Home Financing 101

Brian and Jacqui Felgate

2012-01-31T14:40:00.000-06:00

Brian and Jacqui just closed on the refinance of their home. Listen to what they have to say about their experience with Cornerstone Mortgage.

Fannie Fees Fail to Offset Record Low Lending Rates: Mortgages

2012-01-19T10:01:00.003-06:00

Alex and Angela Curcuru

2011-12-28T10:09:00.000-06:00

Alex and Angela just refinanced their home with Cornerstone Mortgage, listen to what they have to say about their experience.

Jarret and Mira

2011-12-28T09:44:00.000-06:00

Jarret and Mira just closed on the refinance of their home, listen to what they have to say about their experience with Cornerstone Mortgage.

Eric Humes

2011-12-28T09:28:00.002-06:00

Eric just closed on the refinance of his home with Cornerstone Mortgage, listen to what he has to say about his experience.

Nathan Rost

2011-12-28T09:11:00.000-06:00

Nathan just closed on the purchase of his new home, listen to what he has to say about his experience with Cornerstone Mortgage.

Ray Elking

2011-12-28T08:53:00.000-06:00

Ray just closed on the refinance of his home with Cornerstone Mortgage, listen to what he has to say about his experience.

Mark and Becky Andricks

2011-12-28T08:44:00.000-06:00

Mark and Becky just refinanced their home with Cornerstone Mortgage, listen to what they have to say about their experience.

Ashley Babcock

2011-12-28T08:32:00.000-06:00

Ashley just refinanced her home with Cornerstone Mortgage, listen to what she has to say about her experience.

Mary Dodd

2011-12-28T08:20:00.000-06:00

Mary just closed on the purchase of her new home, listen to what she has to say about her experience with Cornerstone Mortgage.

Bob Menendez

2011-12-28T08:13:00.000-06:00

Bob Menendez just closed on the purchase of his new home, listen to what he has to say about his experience with Cornerstone Mortgage.

Tom and Linda Longinette

2011-12-01T10:58:00.002-06:00

Tom and Linda Longinette just closed on the purchase of their new home. Listen to what they have to say about their experience with Cornerstone Mortgage.

Harry Dixon

2011-11-08T14:47:00.003-06:00

Harry just closed on the refinance of his home. Listen to what he has to say about his experience with Cornerstone Mortgage.

Mark Berger

2011-11-02T13:59:00.003-05:00

Mark just closed on the purchase of his new home, listen to what he has to say about his experience with Cornerstone Mortgage.

Jason and Julia Dietl

2011-10-25T11:36:00.003-05:00

Jason and Julia just closed on the purchase of their new home. Listen to what they have to say about their experience with Cornerstone Mortgage.

Rick and Laura Licari

2011-10-18T10:38:00.003-05:00

Rick and Laura just closed on the refinance of their home, listen to what they have to say about Cornerstone Mortgage.

Sharon Foster

2011-10-12T10:53:00.002-05:00

Sharon recently closed on the purchase of her new home, listen to what she has to say about her experience with Cornerstone Mortgage.

New FHA Loan Limit

2011-10-05T12:55:00.002-05:00

Effective October 1, 2011 FHA has a new maximum loan limit of $271,050. Read more about this HERE

Cory and Melanie Mohlman

2011-10-04T13:13:00.002-05:00

Cory and Melanie just closed on the refinance of their home, listen to what they have to say about their experience with Cornerstone Mortgage.

Denny and Sandy Roth

2011-09-16T12:56:00.001-05:00

Denny and Sandy just closed on the refinance of their home. Listen to what they have to say about their experience with Cornerstone Mortgage and the trust they have in Chris Scheer.

Tim and Karen Relling

2011-09-13T15:08:00.002-05:00

Tim and Karen just closed on the refinance of their home with Cornerstone Mortgage. Listen to what they have say about their experience.

Inc Magazine 500/5000 List

2011-08-23T13:21:00.003-05:00

Cornerstone Mortgage was named to Inc. Magazines 500/5000 list at number 1189!

This is a huge honor and we join the list with many other great companies like Intuit, Zappos, Under Armour, Microsoft, Jamba Juice,Timberland, Clif Bar, Patagonia, Oracle, Zipcar and so many more of today’s top companies.

This achievement is only awarded to the fastest growing, most creative and dedicated companies out there. We are honored to be on the list and strive to be in the top 500 in the years to come.

Click HERE to see the list.

Allyse and Michael Ortega

2011-08-19T11:46:00.002-05:00

Allyse and Michael just closed on the purchase of their new home, listen to what they have to say about Cornerstone Mortgage.

The Shape of the Global Economy will Fundamentally Change

2011-08-17T14:58:00.001-05:00

It's not a crash, it's the new normal.
BY MOHAMED EL-ERIAN

Who would have thought just 18 months ago that a member of the eurozone, the most elite club of economies in Europe, could have a worse credit rating than Pakistan? And yet this is the case for Greece today, perched on the verge of a debt restructuring; two other eurozone countries (Ireland and Portugal), meanwhile, are already in Europe's intensive care unit, receiving large bailouts.

And who would have thought that a rating agency would dare question the sacred AAA credit rating of the United States, the sole supplier of global public goods such as the international reserve currency (the dollar) and a financial system that serves as the nexus of international capital flow? Still, that's exactly what Standard & Poor's has done: In August the agency downgraded the United States’ AAA status to AA+, citing policymaking uncertainty in Washington and the country’s lack of a long-term plan to deal with its fiscal problems.

And who would have thought that the same country, which is renowned for its flexible labor markets and dynamic entrepreneurship, would experience a persistently high unemployment rate? Well, this is the case for the United States, where unemployment is stuck at around 9 percent, unemployment among 20-to-24-year-olds is a staggering 14.5 percent, and the related joblessness problems are becoming increasingly structural in nature.

There are, of course, several bespoke reasons for these developments. But together, they speak to major realignments that are fundamentally changing the character of the global economy and how it functions. Three things in particular have had a significant influence, and they will continue to shape the world we live in for years to come.
First, too many advanced economies face problems rooted far below the surface, in their balance sheets and in the structure of their economies. This is not just about the unemployment crisis and the rapidly deteriorating public finances that, in cases such as Greece's, have reached alarming levels. It is also about malfunctioning housing markets, a continued breakdown in bank credit intermediation, and weak political leadership in the midst of messy party politics.

Second, rather than deal with these structural problems, policymakers have preferred to kick the can down the road. As a result, the problems have festered and become more entrenched, and the risk of adverse contagion has risen.

This is most obvious in Europe, where a liquidity approach -- involving piling new debt on top of already crushing obligations -- has repeatedly been applied to Greece's debt solvency crisis. This has also transferred massive liabilities from the private sector to Greek and European taxpayers and contaminated previously healthy institutions such as the European Central Bank. It is also the case in the United States, where unprecedented stimulus spending has failed to sufficiently reignite growth and job creation.

Third, several emerging economies have hit their developmental breakout phase, largely undeterred until now by the misfortunes of the developed world. You see this in Brazil, China, Indonesia, and several other countries. In the process, they have gone from strength to strength, so much so that their economies have started overheating at a time when more established countries are languishing. This is new territory for the global marketplace, one in which the less mature countries are more robust and resilient than their advanced peers and are able to grow sustainably at high levels while also strengthening their balance sheets.

Absent a major policy mistake -- a lurch toward protectionism, disorderly defaults, or disruptions to the international payment and settlement system, for instance -- we should expect these global realignments to continue.

It will take several years for the advanced economies to fully rehabilitate their balance sheets and restore the conditions for high growth and employment creation. In the meantime, income and wealth distribution will become even more skewed, morphing from an economic issue into a sociopolitical one.

The combination of stretched balance sheets and disappointingly slow growth also means that the advanced countries will opt for a mix of approaches to deal with recurrent debt concerns as they continue to de-lever from the age of credit and debt-entitlement. Some, such as Britain, will rely primarily on years of budgetary austerity. Others, like Greece, will succumb to debt restructuring.

Then there is the United States, the economy that anchors the core of the global economic and financial systems. It will initially opt for financial repression -- essentially a hidden taxation of creditors and depositors -- and attempt higher inflation to address its balance sheet issues. With time, however, it will likely be forced into greater austerity amid noisy political posturing and bickering.
The messier this transition, the greater the risk of undermining the international standing of America's global public goods. This in turn will challenge a global monetary system built on the assumption that its core -- the United States -- remains economically strong.

This is an important qualifier for what otherwise would be a far more encouraging outlook for much, though not all, of the emerging world. Look for these countries to continue to close the income and wealth gaps vis-à-vis the advanced countries. In the process, they will pull millions more out of poverty, providing them with greater economic opportunities and better access to education, health care, and nutrition.
As they continue to grow, emerging countries will push for greater accommodation on the part of a global economy that is still overdominated by the advanced economies. Global governance issues will come to the fore. International institutions will be pressured to reform more seriously. And multilateral negotiations will need to be more respectful of the growing strength of the emerging countries.

All this translates into an unusually fluid global economy -- and a world in which many established parameters will instead become variables. The sooner we prepare for it, the greater the chance that we are beneficiaries of the transformations taking place, not their victims.

Michael Kim

2011-08-16T10:33:00.002-05:00

Michael just closed on the purchase of his new home, listen to what he has to say about his experience with Cornerstone Mortgage.

Becky Huey

2011-08-12T13:34:00.002-05:00

Becky and Charles Huey just closed on the purchase of their new home. Listen to what they have to say about their experience with Cornerstone Mortgage.

See What Our Clients Have Said!

