raleigh: Raleigh, NC is rated as “America’s Best City” - 09/22/11 08:19 AM
 

Raleigh North Carolina has done it again.  Businessweek.com, this week, has rated Raleigh as America’s best city.  Businessweek.com was looking for a way to measure “quality of life” in America’s cities.  They came up with 16 criteria: “the number of restaurants, bars and museums per capita: the number of colleges, libraries, and professional teams: the income, poverty, unemployment, crime and foreclosure rates”… the list goes on.
 Businessweek.com said Raleigh has 867 restaurants, 110 bars, and 51 museums.  They also noted our opera, the NHL’s Carolina Hurricanes and the 30,000 square feet State Farmers Market, the largest in the State.
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raleigh: Raleigh Ranked #2 in the Nation - 07/15/11 07:02 AM
According to an article this week in Forbes, Raleigh NC is ranked #2 as the next Boom Town in the United States.  This is a ranking of the largest metro areas (over 1 million). Approximately one third of the ranking score is based on job growth, focusing on growth after the start of the Great Recession.  The rest of the score is made up of factors such as family formation, population growth and growth in educated migration.
Quoting Forbes "Raleigh has experienced the second-highest overall population increase and the third-highest job growth over the past two decades in the U.S. It … (2 comments)

raleigh: ARE YOU PRE-QUALIFYING YOUR LOAN OFFICER? - 06/30/11 06:12 AM
Are you pre-qualifying your loan officer?  If not, you should.  You pre-qualify your clients before you put them in your car to show them houses.  You should also pre-qualify your loan officer before you refer clients to them.
Most experienced REALTORS know the value of pre-qualifying their clients.   They will say something like "I will not let a client in my car until they are pre-qualified."   REALTORS do this to make sure their client has the necessary qualifications for obtaining a mortgage.  The reason to pre-qualify your loan officer is to see if he/she has the necessary qualifications for originating a … (2 comments)

raleigh: WHERE CAN FIRST TIME HOMEBUYERS GET DOWN PAYMENT HELP in NORTH CAROLINA? - 06/04/11 03:06 AM

Where can first time homebuyer get down payment help in North Carolina?  I'm asked this question by REALTORS® a lot; first time home buyers almost always ask this question.  Unless the FTHB is doing a zero down payment loan, such as VA or USDA, they will need a down payment.
In the current economic environment this country is in, it is hard for a young person or young family to save money for a down payment even if you have a good job and good credit.  There is a mortgage program in North Carolina that helps.  It is called a … (3 comments)

raleigh: THE NEW NORMAL IN MORTGAGES - 11/07/10 03:04 AM
Extra time to close and more required documentation is the new normal in mortgages. Streamline mortgages, Fast and Easy mortgages and Super Simple mortgages are gone, if not forever, for a very long time.  The days of limited documentation is all but history. After it was realized how much the mortgage meltdown was going to hurt the US and world economies the Federal Government, State Governments, the people and even some members of the mortgage industry demanded higher quality mortgages.  To accomplish this, the mortgage industry looked at their guidelines from the past.
 
Income is now checked with pay stubs, … (6 comments)

raleigh: PRE-QUALIFY YOUR LOAN OFFICER - 07/11/10 03:39 AM
You pre-qualify your clients.  You should also pre-qualify your loan officer.
 
Experienced Realtor's knows the value of pre-qualifying their clients.   I have heard some say "I will not let a client in my car until they are pre-qualified."   Realtors do this to make sure your client has the necessary qualification for obtaining a mortgage.  The reason to pre-qualify your loan officer is to see if he/she has the necessary qualifications for originating a mortgage.
 
Some questions to ask to pre-qualify your loan officer are;
 
•1        Experience in years in originating mortgages not just years in banking or working … (4 comments)

raleigh: LOWEST RATE is NOT ALWAYS the LOWEST PAYMENT - 06/25/10 01:32 AM
To begin with I'm not talking about an ARM payment or and interest only payment.  I'm talking about 30 year fixed rate mortgages.  Traditionally when you purchase a home with less than 20% down, the lender would require mortgage insurance and most of the time it was paid by the borrower monthly.  This could add hundreds of dollars to the monthly payment.
 
A great alternative to the borrower paid monthly mortgage insurance is lender paid single premium mortgage insurance.  Now nothing is free in this world so the lender does charge the borrower a higher rate for the single premium … (0 comments)