The current administration has floated the idea of a 50-year mortgage to make home buying more affordable. Is this a good idea? Let’s take a look. Benefits of a 50-Year Mortgage The aim of allowing a 50-year repayment period is to lower the monthly payment. This would have two benefits: the lower payment would mean...
Get Cash Out and Leave Your First Mortgage Alone
During 2020 and 2021 millions of homeowners took out first mortgages at very low interest rates. I know, because I arranged them for a bunch of you. Now those same homeowners are sitting on a ton of equity—hundreds of thousands of dollars, if not a million dollars or more. The question I hear often is...
Second Mortgage Makes a Comeback
For many homeowners, their home is not only a place to live, but also their biggest asset. When additional funds are needed, tapping into the value of their home through a second mortgage can be a smart move. A second mortgage is a loan that is secured by the equity in a home, and it...
Mortgage for the Self-Employed Home Buyer
Owning your own business has many benefits, not the least of which is the ability to write off business expenses to keep your tax liability low. The downside to this happens when you go to get a mortgage. As a self-employed borrower you must document your income with your tax returns. If your reported net...
LLPAs: They Just Increased the Fees You Never Knew You Paid
LLPAs, or Loan-Level Price Adjusters, are fees that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac* charge to account for the risk of a pool of mortgages. The less risky the loan, the lower the fees, and vice-versa. * Fannie and Freddie are The Agencies who purchase most of the mortgages written in the U.S. and who therefore...
2023 Conforming Loan Limit – You Can Now Borrow More
The Federal Housing Finance Agency – the folks who oversee Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac (the agencies) – announced today that the nationwide 2023 conforming loan limit would be raised to $726,200. This means that the maximum loan amount on mortgages which are made and underwritten in such a way that they can be sold...
You Can Buy a Home with a Reverse Mortgage
Is a reverse mortgage right for everybody? No, certainly not. But often it’s not for the reasons you think. A persistent myths about them is whether or not you can buy a home with a reverse mortgage. In short, you can. But the devil is in the details; let’s take a closer look. What is...
Can You Refinance After Forbearance?
Numerous clients have recently contacted me to ask if they could refinance. Why wait until now? Their concern was that had been in forbearance with their current loan. Their lender had allowed them to defer payments while they were impacted by a COVID-related event. The good news? Yes, you can refinance after forbearance. There are...
Rising Interest Rates – When Will it Stop?
But look what happened in the last year. Margins have steadily declined as lenders expanded their operations to try to take advantage of the surge in business, but then business levelled off.
Conforming Loan Limit 2022 – They Just Lowered Rates Again
Conforming Loan Limits 2022 Conforming loan limits are the maximum mortgage loan that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac (the agencies) will purchase. Why is this important? When lenders make loans that they can sell to the agencies, the investors in those loans know that their investment is guaranteed by the U.S. Government. Because of this,...