2011-08-04T10:34:00.004-05:00

Cornerstone Mortgage sends out random surveys to our past clients to see what they say about our service. Click on the pictures below to see the recent surveys.

Rates Have FALLEN!

2011-08-02T11:03:00.001-05:00

Rates have fallen to levels we have not seen since last September. If you know anyone who purchased a house since then or anyone who is thinking about refinancing; someone who has a kid going to private school or college, maybe they are putting an addition on their house, adding a pool or a deck or simply want to save money either monthly or over the life of the loan.

If you can, please pass this message on to anyone who you think that might benefit from this.

“You are only as rich as the enrichment you bring to the world around you.”

2011-07-26T12:49:00.002-05:00

This is a good quote which came from an article I read about the unwritten rules of social media. Click HERE to read the article.

Michelle Cadigan

2011-07-15T11:15:00.002-05:00

Michelle just closed on the purchase of a new home. Listen to what she has to say about her experience with Cornerstone Mortgage.

Jonathan Coy

2011-07-08T13:50:00.002-05:00

Jonathan just closed on the purchase of a new home. Listen to what he has to say about his experience with Cornerstone Mortgage.

2011-07-01T07:46:00.000-05:00

Hello HomeBuyers!
Whenever a Buyer or Homeowner contacts me about getting financing for their purchase or re-financing for their current home, I send them to Chris Scheer of the Residential Lending Team. Not only is Chris a Top Flight Loan Officer, he is also the first person to tell you whether someone else is better-equipped to help you and knows the right person for you to contact. He fully-understands the value of looking after the Client's needs before his own. This is one of the many reasons Chris's company, Cornerstone Mortgage has an A+ rating with the Better Business Bureau. To contact Chris and experience the Highest Level of Customer Service, call or text him at 314.223.9824. Thank you and make it a Great Day! -Andy Hannigan

Luis and Melissa Diaz

2011-06-30T17:27:00.002-05:00

Luis and Melissa just closed on the purchase of their new home, listen to what they have to say about their experience with Cornerstone Mortgage.

Ann Scharenberg

2011-06-29T13:27:00.001-05:00

Ann recently closed on the purchase of a new home, listen to what she has to say about her experience with Cornerstone Mortgage.

Jaime Halbert and Chad Sucher

2011-06-29T13:24:00.002-05:00

Jaime and Chad recently closed on the purchase of a new home, listen to what they have to say about their experience with Cornerstone Mortgage.

$1 billion in new help to flailing homeowners- MSN Money

2011-06-24T12:33:00.000-05:00

Click HERE to read more.

Economics : Mortgage Servicers Threatened With Litigation

2011-06-23T09:51:00.000-05:00

By David McLaughlin - Jun 22, 2011
Banks negotiating with state attorneys general over foreclosure practices would be sued if a settlement isn’t reached, two of the state officials leading the talks said.
Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan and North Carolina Attorney General Roy Cooper threatened litigation if settlement talks with largest mortgage servicers, including Bank of America and JPMorgan break down.

“If we don’t get an agreement, we’re prepared to go to court,” Cooper told homeowner advocates at a meeting of state attorneys general in Chicago yesterday.
Cooper and Madigan are members of the executive committee of attorneys general which, along with officials from federal agencies, is negotiating with the banks. State and federal officials are seeking to set standards for the way the banks service loans and conduct foreclosures. They also want monetary relief for homeowners.
The attorneys general from all 50 states began investigating banks’ procedures last year.
State and federal officials in March proposed settlement terms that called for “a substantial portion” of monetary relief from the banks to fund loan modifications, including principal reductions.

Making Progress

Iowa Attorney General Tom Miller, who is leading negotiations for the states, told the group of homeowner advocates yesterday that officials are making progress in the talks. He declined to provide any details.
“We don’t want a settlement around the margins, around the edges,” Miller said. “The settlement has to be fundamental, has to make some changes that are worth it, that are constructive.”

Oklahoma Attorney General Scott Pruitt said in an interview yesterday that his office is investigating dual tracking in Oklahoma, in which servicers foreclose on homes while negotiating with borrowers about lower payments. The office has found about 75 instances of what it believes is wrongful conduct, mostly related to dual tracking, he said.
“The dual-track foreclosure problem is something we see as being most problematic in Oklahoma, and we are continuing to investigate,” he said in Chicago.
The offer from banks to pay $5 billion to reach a settlement isn’t enough, Madigan said yesterday at a press conference.

‘Billions of Dollars’

“We’re going to try to get as much as we can because there are billions and billions of dollars of harm they have done to our entire economy, to our communities and to individual families,” she said.

In an interview afterward, when asked if a deal with the companies is likely to be reached, she said she is “not positive.”

“If that’s what we have to do, that’s what we’ll do,” she said of the possibility of suing the banks. “We have the resources to do that.”
Dan Frahm, a spokesman for Charlotte, North Carolina-based Bank of America, and Christine Holevas, a spokeswoman for New York-based JPMorgan, declined comment. State and federal officials are also negotiating with Wells Fargo, Citigroup and Ally Financial Inc.
Robert Bushey, a community leader with Illinois People’s Action, said after the meeting with some attorneys general yesterday that he supported lawsuits against the banks if necessary. Any settlement should require principal reductions, he said.

‘Weak Agreement’

“I’d rather they go to litigation than sign a weak agreement,” he said. “If they have to go to court to battle it out, so be it.”
Georgia Attorney General Sam Olens said June 20 that a settlement may allow states to individually choose how to use any money, including whether to apply funds toward principal reductions for borrowers.

Including those choices may broaden support for any accord among the attorneys general who oppose requiring banks to fund principal writedowns, Olens said in an interview. He estimated that as many as 20 of his colleagues oppose forcing writedowns.
At least eight attorneys general, including Olens, Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott and Florida’s Pam Bondi, have publicly opposed principal writedowns as part of any deal. Olens, Abbott and Bondi are Republicans.

Geoff Greenwood, a spokesman for Miller, a Democrat, declined to comment on whether officials had discussed a structure that would give states the option of using money to fund principal writedowns.

Want To Know What Our Clients Say....

2011-06-22T12:55:00.004-05:00

Check out these latest client surveys.

Sara Licari and Adam Enloe

2011-06-13T13:45:00.003-05:00

Sara and Adam just closed on the purchase of their new home. Listen to what they have to say about their experience with Cornerstone Mortgage.

Check out Chris Scheer in the latest issue of the Illinois Business Journal!

2011-06-07T12:14:00.005-05:00

Click HERE to read the article on page four.

MHDC help for disaster counties.

2011-06-02T12:08:00.001-05:00

Features: Higher cash assistance than regular MHDC First Place program, and no first time homebuyer restriction.

We have introduced this program to help persons who are living in disaster counties with home financing. The program will be through any one of our 65 certified lenders. The lenders will have two options:

Click HERE for more information!

"Worse than the Great Depression!"

2011-06-02T12:00:00.000-05:00

That seems to be the rallying cry of every media outlet over the past few days. While it makes for sensationalistic headlines, it is not true. At least, we do not have data that proves it is or isn't true.
Let's start with a few facts about Housing data:
There is little reliable data about national home prices in the 1930s. The NAR data only goes back to 1969, and the US Government data from that era covers new home construction, not existing home sales.
The closest thing we have to national prices is the S&P/Case Shiller Index. The Index, which uses repeat home sales pricing, originated in the 1980s. Any chart showing home prices in the 1920s or 30s does not use actual sales data, but are hypothesized, historical data for the indices are available back to January 1987.
Know that sales volume of New Homes has fallen 82% versus 80% covering the 1929-33 era. By that one measure, you can ostensibly draw a conclusion that this single metric, covering less than 15% of all home sales, is worse today.
How does the Great Recession compare to the Great Depression? Some facts we do know:
1. Home ownership in 1930 was 47.8% versus 66.2% in 2000, and near 70% in 2006. (Census Bureau)
2. Unemployment was 25% at its Depression peak; the 2007-09 Recession never saw unemployment get over 12%. (BLS)
3. GDP lost 30% in the Great Depression; During the Great Recession, we lost 6% of GDP. (BEA)
4. Following the 1929 crash, broad stock market losses were more than 75% (Peak to trough Dow losses were 89%). 2007-09 stock losses were 50-57%.
5. Industrial production, which plummeted 75% around the 1929 Crash, has actually thrived during the Great Recession. Fed action and a weak dollar has helped US Manufacturers.
Both the Housing markets and available financing were widely different, then versus now. In addition to the lower Home ownership levels, 66.2% vs 47.8%, it was more concentrated among the wealthy as opposed to broad-based ownership now. Many more people lived on family farms early in the 20th century than today. And, more homes were owned outright, no mortgage in the 1930s versus today. I recall it was over 70% in the 1920s with no mortgage versus about 40% today. But the biggest and most important difference was financing. Mortgages were 3 to 5 year, interest only, with a balloon payment of the amount borrowed at the end. After that 3 year period, you either resigned with the bank, or sold the land and paid off the note. There was no such thing as a 30 year fixed rate mortgage in the 1920s or '30s. That would have had a huge impact on prices. Banks were failing by the 1000s; even someone with the means to roll their mortgage over might have found the bank did not have the ability to do so. With few buyers and almost no credit, the odds favor that RE prices would fall quite substantially. How much? One study of Manhattan, that looked at market-based transactions home prices between 1920 and 1939 found that Home prices plummeted 67% during the great depression.
Yes, home prices are bad. They are nearing the 35% drop we forecast back in 2005. But worse than the Great Depression? I don't think so.
Never let the facts get in the way of a good narrative!

