our official title is, so most of us we just make one up. We don't have that all encompassing term "Realtor", and I wish we did. Everyone understands immediately that Realtors sell houses. So simple. So why can't
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11/02/2010