Here is the home I grew up in; glad we did not have an HOA as with 5 of us kids, there were a few cars parked around here 24/7!

The Little Apple - that is what my home town is called, Manhattan, KS and last week I went back for my 25^th high school reunion.  Great to see folks and reconnect - I think Facebook really helped get folks talking as we had a awesome turn out.  Do you get back to yours or help plan them?

Geoffrey Davis - the "Frisco Mortgage Guy"!

214-975-1266- fax

214-529-9622- cell

TopTenDallas.com is the #1 website for all things Top 10 in Dallas - and I am ranked as a Top 10 Mortgage Broker!

Honored as one of the Best Mortgage Brokers in Dallas! for D Magazine, 2011 & 2010.  Ranked 24^th in 2010 in the category Largest North Texas Residential Mortgage Lenders, according to the Dallas Business Journal!

Whatever happened to those American-made products? Are the shareholders and the companies looking only for the bottom line killing the country?

After an email prompted me to 'Buy USA' I went to the grocery store to look at some products I currently buy. What I found was that very few of them are made here in the United States. What would happen if Target started a campaign to only sell made in the USA products? Could they do it? Probably not with clothing any longer. Probably not with sporting goods, games or groceries, either.

So what are we doing to ourselves? What are we doing to our country? Companies move their manufacturing overseas because of the cheaper labor cost. Companies move their profits overseas so they don't have to pay taxes. Do we need to change the way we think about taxes?  Do we need different laws in place for manufacturing?

Where we going and what are are we going to become?

If we don't make anything here and all we do is buy - where are the jobs? Are we just saying that we don't want those jobs anymore? We don't want manufacturing jobs? I want us to buy American. I want people working in factories here with good wages. And I guess I'm okay with paying more. How much more would it cost if the companies produced things here in the States and couldn't hide their monies overseas, would they have to raise the prices per category per product to stay profitable? How high?

What are we going to do? Who makes the change? Do we leave it up to our president, congressmen, senators, mayors, city councilman? Who makes the change? Maybe we do. Maybe we are the ones to tell Target and Kroger's and other shopping venues that we are going to buy American from now on.  Maybe we should look at the items we buy more carefully and leave them on the shelf if they are not produced in this country. It could all be up to us.

Let me know what you think. Are you concerned about this?

Thanks for reading... 

Geoffrey Davis - the "Frisco Mortgage Guy"!

214-975-1266- fax

214-529-9622- cell

TopTenDallas.com is the #1 website for all things Top 10 in Dallas - and I am ranked as a Top 10 Mortgage Broker!

Honored as one of the Best Mortgage Brokers in Dallas! for D Magazine, 2011 & 2010.  Ranked 24^th in 2010 in the category Largest North Texas Residential Mortgage Lenders, according to the Dallas Business Journal!

Frisco Sunrise Rotary:  We meet at 7:30am each Tuesday morning at Randy's Steakhouse.  Our speaker will be about our Interact Club.  Nikki Simon is our Rotarian of the day! 

Mayors Golf Classic benefiting Frisco Family Services Center on May 23rd.

Manhattan High School Class of 1986 reunion. 

Monday, May 30^th, Stonebridge Memorial Day 1K, 5K & 10K - The certified 5K and 10K courses are both fun and challenging. There will be music, prizes and awards! 

St. Philip's Night at the Ballpark! Join the St. Philip's Night at the Ballpark on June 10th @ 7 PM.  We have reserved fantastic seats located in the section behind home plate contact Jim Stewart

Leadership Frisco Applications: You have until 5pm - June 17th 2011 to have your application turned in - don't miss out your opportunity to be a part of Class 15!

Geoffrey Davis - the "Frisco Mortgage Guy"!

214-975-1266- fax

214-529-9622- cell

TopTenDallas.com is the #1 website for all things Top 10 in Dallas - and I am ranked as a Top 10 Mortgage Broker!

Honored as one of the Best Mortgage Brokers in Dallas! for D Magazine, 2011 & 2010.  Ranked 24^th in 2010 in the category Largest North Texas Residential Mortgage Lenders, according to the Dallas Business Journal!

It was great to hear from so many of you in response to last week's down payment assistance article and very comforting to see that many of you share my beliefs.

Recently I received an e-mail from one of my lenders about a new program called Home Path. This program is produced and backed by the government (sort of) and says it can provide up to 97% financing for qualified borrowers wanting to purchase an eligible Fannie Mae owned property. Sounds like we are right back to our old tricks.