Nicole Panter

2011-05-24T10:01:00.002-05:00

Nicole just closed on the purchase of a new home with Cornerstone Mortgage. Listen to what she has to say about her experience.

20 startling facts about the US housing market:

2011-05-23T09:51:00.001-05:00

1. According to Zillow, 28.4% of all single family homes with a mortgage in the United States are now underwater.
2. Zillow has announced that the average price of a home in the U.S. is about 8% lower than it was a year ago.
3. US home prices have now fallen a whopping 33% from where they were at during the peak of the housing bubble.
4. During the first quarter of 2011, home values declined at the fastest rate since late 2008.
5. According to Zillow, more than 55% of all single family homes with a mortgage in Atlanta have negative equity and more than 68% of all single family homes with a mortgage in Phoenix have negative equity.
6. US home values have fallen an astounding $6.3T since the housing crisis first began.
7. In February, US housing starts experienced their largest decline in 27 years.
8. New home sales in the US are now down 80% from the peak in July 2005.
9. Historically, the percentage of residential mortgages in foreclosure in the United States has tended to hover between 1 and 1.5%. Today, it is up around 4.5%.
10. According to RealtyTrac, foreclosure filings in the United States are projected to increase by another 20% in 2011.
11. It is estimated that 25% of all mortgages in Miami/Dade County are in serious distress and headed for either foreclosure or short sale.
12. Two years ago, the average US homeowner that was being foreclosed upon had not made a mortgage payment in 11 months. Today, the average is being foreclosed upon has not made a mortgage payment in 17 months.
13. Sales of foreclosed homes now represent an all time record 23.7% of the market.
14. 4.5M home loans are now either in some stage of foreclosure or are at least 90 days delinquent.
15. According to the Mortgage Bankers Association, at least 8M Americans are currently at least one month behind on their mortgage payments.
16. In September 2008, 33% of Americans knew someone who had been foreclosed upon or who was facing the threat of foreclosure. Today that number has risen to 48%.
17. During the first quarter of 2011, less new homes were sold in the US than in any three month period ever recorded.
18 According to a recent census report, 13% of all homes in the United States are currently sitting empty.
19. In 1996, 89% of Americans believed that it was better to own a home than to rent one. Today that number has fallen to 63%.
20. According to Zillow, the United States has been in a “housing recession” for 57 straight months without an end in sight.

2011-05-19T10:31:00.001-05:00

Even though we continue to hear how difficult it is to get a mortgage now, Fannie Mae still allows you to trade equity in a property. Here is the LINK to the details!

2011-05-18T10:00:00.001-05:00

When Karen came to us she was concerned about having to leave her home. We were able to work out several options with her and ultimately choose the one that would allow her to stay in her home. Read Karen's comments below on her experience with Cornerstone Mortgage.

2011-05-11T10:15:00.001-05:00

Amanda Wolf

2011-05-06T13:24:00.001-05:00

Amanda just closed on the purchase of her new home. Listen to what she has to say about Cornerstone Mortgage.

Congratulations Bill Callahan!!

2011-04-25T08:35:00.005-05:00

Congratulations to Bill Callahan on the opening of his new office. Bill is one of our past clients and he and his family members have shown great loyalty to Cornerstone Mortgage and Your Residential Lending Team. If you have need for the services that Bill’s company offers, please give them a try!

Read More Here!!

Existing Home Sales Continue to Muddle Along

2011-04-22T14:35:00.000-05:00

March existing home sales was more of the same, a market dominated by investors and cash buyers in distressed properties, with much of the action at the lowest price points. Considering how low mortgage rates are versus historical levels, and how high affordability is versus historical records, it's quite telling how poor these numbers are. As always existing home sales are far more important than new home sales, as they make up 90%+ of the market.

Via Bloomberg:

A gain in sales of U.S. previously owned homes in March failed to make up for the ground lost the prior month, a sign that the housing market is taking time to recover. Purchases increased 3.7 percent to a 5.1 million annual rate, exceeding the 5 million median forecast of economists. The median price declined from a year earlier, and 40 percent of the sales were distressed properties.
“We continue to just tread water along the bottom,” said John Herrmann, a senior fixed-income strategist at State Street Global Markets LLC. “The housing market is fairly depressed. We think home prices will fall further.”
“Home sales are strongest in the very low price range” of less than $100,000 Lawrence Yun, chief economist at the Realtors’ association, said at a news conference today in Washington.
Of all purchases, cash transactions accounted for 35 percent, which is probably the highest share on record, Yun said. The realtors group began tracking the monthly figure in August 2008, and the share on a yearly basis before that was around 10 percent, Yun said.
The median sales price fell 5.9 percent from March 2010 to $159,600 last month.
The number of previously owned homes on the market rose to 3.55 million from February. At the current sales pace, it would take 8.4 months to sell those houses compared with 8.5 at the end of the prior month.
CoreLogic Inc. last month estimated that about 1.8 million homes were delinquent or in foreclosure, shadow inventory set to add to the 3.5 million existing homes already on the market.

One potential wild card is an upcoming revision to NAR data that could show the housing market was even weaker than believed. Some economists say the trade group’s data significantly overstate the sale of used homes by as much as 20%. Officials at the trade group say they are reviewing the data and expect to revise their process within a few months.

Erin Carey

2011-04-18T10:01:00.002-05:00

Erin Carey is the sister of our borrower Matthew Miller who just closed on the purhcase of his new home. Listen to what Erin has to say about their experience with Cornerstone Mortgage.

A New Addition To The Team

2011-04-15T12:49:00.002-05:00

The National Kitchen and Bath Association Welcomes Chris Scheer

2011-04-13T14:48:00.004-05:00

Get Organized and Engerized with Chris Scheer as he speaks about "The Golden Triangle". Read more about this and sign up for it on the NKBA website.

Alex and Angela Curcuru

2011-04-08T11:40:00.003-05:00

Alex and Angela just closed on the purchase of their new home. Listen to what they have to say about their experience with Cornerstone Mortgage.

2011-04-05T14:59:00.002-05:00

Here are the plaintiffs and respondents briefs to the Appellate court regarding loan officer compensation.

Plaintiffs

Respondents

Stay tuned for more information on this ruling that will change how not only banks and mortgage companies compensate their sales people but will ultimately define the direction of Capitalism in the 21st Century!

Bruce Harshbarger

2011-04-04T09:20:00.002-05:00

Bruce just closed on the purchase of his new home. Listen to what he has to say about his experience with Cornerstone Mortgage.

This Just In!

2011-04-01T12:49:00.000-05:00

The National Association of Mortgage Brokers wins temporary stay of relief on Fed Ruling. An appellate court overturned the ruling from Wednesday and the change in Loan Officer Compensation has been stayed at this point. Briefs are due from both sides by 12:00 noon on Tuesday, April 5 2011. At that time the appellate court will determine if they are going to overturn the lower courts ruling or let it stand. Although NAMB considers this a huge win and believes that the ruling will be overturned keep in mind they are fighting the Federal Government and those battles are always an uphill struggle.

Stay tuned for more updates!

Mortgage Industry Changes

2011-03-31T13:39:00.004-05:00

Late yesterday afternoon a judge denied the motion from the National Mortgage Brokers Association to issue a temporary restraining order on the Federal Reserve rule regarding loan officer compensation. This is a historic move that will change the landscape of both mortgage lending and more importantly the cost of borrowing to consumers. To see the ruling:

CLICK HERE

Gerry Letourneau

2011-03-30T14:29:00.002-05:00

Gerry is a real estate agent that works with Chris. Listen to what she has to say about her experience with Chris and Cornerstone Mortgage.

Koven Carlson and Tracy Welsh

2011-03-30T13:58:00.003-05:00

Koven and Tracy just closed on the purchase of their new home. Listen to what they have to say about their experience with Cornerstone Mortgage.

Pam and Michael Richards

2011-03-28T11:36:00.002-05:00

Pam and Michael just closed on the purchase of a new home with Cornerstone Mortgage. Listen to what they have to say about their experience.

Home Sales!

2011-03-25T10:28:00.001-05:00

Here is a great article on the current state of home sales.

Click Here

2011-03-17T15:20:00.003-05:00

Here is an interesting set of charts on labor pool statistics and housing. First consider a chart of various civilian population numbers.

Civilian Population, Workforce, Employment

The civilian population is steadily rising. However, none of that increase in recent years is looking to buy a home.

Those not in the labor force are not looking
Those unemployed are not looking
Those afraid of losing their job are not looking
Those in a house and underwater are not looking
Those just out of school and deep in school debt are not looking
Those facing retirement may be looking to sell or downsize
Mortgage standards are much tighter for those who are looking

New Home Sales

Here is an interesting set of charts on labor pool statistics and housing. First consider a chart of various civilian population numbers.

Those struggling to understand why home sales are so bad and why they are unlikely to improve much soon, need only consider the previous set of bullet points.

Annualized New Home Sales to Civilian Labor Force Ratio

People do not realize how much of our economy depends on the housing market.

Think of 1,000,000 homes sold in the mid '00's at an average of $290,000 each and you have $290,000,000,000 in GDP.

Today we are down to $200,000 homes and 284,000 of them. That is $56,800,000,000 in GDP, a decrease of $233,200,000,000 plus whatever multiplier, if any, you want to assign to that.

