Bay Area Mortgage Blog

Here's a heads up: This happened in our office 3 times recently. Mortgage applicants owned and occupied upside down houses (upside down = owe more than the house is worth).  Their intent was to buy REOs which were superior in quality and/or location to their existing homes . They would then RENT ...

Earlier this year, as Mr. Bernanke continued to drop rates, I came out with the following statement: It isn't about rates. Its about guidelines. Rates could go to 2% and real estate can be cheap, but it doesn't matter if no one can qualify for a mortgage.Those of us in the mortgage business could...

Okay, who turned the faucet on? Our mortgage writers came out in force this past week, churning out brilliant posts and stirring up controversy everywhere in the Rainer Nation. Inspiration seemed to be contagious when one post hatched the next, blazing the trail for some of the most amazing (and ...

She leaned against the doorway of my office, this messenger of bad news, like so many before her had done. My consolation prize? A large Butterfinger, which had been placed on my desk before she retreated quickly back to the doorway. She didn't dare to sit in the chair (and consider herself a gue...

The biggest docmentation challenge facing mortgage applicants in this brave new world of EXTREME DOCUMENTATION is (choose one):A. Having enough assetsB. Having enough incomeC. Having enough downpayment or equity in propertyD. Having a mortgage broker smart enough to put together a puzzle with 100...

Yesterday I turned in a new loan and 3 trees sacrificed their lives just for this event. Paperless? Yeah, RIGHT. In what life? Please do not let the organizers of Earth Day know that it takes as many trees to apply for your mortgage these days as it does to build the house you are buying.The othe...

Our area of expensive real estate out here in Coastal California is famous for many things, but NOT for first time buyers. Long ago these buyers were chased away by high prices into the interior of California where vast stretches of open land meant builders could build cheap houses, and cheap gas...

If you think of the current credit crisis as an earthquake, then the aftershocks could best be described as declining values in real estate. For those of you NOT in California, aftershocks are much smaller rumbles that shake the ground, sometimes for days, after an earthquake occurs.  Why are aft...

This weekend I let my "BRING ON THE BLAME" philosophy slip into a comment I placed on Neal Bloom's very funny featured post. My remark about always choosing to accept the blame seemed to strike a chord with the RainerNation. What do you think the 3 most important words in any real estate transact...

For years, Californians thought it was pretty funny to lament about our zoom zoom real estate. With glass of wine in hand and proverbial balmy weather as a backdrop, friends would often whisper to each other: "We couldn't even afford to buy the house we live in".Then they would laugh.Well, no one...