I understand that Fannie Mae needs to move some foreclosure homes off their books but what is there a problem with the 5%, 10% and 20% down loans?    Home Path offers a 3% down loan but we already have a program like that called FHA. An FHA loan is a nice product for those with some credit bumps and bruises and a limited down payment amount but it's also expensive for me to process. Since it doesn't make financial sense for me, I choose not to use it.

What the new Home Path program is an FHA program for the conventional world. Let me read you some of the guide lines from this new program:

Eligible: Client puts down just 3%; a 660 credit score or above is required; the down payment can be funded by the borrowers own savings, a gift, a grant or a loan from a non-profit organization, state or local government or employer. This loan is available for purchase transaction only. Eligible properties include primary residence, second homes and investment properties.

There is no appraisal required nor is mortgage insurance required. Specific mortgage insurance adjusters may apply, however. That means that they are not going to charge monthly mortgage insurance, but they are going to move the interest rate up a little so that every month they're getting more in interest. It's available for fixed rates, ARMs, and interest only products.  Again, I have a problem with only having to put 3% down on an ARM or interest only loan.

Want to talk about how quickly one could get upside down in such a mortgage? If the market takes another downturn as it did a couple of years ago, this loan would only lead to more foreclosures.

For the investment side, it says up to 90% for an investment property, thus a 10% down payment. We have changed the guidelines to require a 20% minimum down payment on investment loans but now we are being offered a semi government-backed loan product that will allow somebody to purchase investment property with only 10% down, and no appraisal.

I have a problem with this program because it seems to be doing some of the things that got us into trouble in the first place. Repeating past mistakes will only bring the same results.  I hate to sound like the grumpy old lender who likes folks to have a down payment when they buy a home, but I guess I am.

Thanks for reading.

Geoffrey Davis - the "Frisco Mortgage Guy"!

214-975-1266- fax

214-529-9622- cell

TopTenDallas.com is the #1 website for all things Top 10 in Dallas - and I am ranked as a Top 10 Mortgage Broker!

Honored as one of the Best Mortgage Brokers in Dallas! for D Magazine, 2011 & 2010.  Ranked 24^th in 2010 in the category Largest North Texas Residential Mortgage Lenders, according to the Dallas Business Journal!

Frisco Sunrise Rotary:  We meet at 7:30am each Tuesday morning at Randy's Steakhouse.  Our speaker will be Tanya Greene with the Boys and Girls Club.  Nick McCoy is our Rotarian of the day! 

WildRide! Against Cancer!  Save the Date! Saturday, May 21, 2011

Mayors Golf Classic benefiting Frisco Family Services Center on May 23rd.

Manhattan High School Class of 1986 reunion. 

Monday, May 30^th, Stonebridge Memorial Day 1K, 5K & 10K - The certified 5K and 10K courses are both fun and challenging. There will be music, prizes and awards! 

St. Philip's Night at the Ballpark! Join the St. Philip's Night at the Ballpark on June 10th @ 7 PM.  We have reserved fantastic seats located in the section behind home plate contact Jim Stewart

Leadership Frisco Applications: You have until 5pm - June 17th 2011 to have your application turned in - don't miss out your opportunity to be a part of Class 15!

Geoffrey Davis - the "Frisco Mortgage Guy"!

214-975-1266- fax

214-529-9622- cell

TopTenDallas.com is the #1 website for all things Top 10 in Dallas - and I am ranked as a Top 10 Mortgage Broker!

Honored as one of the Best Mortgage Brokers in Dallas! for D Magazine, 2011 & 2010.  Ranked 24^th in 2010 in the category Largest North Texas Residential Mortgage Lenders, according to the Dallas Business Journal!

I believe that, for their own protection, buyers should come up with a minimum of 5% - if not 10% - down when purchasing a property. There are many different opinions on this issue and this is not the opinion of a real estate/mortgage blog called Think Big Work Small that I watch every day. They are very much in favor of a government program called 'down payment assistance'. The city of Frisco has such a program which allows a person to receive money from the city for a down payment on a home.

I do not care for these programs because that money is coming from me and I don't want to pay anyone else's down payment. I believe that people should save their money for their own down payment and then buy the home that they are prepared to pay for. Financial guru Dave Ramsey also disagrees with these programs. His opinion is that everyone should be required to invest 20% as a down payment on their home purchase; he makes no exceptions to this requirement.

I am sorry that I don't want to be the one offsetting your down payment.  I want you to.  I did. I believe you need your own skin in the game.  Save your own money, buy the house you can afford when you're prepared to do so and let government focus on what they need to do to enable our cities and our country to continue to grow and prosper.

