Mortgages
« Previous EntriesIf Mortgage Fraud Occurred, Why Don’t We Prosecute the Offenders?
Wednesday, June 24th, 2009During the subprime boom, lenders were using “stated-income” loans, which meant the borrower could state their income but no income verification was used. Basically, this type of loan allowed for the borrower to inflate their income and no one would know the difference. Doing so allowed for the buyer to “qualify” for a [...]
I Was Right!
Monday, June 22nd, 2009If you want to read a short book that will give you a pretty good idea of what went on with subprime mortgages, check out David Faber’s And Then the Roof Caved In*. It’s a very good read.
As my regular readers know, I have blogged a lot about the subprime mortgage crisis. In [...]
Flawed Thinking (Part 2)
Wednesday, June 10th, 2009After posting Flawed Thinking a couple of days ago, I got to thinking about it. I left out one very important part of the story.
Re-read the commenter’s first sentence and you’ll see what I mean:
Two years ago we stopped investing in our 401k and we began paying thousands against the principal on our home.
The [...]
How Quickly Mortgage Rates Can Change, Affecting Your Payments
Friday, May 29th, 2009Think about this for a minute…
On Tuesday, the rate on a 30-year fixed mortgage stood at about 5.03%. That same mortgage had a rate of 5.44% on Thursday. To get an idea of what this means dollar-wise, I ran some numbers. Because mortgages are such big, long-term loans, small changes in interest [...]
What Do You Think of This Woman’s Mortgage Proposal?
Monday, February 2nd, 2009One of my friends posted this on her facebook page and I thought I would share it with you:
It’s an interesting idea. But, I have some questions:
1. How could something of this magnitude be carried out? This would be huge! I don’t think it would be as easy as this lady [...]
How An Option ARM Could Bite You in the Rear
Friday, January 30th, 2009Today’s Wall Street Journal mentioned that Option ARMs are seeing rising defaults. It’s not hard to figure out how this could happen. According to the article, an Option ARM mortgage gave borrowers several options regarding their payment. They could pay only the interest portion of the loan, principal an interest, or a [...]
The REAL ‘Victim’ In All This Mess
Thursday, October 23rd, 2008Sorry to keep harping on the subject of the housing/mortgage/credit/bailout crisis but I keep reading stuff that just makes cringe. The latest comes from an article I read this morning in the Wall Street Journal about protests at the annual convention for the Mortgage Bankers Association that was held this week in San Francisco.
Here [...]
Sad Fact: Some People Are Just Idiots
Monday, April 14th, 2008Lily over at TheHonestDollar alerted me to an interview with a couple who’s home is in foreclosure. If this couple is any indication of America’s view of debt, this country is in BIG TROUBLE!
Here’s the part of the interview that made me cuss:
The Sinclairs say they never meant for this to happen, but Esmeralda [...]
More Thoughts on the Housing Mess
Friday, April 11th, 2008I’m getting tired of hearing about the housing mess. I’m especially getting tired of headlines like these:
Housing bill doesn’t help those in most trouble
Maybe these bills don’t help those who need the help the most because they are “unhelpable” (I’m pretty sure that’s not a word). For the record, I’m against even helping [...]
This is Pure Genius
Wednesday, April 9th, 2008Here’s a novel idea:
1. Buy a house.
2. Finance it with an adjustable-rate mortgage (ARM), interest-only ARM, or some other mortgage that will get your initial payment down so you can afford the house.
3. Don’t worry about the mortgage reset because the value of the home will continue to increase and you can [...]