In this space I often try to provide a perspective that would be difficult to find published anywhere else, mostly because the subject of mortgage finance just isn’t stimulating enough to attract an audience. For most people, it’s a boring subject that you only really...
There are a lot of layers in every mortgage transaction. It’s at least a club sandwich. The seller’s concession is one of them. Maybe it’s the bacon. Since sandwich humor can only take me so far, let’s get back to basics. The seller’s concession is a very effective...
“It’s a train wreck,” one seasoned loan officer told me of the mortgage industry’s new Uniform Residential Loan Application (URLA). “It’s a nightmare,” said another. Personally, I’m not sure what to think quite yet. Perhaps it’s a nightmare about a train wreck, but...
Six Twenty-Five, Five Hundred. Oh man! That’s a number I used to have to remember. I saw that number on a screen the other day, and it felt like I found an old memory I lost somewhere in the back corner of my brain like a tchotchke in a bin in the attack. 625,500....
In just my first year in the mortgage business, just a little after the turn of the century, me and the people I worked with killed over 133 trees. Usually, people are all “Loosey-Goosey” when they throw around numbers like that, fudging stats to prove whatever point...
There isn’t anything fun about applying for a mortgage – except for the part where you close and it’s over. The process is inefficient. The whole thing takes too damn long. And the amount of documentation they ask for could keep a small house warm in the middle of...