Happy St. Patrick's Day

2011-03-17T10:26:00.002-05:00

Economics: US HOUSING STARTS

2011-03-16T12:47:00.001-05:00

Tanked in February, to a 479k pace vs 618k in January revised from 596k and a median estimate of 577k. Single family starts fell 11.8% in the month following a 1.4% gain in January, while the more volatile multi family starts series fell 46.1% following a 87.4% gain. Permit issuance fell to 517k vs a prior 563k, suggesting that while the February decline in starts was exaggerated, the trend is downward. Permits for singles fell 9.3%, multis 4.9%. Completions jumped 13.9% in the month, and homes under construction were fairly steady, so while starts will drag down the totals later in Q1, the GDP impact from housing was not bad at the beginning of the quarter. Housing starts in February were the 2nd lowest on record, right behind April of 2009. That result is not all that remarkable, because housing starts had not climbed very far from the record low in any of the intervening months. Starts have been somewhat noisy the past couple of months, but the 3mo average is running at just about the same level now as in December and January, better than back in the low point in 2009 by just a bit. When it comes to permits, though, we have a new record. The 517k permits reported for February is just a tad lower than the prior 522k low posted in March of 2009, the permits that led to the record low level of starts in April 2009. While permits running above starts is a good sign, record low permits is not.

For Housing Rebound, Once Again It's Wait Until Next Year

2011-03-15T09:40:00.001-05:00

The glimmer of hope that housing would stage a sustainable comeback this spring has melted with the winter snow.

Even as many await the traditional surge of buyers and sellers in the warmer months, analysts say it will be a year before there's any solid improvement in housing.
"We are going to be disappointed the rest of 2011," says Paul Dales, senior US economist at Capital Economics. "There's still weak demand, too many houses on the market. Things won't get better until 2012."

"2011 will be a real challenge, just like 2010," says Bob Walters, chief economist and vice president at QuickenLoans.com. "The key reason is that the jobs picture is still not bright enough. Plus, more foreclosures are coming. Many homes are still 'under water' or worth less than the loans, so it's going to be rough."
What caused a short-term bounce for housing-and talk of a possible turnaround in 2011-were better numbers for building permits, housing starts and existing home sales for the last months of 2010. Existing home sales were up 5.3 percent overall in 2010, according to the National Association of Realtors.

But new home sales and building permits have recently reversed themselves or remain in a downward trend. In fact, new home sales reached a record 47-year low this past year, with an annual decrease of 14 percent, according to the Department of Housing.
And Mortgage applications continue to fall, even as rates hover around the historic lows of 5 percent.

In spite of improving bread and butter conditions-like declining job losses and increased business activity -the housing market is standing still.
"There are too many vacant homes and excess inventory in the system now to create a stronger housing market," says Lawrence Yun, chief economist at the National Association of Realtors.

According to RealtyTrac, there were a record 2.9 million foreclosures in 2010. An estimated 50,000 new foreclosure actions are initiated every week, according to the Center for Responsible Lending.

And some 2.2 million homes are delinquent in mortgage payments and could be additional victims of the foreclosure mess.

"When realtors sit down and talk, foreclosures are on our mind," says Johnny Martinelli, the broker/owner of LevyMart Real Estate Sales and Investments in Norman, Oklahoma. "We are seeing more of them. People are scared."

Adding to the fears of realtors is a lack of confidence among consumers, says Michael Freed, a managing partner and real estate lawyer in the firm Brennan, Manna & Diamond.

"You see people in the malls and restaurants, but when it comes to a big purchase like a home, there's not much confidence," Freed explains. "Add that with the dynamics of tougher lending restrictions and higher down payments, and homes are not going to sell."

The lack of sales pretty much covers all income brackets, adds Freed. "It is a buyer's market if you have the money," he says.

It's money-specifically cash-that's keeping housing from sinking even lower, says Julie Reynolds, a vice president at Move, Inc., an online real estate resource.
Cash buyers and investors have driven 70 percent of the increase in existing home sales seen since last July, while first-time buyers have been responsible for just 6 percent, according to Capital Economics.

"Investors who are cash rich are snapping up affordably priced properties," Reynolds says. "They are critical in areas like California, Arizona and Florida that are having problems with distressed homes."

The cash has a foreign flavor, with international buyers from Western Europe, Asia and the Middle East, adds Reynolds.

Those who still need a loan continue to face tougher lending standards-fallout from the housing crash-and gum up the works, say analysts.

"Banks are a problem with the scrutiny for applications," Johnny Martinelli says. "It's slowing up the process. There are a lot of people who can make payments but can't qualify."

Another wrinkle comes at the end of June. A little known portion of the Dodd-Frank financial reform bill ends the so-called 'teaser rates' that misled buyers into deals that turned sour with higher payments. The change, however, may have negative unintended consequences, say experts.

"Starting in April, loan officers won't be paid by the terms of the loan and will get less money," explains real estate attorney Neil Garfinkel of the New York based law firm AGMB. "That might mean they move around looking for better pay. It could also mean fewer loan officers to handle applications."

"Whenever we get momentum something pushes us back," says Alan Rosenbaum, CEO of GuardHill Financial, a mortgage banking and brokerage firm. "The government [with Dodd-Frank] is telling the industry what it can pay and that makes it more expensive for consumers."

Another effect from the housing collapse-and a possible sea change-is a different mind set about how people live, says Freed.

"Americans aren't looking to move like they used to," Freed contends. "It's not necessarily that we've lost our love of owning a home, but I think people are looking at the market differently because of the crash. They're renting, and focusing on a life style they can afford."

So with all the doom and gloom, what will change in 2012 to make housing any better?
"By next year I think you will see stronger demand," says Dale. "The number of foreclosures should peek this year as they flush through the system. I also think the job situation will improve in 2012."

Also helping the market-a wave of refinancing in the adjustable-rate mortgage area, averting additional foreclosures in some cases. About 20 percent of ARMs holders have taken advantage of lower interest rates to refinance; others have been able to pay them them off completely, according to the Mortgage Bankers Assocation.
"I think we are headed in the right direction for next year on inventory and prices," says Walters.

For all the tumult and uncertainty, one thing hasn't changed about the real estate market. Location is key, and parts of the country are having a better 2011 than 2010.
After taking their house off the market last spring, Maria and Michael Treiber of Morris Township, New Jersey sold their three-bedroom, split-level this February after prices had finally climbed to an acceptable level.

"It was much better for us," says Treiber, a local policeman who plans to rent while looking for another home. "There weren't that many homes on the market this time, so that helped."

Some areas are even seeing an uptick in new construction.

"There's some new construction, and some people are buying homes," Martinelli says of Norman, Okla. "They're downsizing, but at least there's some activity. It's not as bad as it was last year."

Wall Street bonuses are moving some buyers and renters back to the high-end Hamptons section of Long Island, N.Y.

"Fundamentals are improving if not significantly," says Rosenbaum. "People still need to move, whether for a job or bigger home."

And longtime depressed areas are also seeing daylight.
"Areas like Chicago, Detroit, Las Vegas that have a lot of foreclosures are on an upswing with interest in home buying," says Reynolds. "That interest is better than a year ago."

Above all, there's an acceptance of the new normal in housing, says Jim Gillespie, CEO of real estate firm Caldwell Banker.

"Happiness is a new base, but we are going up," Gillespie says. "At the worst, things will stay the same; at best, we'll have a slow recovery. I don't think Americans have lost their love of owning a home. We're just obviously going through a tough time."

Economics: Irish Banks Seek to Delay 'Evil Day' as Home-Loan Losses Rise

2011-03-14T11:34:00.001-05:00

And you thought things were bad in the USA...

March 11 (Bloomberg) -- Perched on a chair overlooking a wood panel-lined
room in Dublin's High Court, a bespectacled Judge Elizabeth Dunne has become
all-too-used to hearing from the victims of Ireland's economic meltdown.

Each Monday, Dunne presides over repossession hearings, with one in 10
Irish mortgages now in trouble. At the end of last year, more than 79,000
borrowers were behind on payments or had loan terms altered due to
"financial distress," the country's central bank said on Feb. 28.

"Things are getting worse and worse," said Dunne, as she weighed the case
of a couple about 114,000 euros ($158,000) in arrears on a 558,938-euro home
loan, one of 74 cases on her list on March 7. "Putting off the evil day is
not going to help."

Irish mortgages account for more than a third of about 270 billion euros of
loans that remain with the nation's so-called viable lenders -- Allied Irish
Banks Plc, Bank of Ireland Plc, Irish Life & Permanent Plc and EBS Building
Society. The country's new coalition parties are not convinced "that there
has been proper transparency or full disclosure by the banks" on home-loan
impairments, Alan Shatter told RTE Radio on March 7, two days before his
appointment as Minister for Justice.

"There has been a continual under-estimation of loan impairments in Irish
banks over the past few years," Ray Kinsella, banking professor at the
Smurfit Business School at University College Dublin, said by telephone. "I
am seriously concerned about mounting loan losses in their mortgage books."

New Stress Test

The bad loans may be reassessed as early as this month when Ireland's
central bank concludes a third round of stress tests on the country's
lenders. The results will determine how much of a 35 billion-euro
international bailout fund Ireland will need to draw down.

A year ago, Irish regulators stress-tested for a 5 percent loss rate on
Irish mortgages. This year's review "will take account of the deteriorating
economic conditions and hence" loan-loss assumptions "may be higher," said
Nicola Faulkner, a spokeswoman for the central bank, by e-mail.

Ireland is suffering after a decade-long real estate boom collapsed in
2007. Already, the state has bought 72.3 billion euros of risky commercial
property loans from the banks, at an average discount of 58 percent. Irish
house prices, which quadrupled in the decade to 2007, have since plunged
more than a third. Unemployment has tripled to 13.5 percent over the same
period.

