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#The Mortgage Scoop RSS Feed The Mortgage Scoop

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The Mortgage Scoop

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payment assistance and more
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Changes Coming to The Mortgage Scoop

If you're new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed. Thanks
for visiting!

For several months now I have been keeping multiple blogs and web sites
running that are very similar. Well, okay I really haven't been doing
much with The Mortgage Scoop during this time. Why? I was busy
creating my new site MNHomeLoan That site is now far enough
along that I'm going to be making my next set of changes. One of these
is I will be transitioning The Mortgage Scoop to where I will be
selling a number of ebooks and other related products about the
mortgage industry.

If you have enjoyed reading my articles at The Mortgage Scoop, I
encourage you to check out MNHomeLoan It is a new and improved
version of what you are used to seeing here-and I think it looks much
nicer too.

If you have any questions, shoot me an email at
scoop@themortgagescoop

If you or someone you know is thinking about refinancing, then I
encourage you to check out my first ebook: Refinance Roulette: How to
Play with the Bank's Money When You Bet the House. It's full of great
insight into refinancing, how to get the bank to pay your closing
costs, how to shop mortgage lenders and most importantly, how to pick
the best loan for your needs.

October 19th, 2010 | Category: Miscellaneous | Leave a comment

Alec will be on KARE 11 at 6 tonight

I just finished an interview with Trisha Volpe of KARE 11 for a story
they are running tonight at 6:00 (8/06/10). The basic focus is that it
can be difficult for even well qualified buyers to get approved in
today's market because of the appraised values and deeper scruntiny.

Hopefully I won't come off like an idiot :)

August 6th, 2010 | Category: Miscellaneous | Comments (1)

You Will Be at Fault for Your Strategic Default Says Fannie Mae

This article first appeared on the web site for the radio show Sweet
Home Minnesota.

A Strategic Default is when someone can afford to make their mortgage
payment but still chooses to walk away from the home because of their
negative equity position. Usually they call their Get-a-way a
"business decision" just like a bank would make and move on without too
much moral hand-wringing. The concept of Strategic Defaults has
continued to gain more media coverage, which is making it more social
acceptable as an option for home owners to consider.

We have talked on the show about how this is one of the great risks to
the housing market in 2010. If people begin to have a widespread
acceptance that not only is it okay to walk away from the mortgage
payment even if you can afford, but it is in fact "good business" this
would have a drastic impact on the market. This is especially true
if, as some reports say, up to 25% of all mortgages are upside down in
America.

Mortgage giant Fannie Mae finally stepped out of the darkness on this
issue. They have stated two really important things in regard to
Strategic Defaults:

1. If your home goes into foreclosure and they determine that it was
for reasons within your control (in other words there weren't health
issues or a job loss) you will not be eligible for a new mortgage from
Fannie Mae for 7 years. Since Fannie Mae has traditionally been the
biggest supplier of mortgage money, that means quite a lot.

2. If you choose to "walk away" from your home that you could still
afford, and ff you live in a state that allows them to come after you
for the loss, they will now come after you. Before, this was not an
area Fannie Mae was putting much effort into, mainly because of a lack
of staffing. Now that they grasp the potential danger to the market
place they are rushing in, guns pulled and ready to blaze away to knock
down this idea before it gets any more traction.

This becomes all the more important to Fannie Mae as they begin another
"new" push to get lenders to work harder on making short sales come
together to sell these underwater homes rather than just have people
walk away from them. For once, one side of the policy team seems to be
paying attention to what the other side is trying to do. Now we just
have to wait and see if the genie is already out of the bottle with the
idea. Fannie Mae must hope that people are afraid of getting the 7
year "hammer" is enough to keep the getaway car in park.

July 5th, 2010 | Category: Credit, Industry News, Mortgages | Comments
(1)

Closing Date Deadline Extended for Tax Credit Buyers

On Wednesday, June 30th the Senate passed a bill to extend the closing
date deadline until September 30th for buyers eligible under the tax
credit program. This bill matched up with a version passed through the
House the previous day.