Nervous about the response this article will receive but felt it needed to be said...

Geoffrey Davis - the "Frisco Mortgage Guy"!

214-975-1266- fax

214-529-9622- cell

TopTenDallas.com is the #1 website for all things Top 10 in Dallas - and I am ranked as a Top 10 Mortgage Broker!

Honored as one of the Best Mortgage Brokers in Dallas! for D Magazine, 2011 & 2010.  Ranked 24^th in 2010 in the category Largest North Texas Residential Mortgage Lenders, according to the Dallas Business Journal!

The election is over!  (And the signs come down)  I was very happy to see both Tim Nelson and Scott Johnson win the seats they ran for in the Frisco City Council race!  Both are awesome guys and thanks to those of you who used my encouragement in that direction!  I stayed out of the other 2 ballot items, Mayor and Prop 1.  After a few days into the campaign both sides of each race went a bit too strong for me. (But they did help the local economy with all the mailers they sent out, could that be why Frisco just got the new 75033 Zip code?)

Geoffrey Davis - the "Frisco Mortgage Guy"!

214-975-1266- fax

214-529-9622- cell

TopTenDallas.com is the #1 website for all things Top 10 in Dallas - and I am ranked as a Top 10 Mortgage Broker!

Honored as one of the Best Mortgage Brokers in Dallas! for D Magazine, 2011 & 2010.  Ranked 24^th in 2010 in the category Largest North Texas Residential Mortgage Lenders, according to the Dallas Business Journal!

Check out this t-shirt a client made for me!  Folks ask me all the time, "How do you get your clients?" "Where do you buy your leads?" Happily I get to respond that I only have my logo on Frisco On-Line and most of my business is refereed to me - and let me proudly say, I have the BEST clients!!!

Geoffrey Davis - the "Frisco Mortgage Guy"!

214-975-1266- fax

214-529-9622- cell

TopTenDallas.com is the #1 website for all things Top 10 in Dallas - and I am ranked as a Top 10 Mortgage Broker!

Honored as one of the Best Mortgage Brokers in Dallas! for D Magazine, 2011 & 2010.  Ranked 24^th in 2010 in the category Largest North Texas Residential Mortgage Lenders, according to the Dallas Business Journal!   

As a Board member for the Frisco Chamber of Commerce program, Leadership Frisco, some days are less work and more play.  Marla Roe, Executive Director of the Frisco Convention and Visitors Bureau and I prepare the pay, Leisure and Culture for the class and as you look at the photo below, you not only see Class 14, but a few local big shots: Randy Locey - Dallas Stars, Doug Quinn - FC Dallas, Nancy Lieberman - Texas Legends, Scott Sonju - Frisco RoughRiders and Ben Weber - Texas Tornado. 

You have until 5pm - June 17th 2011 to have your application turned in - don't miss out your opportunity to be a part of Class 15!

Geoffrey Davis

214-529-9622  

Find out why I am called The Frisco Mortgage Guy!

One of the reasons I enjoyed attending Frisco Chamber of Commerce meetings was the opportunity to network with other mortgage professionals in and around the Frisco area. It is difficult for me to get to those anymore as they are at 7:45 on Thursday mornings and morning meetings have become more difficult since the arrival of the twins. I do still manage to attend my morning Rotary meeting which is more about service than networking.

Although I am acquainted with several company owners, branch managers and rockstar lenders who have been in the business forever, I have not had the opportunity to meet several of the newer mortgage folks in the area. 

I got to thinking that I'd like to chat with these guys more, so I instituted a lunch.  I sent an e-mail out to 10 of my friends in and around the industry and we set a date.  Eight of us had a great meeting and everybody agreed that we should do it again.  So a few months later we met again; this time there were 12 at the table, all veterans in the industry. When we discussed consumer versus lender paid, I found that almost every single one of these professionals are doing a lender paid model in order to make the same amount of money that they made before the financial reform came about. I was the only one at the table who was doing consumer paid and the only one to charge a flat $1875 per file, regardless of loan size. The others at the table represent great companies like W.R. Starkey, Viewpoint Bank, Town Square Mortgage and First United Bank....all great guys and great companies...and all charging around 1% on loan amounts of $400,000 to $700,000.

Although sometimes I get tired of all the things I have to go through as an owner, I am still grateful that, because I own my own company, I am able to offer lower rates and lower fees than most of the mortgage professionals in the area and most internet lenders. I also work the whole state of Texas, so if you have friends or family who need a good, honest, competitive mortgage broker, have them give me a call.