HOMEBUYING ADVICE
Homebuying advice abounds these days in this information age, and it can be difficult to know who to trust. But here’s just a bit of what we’re reading at Loanconnectors.com to better understand how to make safe home buys in the current, complicated, rapidly changing housing market: Our friends at the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development have covered some of the basics: Figure out how much you can afford for a new home. What you can afford depends on your income, credit rating, current monthly expenses, down payment and the interest rate. Mortgage calculators …can help, but it is best to visit a lender to find out for sure. Know yo

First Time Homebuyer Credit and More
Congress Extends Home Buyers Tax Credit (and Doesn’t Stop There…) Not only did Congress extend the current $8k tax credit for first time home buyers, but a new $6,500 tax credit for home buyers who have owned their current homes for at least five years will kick in as well. Good news on both counts. Combined with historically low interest rates, the tax credit has turned the Great Recession into a golden homebuying opportunity for those who didn’t have to sell in order to buy. Current homeowners still face the selling hurdle before being able to take full advantage, but will still greatly benefit from a healthier and more active housing market.

HVCC Continued:So...
HVCC Continued: So now, what is happening with the appraisals ordered by this independent 3rd party that we, as brokers, can no longer communicate wtih in any way? We are finding that in many cases, the random assignment of appraisers means that we often have out of the area appraiser’s who don’t know the area and are not able to use valid comparable properties. What this means is the purchase price that everyone agreed to and had comparable properties to support the value, are suddenly being cut from $10,000 to $100,000! The appraisers are also now being paid less money through the AMC because they have to take their cut, so now they are making less mone

Ok, more on the i...
Ok, more on the issues with HVCC, the appraisal The reason that this was originally put together was that they found that many Banks, like Washington Mutual, had their inside appraiser’s and were forcing them to bring their appraisals into value or they would fire them. So, the HVCC was meant to stop anyone from putting pressure on an appraiser to bring in the value on an appraisal. Ok, so what happened? The banks are allowed to own their own AMC, or Appraisal Management Companies and order appraisals through them, but mortgage brokers no longer can order their own appraisals??? WHen a mortgage broker orders an appraisal, the lender that they submit their loan

There was a quest...
There was a question on the blog that I did about the Government changes and what they are. I want the consumer to see what is being done “for” them that is not actually helping, but hurting them. HVCC-Home Valuation Code of Conduct. This was engineered by Andrew Cuomo, the Attorney General for New York and was implemented by him to the rest of the country. We are still not sure why or how the NY AG decided for the entire country, but here’s the issues that have arisen since this was implemented in May: I have to order the appraisal for a client through the lender I choose to submit a loan to. This means no more shopping rates for a client a