No New Buyers Qualify
This extension didn't make it possible for any new buyers to get into
the program, which carries a tax credit of $8,000 for first time buyers
and $6,500 for qualified repeat buyers. The original program required
a buyer to have a completed contract negotiated by the end of the April
and to have that transaction closed by the end of June. All this new
bill did was push that extension date back until the end of September
2010. The three main groups of buyers that would benefit from this
were any buyers still waiting to hear if their offer on a short sale
home had been accepted or for buyers purchasing new construction homes
that were not able to be completed prior to the end of June and the
third group were those buyers whose mortgage company couldn't get their
loan approved in time to close before the end of the month.

How Important Was this Extension?
Opinions vary widely on this. When a deal goes to close it goes
through a title company. Based on how busy the title companies were
the final few days of the June, this wasn't that big of a deal. Many
title companies reported having openings to fit in any last minute
rushes. Part of that was because buyers, Realtors and mortgage
companies worked well with the title companies to get many of these
deals closed earlier in the month to avoid nightmarish hold ups. But,
the other reality is the impact of this tax credit expiration was not
as big as when it was originally going to expire in November 2009.

July 5th, 2010 | Category: First Time Home Buyer, Industry News |
Comments (1)

Is Your Mortgage Interest Rate 5.5% or Higher? - REFINANCE TODAY!

This is a great video to show the impact of refinancing your home loan
right now. Rates are under 5% for a 30 year mortgage in Minnesota, if
your Mortgage Interest Rate is over 5.5% you should call me to see if
refinancing is a good option for you! If you are a first time home
buyer in Minnesota or you are moving up to a larger home now is also a
great time to act with very low rates have a huge impact on your
monthly payment.

Visit msnbc for breaking news, world news, and news about the
economy

June 29th, 2010 | Category: Miscellaneous | Comments (1)

First Time Buyer Programs Updated

If you are first time home buyer in Minnesota I have something you
need to see. I have obtained an updated list of all the special first
time buyer programs available in the Twin Cities. There are fifteen of
them, including several from Minnesota Housing, whose products I have
used and endorsed for many years. MN Housing is now a partner on my
radio show, Sweet Home Minnesota as well. You can listen to Mike Haley
from Minnesota Housing talk about all the special home loans they have
to offer when he is live on the air with us-usually 1-2 times a month.

I also have an updated list of all the down payment assistance programs
available in the State of Minnesota. There are over fifty of them.
The assistance comes in many forms: grants, zero interest rate loans,
loans with low rates and even down payment assistance loans that
disappear after several years.

The first time home buyer tax credit may have gone away, but there are
still great reasons to buy your first home in Minnesota. In the past
two weeks I have used these very programs to help people buy homes in
Richfield, Shakopee, Minneapolis, Bloomington, Savage, Apple Valley and
Eagan. These are great loans if you qualify for them.

Also, I have recently been named co-chair of the Affordable Housing
Committee for the Minnesota Mortgage Association. As part of this
role, I will help lead a group of industry experts in trying to decide
what are the best next steps to help people, especially first time
buyers, purchase a home given all the changes in the market. If you
have any ideas for this, please use the form below to email them to
me. Any insight on the challenges you see facing first time buyers and
people with low to moderate income would be hepful to us.

If you would like to receive either of the Special Mortgage Programs or
Down Payment Assistance lists, please use the email form below to given
me your information. This offer is FREE and comes with a no hassle
promise. I'll check in with you after I send you the list of down
payment help in Minnesota | MN, but that's it. No pressure to do
anything more than that.

Please specify in your email if you are looking for just the special
home loan programs list or the down payment help guide or both.

Your Name (required)
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April 27th, 2010 | Tags: city living, Dakota County, Down payment
assistance, first time buyer loan, First Time Home Buyer, Mortgages,
special loans, special mortgages | Category: Buyer Info, First Time
Home Buyer, Loan Programs, Mortgages | Leave a comment

I Had a Short Sale How Long Until I Can Buy a Home Again?

The million dollar question for thousands of home buyers in Minnesota
is "How long after a short sale do I have to wait before I can buy a
home again?" There has been a lot of confusion about the answer to
this question.

Fannie Mae announced their updated guidelines related to this on April
14, 2010. Rather than making one longer waiting period for everyone
they took a more intelligent approach. Basically, the more money you
have to put down to buy the new home, the sooner you can do it.

This should cause people to take a good, hard look about whether they
should just dump their home on the market.