House Price Declines

This year's tests may stress loan books against the unemployment rate
rising to 16 percent, house prices falling 60 percent from their peak and
"negligible" economic growth, said analysts including Jim Ryan and Michael
Cummins of Glas Securities, the Dublin-based fixed-income firm, in a note to
clients March 9. The central bank declined to comment.

More than 300,000 households, or about 40 percent of mortgages, may find
their mortgages are worth more than their homes, so-called negative equity,
before the property market bottoms out, said David Duffy, an economist at
the Economic & Social Research Institute in Dublin, who estimates that house
prices will fall by as much as half from peak to trough.

Morgan Kelly, a University College Dublin economics professor dubbed
"Doctor Doom" for his bleak assessments of Ireland's housing market, wrote
in the Irish Times on Nov. 8 that banks face "mass mortgage defaults" and a
"wave of foreclosures." Kelly declined to be interviewed.

EU Bailout

Iceland, where almost 40 percent of residential mortgages were in negative
equity by December, decided that month to write off mortgages and other
household debt by as much as $858 million. Unlike Ireland and other western
nations, the Nordic nation placed its biggest lenders in receivership in
2008 rather than offer taxpayer-funded capital injections.

Ireland has bolstered its banks with 46.3 billion euros of additional
capital over the past two years. The nation was forced to agree to an 85
billion-euro bailout on Nov. 28, led by the European Union and the
International Monetary Fund. That package includes 10 billion euros to
recapitalize the banks up- front and a further 25 billion euros of
"contingency" capital to be used if required.

"When the teams from the EU, ECB and IMF arrived in November, they probably
thought they would find huge holes remaining in the banks' loan books, but
they did not," said Alan Ahearne, who was economics adviser to Brian
Lenihan, the former finance minister. "It's not that there's some black hole
in the Irish banks that hasn't previously been discovered."

10 Billion Euros

Still, a previous regulatory target for banks to hold 8 percent core tier 1
capital, a gauge of financial stability, "wasn't enough to support
confidence in the banks" given the economy's problems, Ahearne said. Ireland
agreed as part of the bailout to increase lenders' capital levels to no less
than 10.5 percent by the end of this month.

The 10 billion euros of initial capital destined for banks under the rescue
package "pretty much covers our base case scenario" for remaining losses in
Irish banks, said Ross Abercromby, a London-based analyst at Moody's
Investors Service, by telephone. "The additional 25 billion euros
contingency fund would cover our stress scenario, which is pretty severe."

Moody's estimates that losses on Irish mortgages may be as high as 14
percent where the loan-to-value ratio is over 90 percent. That rises to 16
percent "in our worst case," the ratings company said.

Household debt soared from 48 percent of disposable income in 1995 to 176
percent in 2009, catapulting Irish consumers into fourth place in 2008 in an
international league table of personal indebtedness from 17th place in 1995,
according to Ireland's Law Reform Commission.

Savings Rise

On the other hand, Irish households' net savings as a percentage of
disposable income rose from zero in 2007 to 12 percent in 2009, according to
the Central Statistics Office. The savings rate should remain around the
same level for this year and next, the ESRI said on Jan. 20.

Irish Life & Permanent Plc Finance Director David McCarthy said he doesn't
believe there are undiscovered losses in banks' mortgage books. The group,
which has 26.3 billion euros of Irish home loans, saw arrears of less than
90 days peak in mid-2010, McCarthy said on March 2, and they've "been
falling, albeit quite slowly, since then," he said.

Bank of Ireland spokeswoman Anne Mathews referred to CEO Richie Boucher's
Nov. 12 statement to analysts that there was "clear evidence" that arrears
were "beginning to stabilize." Allied Irish and EBS spokesmen declined to
comment.

'Different Phenomenon'

The Irish home-loan market is "a totally different phenomenon" to the
commercial real-estate market, said John Reynolds, chief executive officer
of Belgian-owned KBC Ireland.

"Irish banks have been hamstrung by a narrative that has been allowed to
develop that all their lending was as mad as their real-estate lending,"
said Reynolds. "The reality is that the Irish banks, when they didn't do the
real-estate stuff, which was a seductive drug, did bog-standard,
criteria-driven lending."

"Banks are exercising huge forbearance on borrowers in arrears," partly
because of pressure from the authorities "but also because they don't want
to repossess houses as there's no second-hand market to sell them," said
Kinsella, the banking professor. Lenders only held 585 repossessed
residential properties at end-2010, according to the central bank.

The new government said on March 6 it may bring in a two- year moratorium
on repossessions "of modest family homes where a family makes an honest
effort to pay their mortgages." Currently, mortgage holders can enjoy
12-month protection from legal action if they are co-operating with lenders.

The coalition also pledged to fast-track changes in laws requiring
bankrupted individuals to wait 12 years before they are discharged from
their debts.

Rising Interest Rates

The issue of full recourse for mortgage loans is positive for banks, if not
for borrowers in negative equity, said Abercromby. "If that level of
recourse is watered down, by introducing less stringent bankruptcy laws, you
could be looking at higher losses," he said.

There is also concern that rising interest rates will hit borrowers who
have managed to remain out of trouble so far. ECB President Jean-Claude
Trichet signaled on March 3 the bank may raise its benchmark rate from a
record low of 1 percent as soon as next month.

Banks have already increased variable home loan rates from an average of
3.16 percent in mid-2009 to 3.87 percent by November, according to the ESRI.
Lenders, including Irish Life and EBS, have hiked borrowing costs again
since then.

Meanwhile, at least half of all Irish mortgages are so- called tracker
products, with pricing linked to ECB's key rate, according to the Irish
Banking Federation.

Tracker Rates

While banks may be able to contain bad-loan losses on their mortgage books,
"a big and ongoing problem is that a large part of their mortgage books are
based on ECB tracker rates, which banks are funding at a loss," said Karl
Deeter, operations manager with Dublin-based Irish Mortgage Brokers.

Back in the High Court, Dunne is listening to how a house builder from Co.
Cavan, close to the border with Northern Ireland, is 67,000 euros in arrears
on a 360,000 euro home loan taken out three years ago.

Times are hard out there, says the man, who has a plant hire and quarrying
business, but is making partial remortgage payments. "I understand that
well," says Dunne. "I see that every Monday."

Economics: More on Foreclosures

2011-03-10T10:29:00.001-06:00

The January Mortgage Monitor Report released by Lender Processing Services Inc. (LPS) showed that while foreclosure starts decreased in the first month of 2011, they still outnumber foreclosure sales by almost three to one. At the same time, repeat foreclosures, loans that had cured in one way or another, but have fallen back into foreclosure, now account for more than 35% of foreclosure starts. As of the end of January, foreclosure inventories stood at nearly eight times historical averages and 25 times January 2011's level of foreclosure sales, with delinquencies more than double historical norms.
January's LPS Mortgage Monitor Report also showed that the foreclosure process continues to drag out as the timelines for foreclosure starts, days in inventory and sales all continue to extend. Serious delinquencies continue to rise as well. Deterioration in the 90-plus days delinquent category increased last month, for the first time since May 2010. The 90+ category has grown overall, with the largest increase in the 12-plus month category as loans were removed from foreclosure. As of Jan. 31, 2011, there are now more than 2.2 million loans 90 days or more delinquent but not yet in foreclosure, with more than 6.9 million loans in some stage of delinquency or foreclosure.
As reported in LPS' First Look release, other key results from LPS' latest Mortgage Monitor report include:
►Total U.S. loan delinquency rate: 8.9 percent
►Total U.S. foreclosure inventory rate: 4.16 percent
►Total U.S. non-current* loan rate: 13.1 percent
►States with most non-current* loans: Florida, Nevada, Mississippi, Georgia, New Jersey
►States with fewest non-current* loans: Montana, Wyoming, Alaska, South Dakota, North Dakota
Note: Non-current totals combine foreclosures and delinquencies as a percent of active loans in that state. Totals based on LPS Applied Analytics' loan-level database of mortgage assets and are extrapolated to represent the industry.

Unemployment is driving the latest wave of foreclosure pain.

One in every 497 homes in the U.S. received a foreclosure notice in January, according to the latest data from RealtyTrac. In an industry that’s been battered by foreclosures since the housing bubble burst, the number may not seem like news, but these foreclosures are different.

Foreclosures today aren’t heavily dominated by investors that walked away from properties when values started to plunge. And they’re not the unfortunate folks who signed up for an adjustable rate mortgage they could no longer afford the first time their payments reset. Today’s foreclosure rates are ambulance chasers tailing the sirens of unemployment.
“You can almost follow county by county unemployment rates and foreclosures,” said Rick Sharga, senior vice president at RealtyTrac. “What’s driving this activity is the economic downturn and unemployment.”
And it doesn’t always take a dramatic drop in employment numbers to push a city into the red zone. “It’s really the direction of the unemployment rate that matters,” said Patrick Newport, U.S. economist with IHS Global Insight. “In some markets, it really doesn’t take much to topple them,” said Sharga.
This trend has wreaked havoc on real estate values in areas once thought to be stable, such as Seattle, where last year home prices plunged by more than twice the drop seen in Las Vegas during 2010, according to Zillow. While foreclosures are higher in Las Vegas, it—like many other red hot spots of the housing bubble—experienced the crash earlier on while the new trend in foreclosures is now spreading a new season of pain to places where the run up was less pronounced.
California, which had an unemployment rate of 12.5% at the end of 2010 according to data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (significantly above December’s national average of 9.6%), produced seven of the 10 cities with the highest foreclosure rates in the country last month. The state accounted for 25% of all foreclosures in the nation in January.
To turn things around, Sharga says the markets would need both job creation and a return of consumer confidence. In the mean time, RealtyTrac is predicting that more than three million homes will receive notices this year and between 1.2 and 1.3 million of those will be repossessed.
The company is also keeping its eye on delinquency rates. “There are between $200 and $300 billion in adjustable rate mortgages readjusting this year … [to] much higher payments to marginally qualified home buyers who have lost 30%, 40%, or 50% of their home values,” Sharga says. “It could be a real mess.”

