This is a personal story about why I am an advocate of having Stated income and Stated asset loans. Matthew Blum inspired me to write this post based on a comment I made on his “Say Goodbye to my friend Stated” post. My five children and I ran away from their father, my X husband in 1998. I had been planning our escape for 3 years. One of my friends has listed her home with me who knew of my situation. We were under contract but it was a longer than usual closing and my friend had relocated to Georgia so she let my five children and me hide in her home until closing.
At the time I had a wonderful elder lady broker in a boutique type brokerage. She was my angel but that is a story for another day! We were quite close. She sold me her home since her husband had recently passed away and she desired to move on with her new life without all the memories in the home. What a blessing this was. God provided for us beyond my wildest expectations. I wanted my kids to have a normal life in a normal town in a normal house.
Well, my X husband made sure to ruin my credit as fast as he could. He was keeping the marital home. I was not strong enough to fight him on this. The only way we would get the house was if we moved back in with him and that was not about to happen. I did not qualify for a full doc loan being a single mother of five children and a Real Estate Agent!
I was able to get a stated income loan. My mortgage broker was one that I had referred my clients to for 3 years. I knew him and trusted him. I also knew it was my responsibility to read the documents and to understand my ARM loan. I made enough money to pay my mortgage payment however my tax returns were useless since I like most self employed people had expenses to write off. My net did not look great compared to my gross. I also was moving in a bitter situation and could not use marital assets. My stated income loan was a blessing in my life. I also had my insurance and tax escrows waived so I could have more money for my closing costs. Being in Real Estate I knew that I would be able to take a hunk out of a closing to pay my taxes. I did not lie on my application! I am not a liar and either were any of our clients who also needed to get stated income or asset loans. Bill Roberts wrote a post about this,"Do We Need Stated Loans?"and I was surprised at how there are people who would dare to tell me that I do not deserve to get a piece of the American Dream.
We have many clients who needed these stated income loans to get their homes and only one of them has defaulted on their loan and that was because of a divorce situation not that they did not know what they got into! Our mortgage broker made it very clear to each of our clients what kind of loan they were getting. They are not naïve babies who do not understand how or what they are reading. I do not need a babysitter for my decisions or my options and neither does anyone else. What have we stooped to in coddling and enabling excuses and placing blame on real estate agents and mortgage brokers. Be accountable. Most all of the defaulted loans in our county are from wannabe investors who were gambling on flipping houses and got caught in the bubble and could not flip their properties. Well, that was their choice! I counsel people who want to invest in Real Estate to understand that they must be able to cover the expense of that investment.
For self employed people, people who have small businesses, bartenders who get tips and many 1099’d people have the money, have the credit but do not have the full documents required by prime lenders. It is a personal choice and I am willing to accept the consequences for my choices. Everyone should have the choice. That is after all what a free country is about. It is not about bailing people out of their own choices and then disallowing the same choices to others.
My mother and her family ran away from communism and were able to immigrate to America. I do not need Big Brother to come and tell me what loan I can get or not. Our forefathers signed for our freedom and less government intervention into our lives. After all wasn’t that what our war for independence from Britain was about?
Well, that is my personal story about why I needed a Stated Income Loan.
Copyright (c) 2007 Katerina Gasset, All Rights Reserved
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