Bay Area Mortgage Blog

When daughter and her betrothed could not ignore my nagging any longer, these 23 year olds (freshly graduated from UC Berkeley) set out to buy a house. Back then, the market was on fire here in California.  The kids looked, well, like kids. Blond and skinny, jeans and flip flops. I knew they had ...

It has been with great interest that I have followed Mike Mueller's blog the last few weeks, which to my amazement, has included an informative video on each post. Envious (as always) of his technical savvy, with no hope of EVER catching him (in points OR tech savvy...darnit), I finally came to a...

They sat together, sipping wine, and gazing out at the lake on the creaky old deck that badly needed replacing.  They would need to step gingerly for yet another summer, and live with that precarious deck a little bit longer.  They stepped into the garage, which should have been pitch black. But ...

In the real estate world, Realtors are higher on the food chain than mortgage brokers. Always have been. Always will be. Which, as Lola pointed out in her well written featured post, means mortgage brokers seek out Realtor relationships, with results that are not always successful, and tactics th...

Here are 2 nasty words that spell disaster for a loan: UNACCEPTABLE COLLATERAL. Do you know what this means? It means the borrower qualified for the mortgage, but the property did not. To our clients, however, a turn down is a turn down. They still take it very personally, even though they should...

Here in California, we will be winding down this decade with a new sense of ECONOMIC AWARENESS and ENVIRONMENTAL SENSITIVITY. We are a little older.  We are a lot wiser. Perhaps we are a little battered and a little bruised from all those issues that ended with the word "CRISIS". But hey, as they...

The FORECLOSURE EPIDEMIC and the MORTGAGE CRISIS that has rocked our economy to its very core, will be discussed and debated for years to come. Historically, it will forever define this decade, and, along with 9-11, leave an imprint on an entire generation. Will we remember this as the decade whe...

I have always liked the word "cumulative". It helps me stay the course. Like most other people, I would much rather do a project that starts and ends right away, giving me a much needed sense of accomplishment. But taking the time to be cumulative leads to great things. Writing a book is cumulati...

 Do you realize how many people "forget" to tell their lising agent that they have an equityline behind their first mortgage? Who don't even understand that an equityline is something different from a credit card (which must be paid off in conjunction with selling their house)? Who do not underst...

I have an idea for a new soap opera. Please, Brad Andersohn, bring on the flip cam, and be my producer. The name of the new soap is "Romancing the Loan". Stock is rising for mortgage brokers who KNOW HOW TO ROMANCE THE LOAN. In the past, very little emphasis was placed on these skills. Why? Becau...