The following guidelines apply to someone who had a short sale, a
pre-foreclosure sale or a deed-in-lieu of foreclosure.
* You will be able to buy after 2 years if you will be putting 20%
down.
* You will be able to buy after 4 years if you will be putting 10%
down.
* Only able to do a smaller down payment? You will need to wait 7
years to do anything with less down.

These time frames assume that you have re-established credit. This
would usually require that you have at least 3 lines of credit (loans,
credit cards, etc.) on your credit report with at least a 1 year
history.

There can be exceptions due to extenuating circumstances such as job
loss or medical problems. If a home buyer fit into one of these, they
would be allowed to buy a home again after 2 years with a 10% down
payment.

These guidelines begin to apply in Minnesota and throughout the rest of
the country starting July 1, 2010.

These rules apply only to Conventional loans. The loans funded with
money from Fannie Mae, and I assume Freddie Mac will come out with
matching rules. FHA and VA loans remain separate.

The people who certainly aren't helped by this are those that struggled
to get into a home in the first place. Their ability to come up with
10-20% after a couple of years is not great. In some ways it's like
the bank bailout-those with money get to live to see another day and
those further down the financial food chain just get stuck.

Some might feel that it is bad from socio-economic standpoint that
there is some class discrimination. But the hard truth is the rules
got way too loose which created this mess, so requiring people to put
more skin in the game the second time around is sound. When they look
back at this a decade from now, it will probably work out that someone
who sold on a short sale walked away from more debt than the cash they
will need to come up with for a down payment a few years later. As
long as there can be exceptions for extenuating circumstances the rule
is fair.

Have a question? Use the form below to email me.

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April 24th, 2010 | Category: Buyer Info, Credit, Industry News, Market
Update | Comments (1)

City Living Program a Great Deal for Home Buyers in Minneapolis or St Paul

The City Living program is a joint partnership between the cities of
Minneapolis and St. Paul to make it easier for home buyers, especially
first time buyers, to purchase a home in either city. The program has
a great interest rate and can provide down payment assistance too.

The down payment assistance for the City Living program is 2% of the
loan amount. Since most people are using an FHA loan to buy right now,
and the FHA loan has a down payment requirement of 3.5%, this
assistance really helps. Buyers receiving the down payment help would
then only need to come up with 1.5% from their own money. On a
$150,000 house this means you could buy a home for about $2,300 out of
your pocket assuming you negotiate for the seller to pay your closing
costs.

I met with some clients tonight and when we were done structuring their
deal they bought their first home for less than $3,000 out of pocket.
They were thrilled. They admitted that coming in to the meeting they
had no idea how they could buy a home. So, to leave our appointment
ready to go was a great feeling for them (and me).

The amazing thing to me is that right now they are paying $1,100 a
month in rent. Their total payment on their new $145,000 home will be
less than that!

Where Can You Come Up with Down Payment Money?

Many buyers have been good about saving money over the past year or
two. If you have a plan you can save up $3,000 pretty quickly.

Most people have at least a couple of thousand dollars in their 401k
accounts. If you have $5,000 in your 401k you can normally take a loan
out for half the value so you could get $2,500 freed up for a down
payment.

When the amount of money you need is so small, it's often possible to
get a gift from a family member to help you buy your first home.

Programs like City Living play a key role in helping first time buyers
find their dream of owning a home in Minneapolis and Saint Paul. If
you are looking to buy your first home in either city, get in touch
with me to see if you qualify. There are restrictions, such as income
limits, but they are much higher than most people think-over $90,000
for many people.

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April 20th, 2010 | Category: Buyer Info, First Time Home Buyer, Loan
Programs, Mortgages | Comments (1)

Minnesota Mortgage Program Change Good for First Time Buyers

As of March 1, 2010 Minnesota Housing (MHFA) raised their income limits
for first time buyers using their Minnesota Mortgage Program. First
time buyers are now able to earn up to 100% of the Twin Cities area
median income. This means a household of 1-4 earning $83,900 or less
is now eligible for the Minnesota Mortgage Program. In the past, Twin
Cities first time buyers were limited to 80% of the median income,
which meant a cap of $67,200 until the change.

This change means thousands more first time home buyers may be eligible
for the Minnesota Mortgage Program through Minnesota Housing.