Economics: Regulators Push 20% Down Payments on Homes

2011-03-03T10:01:00.000-06:00

Banking regulators are pushing for mortgage-lending rules that require homeowners to make minimum 20% down payments on loans classified as lower-risk, according to people familiar with the matter.

The proposal is being floated as a way to rewrite the rules for mortgage lending to prevent a rerun of the housing bubble and financial crisis that resulted from years of easy credit. The Dodd-Frank financial overhaul law enacted last year enabled regulators to define a so-called gold-standard residential mortgage that would be exempt from costly new rules.

At least three agencies—the Federal Reserve, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. and the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency—back a proposal to require home buyers to put down at least 20% of the sales price in order to obtain one of these "qualified residential mortgages." One proposal would also require borrowers to maintain a 75% loan-to-value ratio for refinances, and a 70% loan-to-value for cash-out refinances in which the borrower refinances into a larger loan, according to people familiar with the matter.

Mortgage-finance giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac would also be exempt from the rules while they remain in conservatorship, according to these people. The U.S. took over the firms in 2008, and the Obama administration has proposed eventually winding them down.

The behind-the-scenes debate over the proposal could have far-reaching implications for how Americans finance loans, because it addresses how much equity new borrowers should have in their homes.

It is unclear whether the proposal will garner support among other regulators and be acceptable to the White House and Congress. Altogether, six federal agencies—the three supporting the proposal plus the Department of Housing and Urban Development, the Federal Housing Finance Agency and the Securities and Exchange Commission—must sign off on the proposal before it is released for public comment. It could not be determined Tuesday whether all the agencies would support the 20% down-payment standard.

At a congressional hearing Tuesday, HUD Secretary Shaun Donovan said no deal has been reached yet, and that any plan could instead spell out options.
At a separate hearing Tuesday, Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner said, "We've got to be careful that we get it right." He added, "I'm not sure how much longer it's going to take, but it's going to take a bit longer than we initially expected."
Meanwhile, some lawmakers expressed concerns that the new rules might make it too hard for homeowners to qualify for less risky, and less costly, loans.
Sen. Kay Hagan (D., N.C.) told Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke that several lawmakers "are really concerned about not making it so restrictive that we can't have as many well-qualified loans as possible."

The proposal was crafted in response to a provision in Dodd-Frank that aimed to improve mortgage-lending standards. Loans that don't meet the standards for "qualified residential mortgages" and are sold to investors as securities will be subject to a "risk retention" rule, which could raise borrowing costs for homeowners.

The risk-retention rule requires banks to keep 5% of the value of all mortgages they securitize on their books. During the housing boom, many lenders passed on all of their mortgages, and all of the risk, to investors. It was designed to force lenders to have "skin in the game" when selling groups ofmortgages packaged as securities.
Critics of the risk-retention rule said it could raise costs for traditionally safer lending products such as long-term, fixed-rate loans with full income documentation. A coalition of consumer advocacy groups and the real-estate industry have warned that defining the rule too narrowly could raise borrowing costs for millions of creditworthy borrowers.

Regulators must issue a rule defining "qualified residential mortgages" by April, and had initially planned to publish a draft proposal late last year. But the process has been delayed by a disagreement about whether to include in the rule national standards for loan servicers, such as how to modify loans for troubled borrowers. The new proposal reflects a compromise among the regulators to include some standards for how and when banks modify loans.

First Time Home Buyers Beware!

2011-02-18T14:36:00.001-06:00

First Time Home Buyers rates for the MHDC assistance program are going up soon! We are currently at 4.5% but these are expected to go up.

Ronda Salazar

2011-02-18T09:57:00.003-06:00

Ronda just closed on the purchase of her new home. Listen to what she has to say about her experience with Cornerstone Mortgage.

MERS

2011-02-16T08:25:00.000-06:00

MERS and its partners made the decision to create and operate under a business model that was designed in large part to avoid the requirements of the traditional mortgage-recording process. The court does not accept the argument that because MERS may be involved with 50 percent of all residential mortgages in the country, that is reason enough for this court to turn a blind eye to the fact that this process does not comply with the law.”

-U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Robert E. Grossman

To be technically precise, they lack the ability to legally transfer mortgages. That doesn’t mean they are invalid, but it does eliminate their reason for existence.
Here’s Bloomberg:

Merscorp Inc., operator of the electronic-registration system that contains about half of all U.S. home mortgages, has no right to transfer the mortgages under its membership rules, a judge said.

U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Robert E. Grossman in Central Islip, New York, in a decision he said he knew would have a “significant impact,” wrote that the membership rules of the company’s Mortgage Electronic Registration Systems, or MERS, don’t make it an agent of the banks that own the mortgages.

“MERS’s theory that it can act as a ‘common agent’ for undisclosed principals is not supported by the law,” Grossman wrote in a Feb. 10 opinion. “MERS did not have authority, as ‘nominee’ or agent, to assign the mortgage absent a showing that it was given specific written directions by its principal.”

April Charney, a senior attorney with Legal Aid in Jacksonville, Florida, who has been aggressively criticizing MERS for some time, had the quote of the day, channeling Tom Petty: “ ‘Don’t come around here no more,’ is basically the message to MERS.”
The judge has “deconstructed” MERS and determined that they cannot be both principle and agent =– you have to chose one or the other.

This will add to the complexity of the challenge of foreclosures that are currently happening as well as what can happen in the future.

NAMB Call to Action Sparks Congressional Exam of LO Compensation Rules

2011-02-10T10:30:00.001-06:00

February 9, 2011—National Association of Mortgage Brokers (NAMB) Government Affairs Committee Chair Mike Anderson, CRMS has praised the House Financial Service Committee for including an examination of the impact the Federal Reserve Board's recent regulation controlling employee pay will have on loan originators in its Oversight Plan.

In the House Financial Services Committee's Oversight Plan released today, the Committee will examine the implementation of proposed rules issued by the Federal Reserve governing mortgage origination compensation, which are scheduled to become effective April 1, 2011.

The committee release outlines: “[T]he Committee is concerned that the rules may have an adverse impact on the ability of small businesses that originate mortgages to remain in business.”

The Committee added: “[T]he Committee will also review the interaction of existing real estate settlement rules with rules mandated by the Dodd-Frank Act.”

In a separate activity, the Office of Advocacy of the Small Business Administration (SBA) has sent two letters to the Federal Reserve Board asking for more guidance for small business compliance regarding loan officer compensation.

You can view the oversight plan here

Watch the Video

Foreclosure Numbers

2011-02-09T09:16:00.004-06:00

You can talk all you want of renewed interest in housing, slowly increasing sales and supposed stabilization in prices, but the elephant in the room is slowly growing, and banks, Fannie, Freddie and the government know it. I'm talking about foreclosures.

Economist Mark Zandi, often quoted by lawmakers on both sides of the aisle, told the Senate Budget Committee this morning that while he's "optimistic" with regard to the economy's prospects, "At the top of my list of concerns, at least in the near term, 6 to 12 months, is the ongoing problem in the housing market and the foreclosure crisis."

REO inventory is rising, he proved through some slides. Four million seriously delinquent loans, out of 50M first mortgage loans, "so that's a lot." And while he noted that the problems appear to have peaked, there are still over 600K properties in REO, which will only put more pressure on prices when they come to market.

Zandi called modification efforts "inadequate," despite the 1.5 to 2M modifications a year. "In the context of all the problems that we've got, it's still quite small," he noted. Zandi's biggest concern is that 14M homeowners, according to his calculations, are underwater, and 4M of those are underwater by more than 50%. "That's deeply underwater," he elaborated.

1. Chase announced yesterday that it has plans to add 25 new Chase Homeownership Centers in 19 states this year. "The best way to help borrowers find ways to stay in their homes is to sit down face-to-face and discuss their individual circumstances," writes Chase Home Lending CEO David Lowman in the press release.

2. Wells Fargo is holding 20 mediation events across the country this year, inviting more than 150,000 borrowers who are behind on payments. These will be held at hotels and convention centers, much like the non-profit Boston-based NACA has been doing for years.

3. Fannie Mae is expanding its loss mitigation efforts, trying to modify more borrowers, and if not, trying to find foreclosure alternatives, like short sales or deeds in lieu. They are also testing a program in Florida to negotiate modifications before going to court.

4. Earlier this week, the Hope Now coalition of servicers and investors reported it had done well more than twice the number of loan mods in 2010 than the government's Home Affordable Modification Program.

Bottom line: banks, Fannie, Freddie, etc, they really get it now. Foreclosures are ramping up again and are endangering today's fragile housing recovery. Rick Sharga at RealtyTrac claims we have yet to see the foreclosure peak. Regardless, even if 2011's number is slightly lower than the peak, it is more critical now than ever before to stem the tide because housing is struggling to recover on it's own without government intervention other than incredibly low mortgage rates, which don't appear to help much. Last year various government incentives helped mitigate the foreclosure losses to the overall market; the market doesn't have that benefit now.

Zandi says one answer is for Fannie and Freddie to stop charging higher refi rates for borrowers with low credit scores and higher LTV's (loan to value ratios) in order to facilitate more refinancing, even when borrowers are underwater. These are loans the GSE's likely already own or back. "It will cost Fannie and Freddie in interest income, but they will benefit in the form of fewer foreclosures," argues Zandi.

