The Federal Housing Administration said late Monday it suspended Equitable Trust Mortgage Corp., a Baltimore City and Baltimore County based lender, from originating or underwriting new loans through its lending program.
The FHA claims the Baltimore City and Baltimore County lender overcharged 37 borrowers on broker and loan-origination fees. The fees exceeded what the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development allows, the FHA said. Nearly 70 percent of those borrowers were minorities, the FHA added.
In 21 of the cases, Equitable failed to properly disclose all loan-origination fees and lender fees, the FHA said.
“It is critical that FHA lenders apply our standards and do not overcharge borrowers,” FHA Commissioner David Stevens said in a statement. “The fact that a disproportionate number of these borrowers were minority families is also troubling. I am fully committed to protecting consumers and the fiscal health of the FHA.”
Government-backed FHA loans provide market- or near-market-rate mortgages to borrowers who might typically be classified as subprime or high risk.
An employee who answered a phone call to Equitable Trust Monday evening said no one was available for immediate comment.
Lutherville is a small community nestled between Towson and Timonium in Baltimore County, Maryland. I love Lutherville, I live here!! Lutherville is conveniently located just outside 695 and is an easy commute to Hunt Valley, Baltimore City, Aberdeen Proving Ground and many from Lutherville even commute to Washington DC. I commute every day to Glen Burnie, MD. Lutherville features homes in all price ranges and from new construction through to homes listed on the National Register for Historic Places. Click Here to Search for Homes in Lutherville Now!
Why Lutherville? Lutherville has great schools, strong community association and is conveniently located and has all the ammenities for a wonderful life. Lutherville has one of the best all Volunteer Fire Departments. And, the Fire Museum
Every year in October, the Lutherville Community Association hoststhe Lutherville House Tour. The tour includes several homes that were built between 1850 and 1910. Tickets for the tour are usually around 20 dollars and all the proceeds aredonated to the Lutherville Volunteer Fire Department.
Lutherville has much to offer to many in different price ranges. There are many historic homes, but there are also more modest homes. And, before anyone asks, as much as I would love to live in an historic home, we live in a modest cape cod home that was built in 1957.
Don't take my word for it though. Check out the community, take a look at the test scores for the schools and check the crime statistics for yourself. Go on the home tour, then have lunch at Szechuan House Chinese restaurant, or head up the road to Andy Nelson's BBQ.
Lutherville Maryland Historic Home Tour compliments of June Piper-Brandon.
Friday, November 27, 2009 by Nick Gioia, ABR, GRI, E-Pro
Baltimore County, with a population of close to one million, is located in the northern portion of the state of Maryland. It does not actually include the city of Baltimore, which gained its independence in 1851. Both the county and city attract new residents to Baltimore real estate every year. There are several popular neighborhoods in Baltimore County to call home.
The list of Baltimore County attractions is long and wide-ranging. Old world charm abounds in the antique rows of Reisterstown and Cockeysville, while the historic milltown of Oella is always a draw. Outdoor enthusiasts will appreciate the county's 175 miles of shoreline, 60 marinas, and 10,000 acres of park land in addition to the North Central Railroad Trail, a converted hiking and biking trail that runs to Pennsylvania. Almost 150 thoroughbred horse farms are located in the county, which plays host to the notoriously difficult Maryland Hunt Cup each April. Other events range from the Maryland State Fair in Timonium and the Towson town Spring Festival to visiting the Fire Museum of Maryland and touring Boordy Vineyards, Maryland's oldest winery. The county is served by the Baltimore-Washington International Thurgood Marshall Airport and is within easy driving distance of several other major cities and the sandy beaches of Ocean City, MD.
Question: There are a lot of bank owned homes and short sales in Baltimore – is it legal to place 2 separate offers on 2 different houses?
The short answer is yes, it’s perfectly legal (at least in Maryland) to place multiple offers on multiple properties. Your mileage could vary in other states.
But, I’d be remiss if I didn’t discuss the potential ramifications of having multiple offers out.
In an absolute worse case scenario, you could have multiple offers accepted, you dilly-dally around and find yourself with no way out of a contract – meaning you are now under contract to purchase more than one home.
Fortunately, there are ways to cancel a purchase contract without running afoul of the law or risking loss of your earnest money deposit. Primarily this can be done through the inspection period that is generally 10 days from contract acceptance.
I emphasize generally because no two contracts are the same. The boilerplate language in the standard Maryland Contract for Saleprovides for a 10 day inspection period. Section 6j of the purchase contract and the Buyer’s Inspection Notice and Seller’s Response, which is delivered from the buyer to the seller, contain a provision for the buyer to immediately cancel the contract if they disapprove of items uncovered during the inspection period.
Technically, this is not the “free pass” out of the contract that many say it is. In reality though, as long as you have an item to disapprove, any item, then the contract can be cancelled.
