opinion: Garage Salonomics
- 07/15/09 06:50 AM
Our neighborhood held their annual "no-holds-barred" bargainmania called the GreyHawk Rummage Sale. You know the drill. Find your junk. Tag your junk. Sell your junk. Get up at stupid-o-clock, start the IV drip of coffee, and hit the up button on your garage door to find a half dozen cars lurking curbside waiting for you to display your wares. And then the negotiating that would put a hostile corporate takeover begins. Will you take 10 cents for this 25 cent item? Throw retail out the window; this is the land of resale and everything must go. As a seller, you hold on (0 comments)
opinion: Are We Headed Toward 7% Mortgage Rates?
- 06/11/09 02:07 PM
Seriously, I'm holding out until rates goes to 4%. The newspaper and media experts all told me it would happen. Heck, even the US Treasury Department talked about it. But here we are at 5.75% (in a matter of a few weeks, after being closer to 4.875% for months) and there's a pretty good chance we are headed toward 7%. Many blogs ago, I predicted we'd hit 5% (rates were about 6.25% at the time) and just this evening a fellow brother in the mortgage industry, KEVIN HANCOCK, commented on my lucky prognosticating and asked where I thought we were heading. Back to (5 comments)
opinion: The Quest for the Holy Sale
- 03/18/09 05:18 AM
Imagine this. You've toiled and traveled months, years even, and you feel as if you have come to the end of your rope. You look to the heavens in outright desperation, and then the clouds part, and it appears. The Holy Sale. Angels sing. It seems like that is the tale of every mortgage consultant these days. We are working so hard to get things done. Transactions aren't just a stroll through the countryside, they are brutal journeys through the most treacherous landscape known to man. Underwriting. We are now in the world of appraisal reviews, guideline changes, rising credit score (0 comments)
opinion: Divorcing Your House
- 04/15/08 06:46 AM
It's over. The love is gone. We've drifted apart. Sure, there was a time when everything seemed wonderful. How crazy were we having our first lien right away? Remember when we'd spend the weekends together, you, me, a paintbrush, some power tools? You gave me worth and value and it felt so good. I was so giving in the past, in fact, I gave until it hurt. Our beautiful second lien came along a few years later. I took you on that amazing 7-day cruise through the Eastern Caribbean. I put your kids through boarding school. We put in that pool you always wanted. I even helped buy the (11 comments)
opinion: Is Foreclosure A Fad?
- 04/12/08 03:56 AM
It's getting interesting out there. The foreclosure rate is increasing exponentially and the media is eating it up like a Chinese buffet. You can't turn on the tube without a well-polished reporter spewing forth another factoid about the topic, and rue the day that an evening news broadcast doesn't mention the floundering housing market. But is this compounding the problem? Foreclosure was the dirty word of the lending world just a few years ago. You had to be on the brink of financial ruin or the victim of a traumatic life change to walk away from your home. It's getting easier now. (10 comments)
opinion: Are They Leads or Bleeds?
- 04/03/08 02:02 AM
I just hired a new loan officer that has been successfully working Internet leads for the past few years and he has requested that I look into purchasing a batch of these things. I've never bought a lead and it feels kind of weird to me. All of my business is referral-based and that's the way I like it; I enjoy relationships with my clients and if I treat them well, they come back. Leads seem very cold. Some potential customer fills out a bunch of Internet quote forms one night and these companies running the websites harvest the information and divvy the leads (19 comments)