Here are some tidbits on foreclosures from my good friend Stuart Browne.
While the numbers are disturbingly high, they are not nearly as large as one would have expected given the surge in seriously delinquent loans and loans in the process of foreclosure. For the latter, here is a chart based on data from the MBA’s National Delinquency Survey, which covers “over 85%” of total 1-4 family first-lien mortgages.

On one side, the “completed foreclosure sales” understates the number of homes “lost,” given that many homeowners have “lost” their homes but been able to negotiate a short sale or (much less likely) done a deed in lieu of foreclosure. While there are no official estimates of either short sales or DILs, there is no doubt that the volume of short sales increased dramatically in 2009 and 2010.

Using CoreLogic’s estimates and grossing them up to reflect its incomplete geographic coverage, one would get short sales estimates of around 78,000 for 2007, 164,000 for 2008, 278,000 for 2009, and 331,000 for 2010. However, based on data reported by lenders on short sales in the OCC/OTS mortgage metrics reports, the CoreLogic estimates of short sales look way too high for 2007 and 2008 (the 2009 estimates look OK, but the 2010 estimates – which admittedly are not available for the full year – look a tad low). Using instead my own estimates for 2008 through 2010, here’s what completed foreclosure sales plus short sales might look like (I don’t have a DIL estimate, but it appears as if the volume of DILs was pretty low).

A “significant” % of completed foreclosure sales has been completed foreclosures on non owner occupied homes, though estimates vary as to what that % has been. In addition, not all short sales have involved homeowners involuntarily leaving their home, but who instead wanted to for economic or other reasons move and who were able to negotiate a short sale with their lender.

It is pretty clear, however, that overall foreclosure moratoria, foreclosure delays, modifications, and other workout activity continued to keep the number of homeowners who lost their homes to foreclosure massively lower than one would have expected given the delinquency/in foreclosure numbers.

FRB Fed Rule Fights Back!

2011-01-31T10:20:00.001-06:00

Click here to watch the video.

Quick Note

2011-01-27T14:43:00.002-06:00

Dont hassel the hoff Chris has a new follower on Twitter, David Hasselhoff.

Check it out.

2011-01-24T12:47:00.006-06:00

Recently Obama announced that over the next 90-days he is going to work to cut 100-Million dollars of spending out of the Federal Budget. A college student explains the real impact of this. MUST SEE TO BELIEVE.

VERY well done!

Check out the video here

The Eight States Running Out of Homebuyers

2011-01-21T09:34:00.000-06:00

The single biggest problem in the U.S. real estate market is simple: There are very few homebuyers.
That seems obvious, but the "buyers' strike" has caused house prices to drop, along with an epidemic of foreclosures. What's worse, the long depression in real estate is probably not over. S&P has forecast that home prices will drop by 7% to 10% this year. The S&P Case-Shiller Index has dropped for most of the 20 largest real estate markets over the last several months. RealtyTrac recently reported that more than 1 million homes were foreclosed upon in 2010.
Many economists argue that the housing market may take four or five years to recover. Even if that's proven to be true, the all-time highs of 2006 may never be reached again.

The devastation in some regions will never be repaired. Parts of Oregon, Georgia and Arizona have become progressively more deserted. Since jobless rates may never recover, there is little reason to hope that the populations in these areas will ever rebound. Some homes will be torn down in these pockets of high foreclosures in the hopes that reducing supplies will boost prices. Whether that idea will work in hard-hit areas such as Flint, Mich., and Yuma, Ariz., remains to be seen.
24/7 Wall St. looked at a number of the standard measures to find the housing markets facing the biggest problems attracting buyers. After a detailed examination, six metrics were chosen: (1) vacancy rates for 2010; (2) foreclosure rates for 2010; (3) November 2010 unemployment rates; (4) change in building permits from 2006 to 2010; (5) change in population from 2005 to 2010; and (6) price reduction by major cities for 2010. Taken together, they create a strong statistical base to describe markets which buyers have largely abandoned.
Several states nearly made it onto the list, such as Colorado and South Carolina, but did not get poor enough marks across all of our measurements. Each was among the 10 worst for declines in building permits. Colorado had one of the worst foreclosure rates, and South Carolina one of the worst vacancy rates. However, the populations in both states have rebounded enough to make a strong case that their housing markets may recover moderately over time.
The review of the data raises several public policy issues. The most important of these is whether the federal focus on reviving the housing market should be concentrated in the hardest hit regions. The counter to that point of view is that some cities, such as Flint, or states like Nevada are in such bad shape that they are beyond assistance. Unemployment rates are too high in these areas, and perhaps the number of homes on the market is too large.
One thing is certain. The housing recovery will be wildly uneven. A city like New York, which has a dense population and large numbers of middle class and upper class buyers who will wait until they believe prices hit bottom, will have a rapid recovery soon. Building permits granted in New York City over the last four years have been very low. The supply of apartments is also low. Those forces taken together with an even modest economic recovery will help push real estate prices higher in New York and regions with similar characteristics.
The real estate crisis has gone on for four years. In the states 24/7 Wall St. has chosen here, the crisis will go on much longer.
1. Michigan
Vacancy Rate: 15.98% (9th Worst)
Unemployment: 12.4% (Tied for 2nd Worst)
Population Change 2005-2010: -2.05% (Worst)
Michigan is one of only two states whose population has decreased in the last five years. The state has lost more than 2% of its population since 2005. Most of this population loss was undoubtedly due to the depression in the car industry that led to the bankruptcies of GM and Chrysler. Flint, once one of the largest car manufacturing cities in America, has lost more than 10% of its population in the past 10 years. The state has the second-worst unemployment rate in the country at 12.4%. Michigan has a home vacancy rate of 15.98%, the ninth-worst in the U.S. There are large neighborhoods in Detroit that are vacant.
2. Nevada
2010 Foreclosures: 9.42% (Worst)
Unemployment: 14.3% (Worst)
Decrease in Building Permits 2006-2010: -84.39% (Worst)
In 2010, an incredible 9.42% of all housing units in Nevada were foreclosed upon. This is by far the highest foreclosure rate in the U.S., and is nearly twice that of the next-worst state. Nevada also has the highest unemployment rate in the United States, at 14.3%.The recession undermined profits in the gaming industry. Between 2006 and 2010, the state had an 84.3% decrease in building permit requests, the largest drop in the country. This has resulted in the loss of tens of thousands of construction jobs.
3. Arizona
Vacancy Rate: 17.3% (5th Worst)
2010 Foreclosures: 5.73% (2nd Worst)
Decrease in Building Permits 2006-2010: -81.36% (4th Worst)
Arizona is among a handful of states most deeply wounded by the real estate collapse. Some 5.73% of properties in the state have been foreclosed upon, the second highest rate in the country, and 17.3% of homes are vacant, the fifth greatest rate in the country. Also, Mesa, Phoenix and Tucson, the state's three largest cities, are all among the top five American cities with the greatest percentage of price reductions for homes in 2010, along with Minneapolis and Baltimore. As of December 2010, these cities had 43%, 42% and 38% of their listings with price reductions, respectively.
4. California
2010 Foreclosures: 4.08% (4th Worst)
Unemployment: 12.4% (Tied for 2nd Worst)
Decrease in Building Permits 2006-2010: -74.7% (6th Worst)
California's impact on the housing market is huge. The state is the largest among the 50 in total GDP and housing units. California's unemployment rate of 12.4% is now tied for second place with Michigan, once the jobless capital of the nation. In 2010, the state had one of the highest foreclosure rates in the country, at just over 4%. New construction has dropped off dramatically as well, with a 74 % decrease in new building permits between 2006 and 2010.
5. Illinois
2010 Foreclosures: 2.87% (9th Worst)
Decrease in Building Permits 2006-2010: -81.32% (5th Worst)
Population Change 2005-2010: 1.23% (8th Worst)
Although Illinois has a relatively low residential vacancy rate, finding people to buy homes can be difficult. The state's population only grew 1.23% between 2005 and 2010. This is the eighth worst growth rate in the country. Furthermore, the number of building permits issued since 2006 decreased 81.32%, the fifth greatest drop in the nation. The collapse of the state's industrial base has been so great that its economy will not recover anytime soon.
6. Georgia
2010 Foreclosures: 3.25% (6th Worst)
Unemployment: 10% (9th Worst)
Decrease in Building Permits 2006-2010: -82.29% (2nd Worst)
The number of building permits issued in 2006 in Georgia was 92,541. In 2010 that number dropped to 16,391. This is the second greatest decrease in the nation during that time. The state's unemployment rate, at 10%, is above the national average of 9.4%. Also in 2010, there were 130,966 foreclosures in Georgia, 3.25% of the state's properties. This is an increase of 53.62% since 2008.
7. Oregon
Unemployment: 10.6% (Tied for 5th Worst)
Decrease in Building Permits 2006-2010: -74.08% (7th Worst)
Number of Listings With Price Reductions (Portland): 35% (Tied for 8th Worst Among 50 Largest U.S. Cities)
Oregon's real estate market has suffered the double blow of a sharp drop in both building permits and price reductions on existing homes. Unemployment is 10.6%, the fifth worst rate in the country. The number of new building permits decreased by 74% from 2006 to 2010. In December 2010, 35% of listings in Portland, the state's largest city, had price reductions.
8. Florida
Vacancy Rate: 21.03% (2nd Worst)
2010 Foreclosures: 5.51% (3rd Worst)
Decrease in Building Permits 2006-2010: -81.37% (3rd Worst)
Unemployment in Florida is 12%, the fourth worst in the country. Approximately 1.1 million residents are out of work. Statistics show that 21.03% of the state's housing units are vacant. Furthermore, 5.51% of homes have been foreclosed upon. Florida was among five states that had the largest real estate booms from 2000 to 2006. Residential prices in some waterfront areas like Miami and Palm Beach rose by much more than double during that period. New home and condominium construction soared. Many of those residences have never been occupied and are still part of the inventory of homes for sale.
Sources:

1) Vacancy rates for 2010 -- American Community Survey (Census Bureau)
2) Foreclosure rates for 2010 -- RealtyTrac
3) November 2010 unemployment rates -- Bureau of Labor Statistics
4) Change in building permits from 2006 to 2010 -- Census Bureau
5) Change in population from 2005 to 2010 -- Census Bureau
6) Price reduction by cities for 2010 -- Trulia

Economics: Association of Mortgage Investors Shares Solutions to Foreclosure Crisis

2011-01-19T06:38:00.002-06:00

In a White Paper directed to the states Attorneys General, the Association of Mortgage Investors (AMI) which represents private investors, public and private pension funds and endowments, puts forth a broad indictment of the mortgage servicing industry and offers its solutions to the foreclosure crisis.