If you are looking at bank owned (REO) properties, you should be very cognizant of the lender’s addendums. They trump the contract and may contain language that significantly shortens your inspection period. Some will even attempt to eliminate the inspection period all together, which should be cause to run, not just walk, away.
So, should you submit multiple offers on multiple properties?
Every situation is different, and there are no blanket answers for a question like this. In the Baltimore real estate market, if you are interested in purchasing a short sale, you almost have to submit multiple offers. It doesn’t seem prudent to submit one short sale offer, and wait 3, 6, 15 weeks or more to get an answer – an answer that may just be “no thanks” so you wind up starting all over again.
If you are looking at purchasing an REO property, particularly one priced at less than $150K-ish, then be advised that these properties often get multiple offers and while some banks respond swiftly, others can take days. If you only submit one offer and you’re outbid, then many other similar homes may have come and gone while you had your one offer under review.
In a traditional sale (not a short sale or bank owned home) I generally give the seller 24 hours to respond to an offer. In this case, it doesn’t make much sense to put in simultaneous offers on multiple homes.
If you chose to go down the multiple offer road, what you want to make sure of is that you’re working with a competent agent that will help you keep track of offers you have out, accepted offers, and all the timelines. Goof this up, and you may find yourself in a situation where you can’t get out of a contract and are well on your way to losing your earnest deposit on one or more of your accepted contracts.
For more information on this subject please feel free to contact us my email or phone to discuss how this may effect your specific situation.
I don't like delivering bad news, but FHA has more surprises for us.
Almost all FHA condo approvals will be GONE on November 1, 2009. We will be starting from scratch with no approved projects until lenders start submitting approval packages to HUD. There will still be a bottleneck in the beginning because HUD has to review the first 5 lender-issued approvals.
Because FHA financing on condos will come to a screeching halt for a period of time, it is imperative that Realtors understand the importance of moving those condo listings NOW.
Who knows when the project will get back on the approved list? And spot loans are gone…so a project HAS to be on the approved list.
Please read the below Mortgage Talking Points bulletin compliments of Mike Mandis for a summary of the FHA details. FHA condo buyers & sellers have to get off the fence NOW. Use this information to secure search for approved condo projects in Maryland. Chances are, other Realtors are not aware of these forthcoming changes.
The National Asocial of Mortgage Brokers has received hundreds of complaints from Realtors, appraisers, and consumers voicing the negative impacts the Home Valuation Code ofConduct (HVCC) has had on their lives. NAMB has started a petition for consumers to sign requesting the repeal of the HVCC in its entirety.
Please forward this information to your friends and family and ask them to sign the petition today!
Hopefully you don’t consider it a mark against buyers if they want to use FHA financing. It’s true it typically takes longer to process FHA-backed financing than it does conventional loan applications, but with the challenging credit environment, for a big chunk of your potential clientele the only financing available to them is FHA. What’s more, these days it’s taking longer to get conventional financing applications processed, so the time gap between the two has narrowed considerably.
Yet NAR continues to hear that sellers—and some sales associates—are discouraging FHA borrowers from making offers on homes in the outdated belief that FHA is significantly slower and more paper-intensive than conventional financing.
Not true, says NAR Senior Policy Analyst Megan Booth. While it’s the case FHA still requires borrowers to jump through some hoops that don’t apply to conventional borrowers, the agency has undergone a sea-change in the last several years in the way it does business.
The agency is far more flexible and far more quick in its processing than it ever was in the past. Even its appraisal requirements are very much like those in the conventional market.
What’s more, FHA has just made some rule changes that increase the attraction of its financing for condos, including site condos. If you’re not familiar with site condos, they’re units in developments that look and feel like single-family communities but are structured as condos. We’re seeing more of these types of communities and FHA has moved out front by changing its rules to accommodate them.
To be sure, the agency faces challenges, but it remains that rare federal agency that is growing (35 percent of residential loans today) and making money for the federal government.
If you have FHA borrowers interested in a listing, can you afford to discourage them from making an offer? FHA is not the agency it was 10 years ago; you might be surprised at how the Depression-era mortgage insurer is moving into the Twenty-first Century.
If you would like more information contact us anytime.
The King of Finance cannot sell his Westchester/Larchmont NY home! The man appointed to fix the housing mess, cannot fix his own mess. "Like hiring a personal trainer who is morbidly obese". Robert Shiller chimes in on this satirical video.
Many real estate analysts have stated that the housing market may have finally hit a bottom and that prices are beginning to stabilize. Mortgage lenders have tightened up their lending standards and many of the mortgage products which got consumers into situations where they couldn't pay their loans are now off the market. There are still a large number of foreclosures but savvy consumers are purchasing them and the $8,000 first-time home-buyers tax credit is creating additional home purchases.
Although there are some signs of recovery, the market will likely hover near the bottom for some time to come. The reason for this is that during the real estate boom, many more homes were built in the United States than were actually needed to meet the natural demand of population growth. Some estimates state that anywhere from 2 million to 10 million extra homes extra housing units were built that were not needed in the United States.
