At first this sounds like great news for consumers. In reality, the only good news for consumers is that we live in America where you have the freedom to make risky choices. Only a decade ago you could buy more home than you could afford by paying just a little higher interest rate using a…
We try not to wander too far afield into the political end of things. But sometimes you just have to give credit where credit is due and point out some of the obvious consequences of laws affecting lenders, borrowers, default, and legal ramifications. Dodd-Frank and the ensuing Quality Management or QM regime enforced upon the…
The Senate Finance Committee passed a two year extension of the Mortgage Debt Relief Act. It will be retroactive to 1-1-14. So short selling homeowners whose closings occurred during the first four months of 2014 have a greater hope of not needing to use one of the “work-arounds” we’ve talked about in other blog entries,…
For many of our short sale clients, they waited a little too long to get our help. Nothing breaks our heart more than to interview a new client at the 11th hour and find that the normal techniques for avoiding foreclosure will not work. Most of these negotiated course changes take a few days or…
Whether it was Perry Mason, LA LAW, or an actual relationship with an attorney, most of us have stereotypes of attorneys. Not only attorneys in general, but the way you think of an F. Lee Baily or Johnny Cochran type litigator is probably not the same way you feel about a Tax Attorney. When you…
Perhaps no other profession in North America is in more dire need of respect and appreciation than that of realtor/real estate agent. Setting aside the jokes about the world’s 2nd oldest profession, even early caveman needed an “MLS” and an efficient way to evaluate all the important aspects of a prospective cave’s suitability to the…
The Good News on this rainy day 3 of a moderate Noreaster in Tidewater, Virginia, is that foreclosures and “shadow inventory” continue to decline. The meteorologists tell us we have a couple more days of winds and much needed rain off the Atlantic Ocean. Likewise, the economists predict that our financial storm is not over…
How much help can Veterans and potential FHA refinancers expect from the latest program announced by President Obama at his recent (3-6-2012) press conference? For a good summary of the new program see an article in Bloomberg Business (http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/obama-unveils-housing-initiatives-for-military-fha-families/2012/03/06/gIQAjW1mvR_story.html) “the administration has struck an agreement with various banks and lenders to conduct a review of…