All 50 of the Attorneys General are engaged in an investigation of the mortgage process and are expected to design a multi-state settlement in the next few months. AIM, in a press release accompanying the White Paper said, "It is the greatest hope of mortgage investors that any settlement carefully considers the impact on the performance of state pension, retirement systems, life insurance, and medical savings plans and ensure that the responsible parties bear the expense of past bad acts. Furthermore, mortgage investors believe the only way to truly put distressed borrowers on a sustainable path forward is by including the borrower's entire debt load in the modification or workout program."

AMI says that 90 percent of the money invested in mortgage-backed securities (MBS) is public money, invested on behalf of state pension funds, retirement systems, university and charitable endowments and that these investors have suffered material losses through faulty, inefficient, and sometimes improper servicing of the mortgage loans. Borrowers have also suffered in their interactions with servicing which AMI states has dumped excessive fees on them, delayed resolutions of problems, and created longer term housing and mortgage problems.

The Paper, The Future of the Housing Market for Consumers after the Crisis: Remedies to Restore and Stabilize American's Mortgage and Housing Markets, outlines AMI's solutions to the foreclosure crisis broken down into two components: Better Execution, and Sustainable Solutions.

In the first component AMI states that resolving the current crisis requires intermediaries to interact with consumers and distressed borrowers in a fair and productive manner. To that end, servicers should staff their collections operations so that employees should not be handling a caseload of no more than 100 to 150 120-delinquent loans and that those borrowers each have a single point of contact. It also recommends the use of special servicers who can offer enhanced counseling to find a "right-sized" modification. There also needs to be an independent entity to resolve other consumer debt issues where credit card and auto loan holders are not willing participate.

Loss mitigation and foreclosure should be transparent and open to the homeowner. The servicers have an obligation to educate the homeowner as to the process of foreclosure and available alternatives and underlying mortgage and foreclosure data such as servicing fees, foreclosure expenses, and the asset loss breakdown must be disclosed. Costs due to servicer error should not be reimbursed by the RMBS trust and borrowers must be protected from "egregious fees" when they fall behind on mortgage payments. The process must be equally transparent to investors who do not have access to the most basic information about the mortgages such as the loan files.
Homeowners need sustainable solutions that put them on a clear path to affording their debts in order not to prolong the recovery of the housing markets. AMI said that investors support sustainable modifications and suggests an option to re-establish payment under a 31 percent front-end debt-to-income ratio; a refinance at 97.75 LTV into the FHA Short Refinance Program, or a reduction of all junior liens at a minimum of a proportional write-down. Most important, however, the paper says is that all consumer debt should be restructured as part of the modification. A sustainable mortgage will have a combined loan-to-value of not more than 115 percent and a back-end ratio of 50 percent of less. Without resolving consumer debt, it is inevitable that modifications will not succeed. A mechanism such as bankruptcy or binding arbitration is necessary to compel other consumer debt holders to participate in debt reduction which they have not been willing to do.

Where a sustainable modification does not work, the servicer and/or loan counselor should work with the borrower to efficiently avoid foreclosure through a short sale or deed-in-lieu. If there is a second lien there needs to be a mechanism to bypass that lenders approval in order to avoid foreclosure.

As great as these suggestions are, they do not address the overwhelming challenge facing homeowners and investors at the most important time which is RIGHT NOW!

Our governments failure to grasp the catastrophic situation at hand continues to confuse the person who is facing foreclosure or has seen their investments disappear. When will those that represent us start doing that instead of focusing on their own needs of re-election or lining their pockets while protecting the banks and financial institutions that have funded their careers.

Patti and Cheryl Murray

2011-01-07T14:45:00.002-06:00

Patti and Cheryl just closed on the refinance of their home, listen to what they have to say about their experience with Cornerstone Mortgage.

Mortgage Insurance is Tax Deductible!!

2011-01-04T13:03:00.011-06:00

Congress recently extended legislation that makes mortgage insurance (MI) premiums tax deductible for many homeowners through 2011. Click here to find out more.

Will and Karen Aschinger

2010-12-30T15:52:00.002-06:00

Will and Karen just closed on the refinance of their home and two of their investment properties, listen to what they have to say about their experience with Cornerstone Mortgage.

2010-12-30T12:50:00.000-06:00

Here is a fascinating data point:
The delay between the first late payment and a foreclosure referral varies widely from state to state. It used to be a good rule of thumb that by the time the 3rd payment was missed, 90 days, foreclosure proceedings were likely to begin. But some states allow take 8, 10 even 12 months to foreclose. LPS Applied Analytics reported this week the average length of time it takes to refer a home to foreclosure.
The five slowest states:

California 367 days
New York 344 days
Maryland 358 days
Florida 307 days
Massachusetts 3XX days

A year to foreclosure is considered by attorneys and analysts to be quite a long time. It strongly implies that the banks and law firms processing these are disorganized and understaffed. While many have been mass producing them, and the backlog is still enormous.

Mark and Teresa Schonhoff

2010-12-28T16:13:00.002-06:00

Mark and Teresa just refinanced their home with Cornerstone Mortgage, listen to what they have to say about their experience.

Phil Hogan

2010-12-28T16:09:00.002-06:00

Phil just purchased a new home and worked with Cornerstone Mortgage on his financing. Listen to what he has to say about his experience.

Danny Layton

2010-12-22T13:11:00.002-06:00

Danny just purchased a new home and financed his loan with Cornerstone Mortgage, listen to what he has to say about his experience.

Chris and Lisa Miller

2010-12-22T12:20:00.002-06:00

Chris and Lisa just closed on the refinance of their home, listen to what they have to say about their experience with Cornerstone Mortgage.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

2010-12-21T11:13:00.002-06:00

Mike and Leslie Najjar

2010-12-17T11:34:00.002-06:00

Mike and Leslie just closed on their refinance with Conrerstone Mortgage. Listen to what they have to say about their experience.

Nancy Davis

2010-12-07T13:45:00.001-06:00

Nancy just purchased a new home and did the financing through Cornerstone Mortgage. Listen to what she has to say about her experience.

Chris and Jill Hollander

2010-12-01T13:19:00.002-06:00

Chris and Jill just financed their home with Cornerstone Mortgage. Listent to what they have to say about their experience.

Bev Furqueron

2010-12-01T12:59:00.002-06:00

Bev just refinanced her house with Cornerstone Mortgage. Listen to what she has to say about her experience.

Brendan and Susan Moore

2010-12-01T12:45:00.002-06:00

Brendan and Susan just purchased a new home and used Cornerstone Mortgage for their financing. Listen to what they have to say about their experience.

Carmelita Barge

2010-12-01T12:20:00.002-06:00

Carmelita just purchased a new home and worked with Cornerstone Mortgage for her financing. Listen to what she has to say about her experience.

Phillip and Lindsey Meier

2010-11-24T10:16:00.002-06:00

Phillip and Lindsey just refinanced their home with Cornerstone Mortgage. Listen to what they have to say about their experience.

Matt Speth

2010-11-22T16:18:00.002-06:00

Matt just closed on a new home with Cornerstone Mortgage, listen to what he has to say.

Giving Thanks

2010-11-22T15:56:00.001-06:00

Rescuing a Buyer

2010-11-16T10:52:00.000-06:00

I had the opportunity to rescue a buyer who had made the mistake of choosing a large name bank for his lender. He found them to be completely unresponsive, slow, disinterested in getting his loan closed in a timely fashion. The straw that broke the camels back was when they missed his loan commitment date and made him a cash buyer on his contract. The seller was not interested in extending the loan commitment date since they had a very marketable house. We took the loan in on November 3rd and we will be closing this Friday at 1:00. On top of that we reduced his rate by .625% and did not charge him the 1% origination fee the large name bank was charging him.

Cornerstone has built its reputation on purchase business. We love doing refinances, but there is a simple fact; if there are no purchases then there will never be any refinances.

If you know anyone who has in a similar situation with a lender that is not meeting their expectations or is over charging them, please have them contact me. I promise to set realistic expectations, be fair and honest in pricing their loan and most importantly make you look good by referring the person to me.

Sincerely,

Chris

Dr. Toni Roth

2010-11-15T14:36:00.002-06:00

Toni Roth just closed on her loan with Cornerstone Mortgage. Listen to what she has to say about the experience.

David and Amanda Purdom

2010-11-15T13:46:00.002-06:00

David and Amanada just closed on their loan with Cornerstone Mortgage. Listen to what they have to say about their experience.