Most economists are predicting that the recession will end sometime during the second half of 2009, but the housing numbers will likely take longer to recover because of the relatively high unemployment rates. People that might otherwise be purchasing homes are either unemployed or underemployed. Other people who are gainfully employed fear the possibility of unemployment, so they save as much cash as possible and avoid major purchases such as buying a home.
Although it may take a few years for a full national housing recovery, there is significant opportunity for investors. Individuals looking for a rental property, a second home or a retirement home have a chance at purchasing a home at a steal. Currently 13% of mortgages are in default and there will continue to be a large number of foreclosures. These distressed properties will be able to be acquired by investors at a significant discount and sold for a profit, if managed properly, when the housing market recovers.
If you would like more information on Baltimore Homes or the Maryland real estate market please contact us.
Two Democratic lawmakers are calling on Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to relax recently tightened standards for mortgages on new condominiums, saying they could threaten the viability of some developments and slow the housing-market recovery.
In March, Fannie Mae said it would no longer guarantee mortgages on condos in buildings where fewer than 70% of the units have been sold, up from 51%. Fannie Mae also won't purchase mortgages in buildings where 15% of owners are delinquent on condo association dues or where one owner has more than 10% of units, which the firm sees as signals that a building could run into financial trouble. Freddie Mac will implement similar policies next month.
In a letter to the chief executives of Fannie and Freddie, Reps. Barney Frank, the Massachusetts Democrat who is chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, and Anthony Weiner (D., N.Y.) warned that the 70% sales threshold "may be too onerous" and could lead condo buyers to shun new developments. The legislators asked the companies to "make appropriate adjustments" to their underwriting standards for condos.
The political push illustrates the balancing act facing the two government-controlled mortgage-finance giants as they struggle to keep the housing market afloat without losing more money.
The two companies, along with the Federal Housing Administration, purchase or guarantee the vast majority of mortgages in the U.S. That means that any toughening of lending standards could have an outsize impact on the housing market. But setting guidelines that are too lax could saddle the companies with risky loans that ultimately stick taxpayers with a bigger bill.
In an interview, Rep. Weiner said the rules have "had a real chill on the ability to get these condos sold," at a time when prices of condos have fallen enough to attract potential buyers.
Fannie Mae officials say the new rules haven't been as taxing as some claim. The mortgage company said the 70% rule doesn't apply to loan applications submitted through an underwriting program used by major lenders, and that hundreds of projects submitted through that program since March 1 have been approved even though their sales levels are below 70%. Developers are also able to apply for exemptions to the new policies for loans that are manually underwritten. Both Fannie and Freddie say they are preparing a response to the lawmakers.
"In the absence of these changes, Fannie and Freddie would be putting good money after bad and run the risk of further increasing the building epidemic of foreclosures and dysfunctional homeowner associations in Florida and around the country," said Charles Foschini, vice chairman of CB Richard Ellis in South Florida.
The FHA requires 51% of units to be sold for developers to secure approval to offer mortgages backed by the government agency, a point the lawmakers made in their letter to Fannie and Freddie. The FHA has considered lowering its threshold, citing concerns that tighter underwriting standards could delay a recovery and pointing to its traditional role to provide stability in volatile housing markets.
Fannie and Freddie have also boosted fees on mortgages for condos. Buyers without a minimum 25% down payment have to pay closing-cost fees equal to 0.75% of their loan, regardless of their credit score, under new rules that took effect in April. Fannie has said it will drop that fee in August for cooperative apartments and detached condos.
Tighter lending standards are also creating hurdles for condo owners who want to sell their units. Richard Shepard wasn't able to sell his New Smyrna Beach, Fla., condo in April to a buyer who was prepared to put 30% down on the $216,000 unit. The buyer, a naval officer, couldn't get financing. Mr. Shepard says lenders said the condo association won't be controlled by the unit owners until July, so they wouldn't underwrite any loans for units in the building.
Mr. Shepard, a retired 67-year-old truck driver, owns free and clear his primary residence in Bridgton, Maine, and bought the Florida condo for $225,000 at an auction last year. He and his wife, who have rented out the unit, put it on the market earlier this year after higher property taxes increased his monthly mortgage payments by $350.
"This is stupid," Mr. Shepard recalls telling his lender. "We're going to possibly go into foreclosure even though we've got a buyer with excellent credit who wants to buy and who has a huge down payment."
Disclaimer: ActiveRain Corp. does not necessarily endorse the real estate agents, loan officers and brokers listed on this site. These real estate profiles, blogs and blog entries are provided here as a courtesy to our visitors to help them make an informed decision when buying or selling a house. ActiveRain Corp. takes no responsibility for the content in these profiles, that are written by the members of this community.
Every year in October, the 
;)
;)