Typically the interest rate for the Minnesota Mortgage Program has been
about 0.50% lower than standard mortgage rates. On a $200,000 purchase
this would save a first time home buyer about $60 a month in payment.
First time buyers could also use this lower rate to purchase about
$9,000 more home using this program compared to the payment they would
have using a standard mortgage.

If you are a first time buyer in the Twin Cities you want to check with
me to see if you meet all of the eligibility requirements. Don't pay
too high of an interest rate because you are working with the wrong
lender. Be sure to chose a mortgage professional that specializes in
working with first time buyers in the Twin Cities.

March 5th, 2010 | Tags: first time buyer loan | Category: Buyer Info,
First Time Home Buyer, Loan Programs, Mortgages | Comments (2)

First Time Home Buyer Program Available in Minneapolis and St. Paul

The 2010 City Living program for first time home buyers in Minneapolis
and St. Paul was rolled out today. There are two options on this
program, just like there used to be for anyone familiar with the
program. For either option the buyer can get a FHA or VA loan-no
Conventional mortgages.

Option 1 is a 30 year fixed rate loan at 4.75%.

Option 2 is a 4.99% 30 year fixed rate loan that also provides down
payment assistance of 2% for the home buyer.

The 2% assistance comes in the form of a second mortgage, but if you
live in the home for 7 years, the loan is forgiven-it would no longer
need to be paid back. (You must be living in the home this entire
time-can't convert it to a rental home).

This program is only available for first time buyers (or those
qualifying under the Veterans Exceptions). A first time buyer for
those of you who don't know the rule, is someone who has not owned a
home they have lived in during the previous 3 years. If two or more
people are buying together, all of them must be first time home buyers.

There is a minimum credit score of 620, there may be an option for
people who have no credit score.

Programs like these always have income limits, so the people who need
help the most can get. The limits are the following:

in Non-Targeted Areas:
* 1 or 2 person households: $83,900
* 3 or more person household $92,290

in Targeted Areas:
* 1 or 2 person households: $92,290
* 3 or more person household $92,290

The property can be a 1-4 unit, existing single family home, townhome
or FHA approved condos.

The maximum sales price is $376,870.

This is a great program for first time home buyers who want to buy a
home in the city limits of Minneapolis or St. Paul (not West St. Paul
or South St. Paul). A standard FHA loan requires 3.5% down payment, so
this program can take care of more than half of that, which can really
help first time home buyers in the Twin Cities of Minneapolis or St.
Paul.

To apply for this loan you can visit my secure web site
MNHomeLoan and click on the Apply Online tab.

February 5th, 2010 | Tags: city living, Down payment assistance, FHA,
First Time Home Buyer, Mortgages, special loans, special mortgages, VA
loans | Category: Buyer Info, First Time Home Buyer, Loan Programs,
Mortgages | Comments (2)
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What is Your Home Worth?

Whether you or moving up or moving down or simply thinking about
refinancing you need to know what you home is worth in today's market.
Fill out this form "My Home Value" to receive a no hassle accurate
value.

Radio Show

Listen each week to Sweet Home MN as we talk about mortgages, buying
and selling homes in the Twin Cities and more. Sundays on 107.1 FM from
2-3 pm

About Alec Grebis

Alec is recognized as a Twin Cities expert in mortgages, especially
Minnestoa first time home buyer loans and grants. You may have heard
him on KTLK FM's "Minnesota Real Estate Show." Since entering the
mortgage industry in 1995, Alec has given over 300 speeches or seminars
about various real estate issues. Now you can get a more regular dose
of his commentary, and with a level of depth radio does not allow by
subscribing to The Mortgage Scoop.

Avoid Costly Mortgage Mistakes

Interest rates are again near record lows. Should you refinance now?
Most people got a loan from someone who is no longer in the business,
if that's you, let us help you. Click on "Managing Your Mortgage" to
get started.

Get a Clue!

Few people have a clue when it comes to mortgages--especially Minnesota
first time buyers who want mortgages with down payment assistance and
grants. So we cover all this and a whole lot more, from big issues like
the "credit crunch" to smaller stuff like credit scores. Hopefully
you'll like it and subscribe to the blog. If you have the time, leave a
comment. More importantly, come back when it's time to get a mortgage
and work with someone you know has a CLUE!

Disclaimer

The opinions expressed in this blog do not represent those of Bell
Mortgage or any other employee of Bell Mortgage.

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Recent Posts

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