Does anyone else believe that the Media has caused many of the problems with today's economy? Mortgage Lenders made the snow ball, placed it at the top of the mountain, and gave it a hard push. The Media then jumped on that snow ball turning it into an avalanche.
I am a Realtor who has had no shortage of prospective Buyers, but each time when they began to make a purchase, they would read or hear something that scared them to say, "I better wait". Am I wrong to think that if those Buyers were not waiting but made those purchases that the Economy would not be under the avalanche?
Now the Mortgage Lenders are making things worse by their requirements to process a loan. The Buyers who use their common sense and want to make a purchase are faced with Underwriters requirements that border on ridiculous. Lenders definitely needed to return to the pre-housing-boom requirements, but many have gone too far. One example is, the Buyer paying for an appraisal which is normal, but paying for an additional Appraisal Review done by the Lender's Underwriter is not. If the property is covered by a Home Owner's Association (HOA) or Property Owner's Association (POA), lookout, the Underwriter may want a copy of every single page of every single document that has ever been prepared by that association. Added to everything else, the loan packages will probably not be completed by the Underwriters for the scheduled day of closing/settlement and that usually means the Buyer's locked-in mortgage interest rate expires.
Update October 28, 2008:
Last night, while on my computer, I overheard one of the major TV station's News anchors say something about housing sales figures for September had come in much higher than anticipated and that things were looking good in some aspects of the housing market. As I perked up to listen he turned things around and ended with negative comments about not getting too excited, bla, bla, bla.
Does anyone else believe that the Media has caused many of the problems with today's economy? Mortgage Lenders made the snow ball, placed it at the top of the mountain, and gave it a hard push. The Media then jumped on that snow ball turning it into an avalanche.
I am a Realtor who has had no shortage of prospective Buyers, but each time when they began to make a purchase, they would read or hear something that scared them to say, "I better wait". Am I wrong to think that if those Buyers were not waiting but made those purchases that the Economy would not be under the avalanche?
Now the Mortgage Lenders are making things worse by their requirements to process a loan. The Buyers who use their common sense and want to make a purchase are faced with Underwriters requirements that border on ridiculous. Lenders definitely needed to return to the pre-housing-boom requirements, but many have gone too far. One example is, the Buyer paying for an appraisal which is normal, but paying for an additional Appraisal Review done by the Lender's Underwriter is not. If the property is covered by a Home Owner's Association (HOA) or Property Owner's Association (POA), lookout, the Underwriter may want a copy of every single page of every single document that has ever been prepared by that association. Added to everything else, the loan packages will probably not be completed by the Underwriters for the scheduled day of closing/settlement and that usually means the Buyer's locked-in mortgage interest rate expires.
Update October 28, 2008:
Last night, while on my computer, I overheard one of the major TV station's News anchors say something about housing sales figures for September had come in much higher than anticipated and that things were looking good in some aspects of the housing market. As I perked up to listen he turned things around and ended with negative comments about not getting too excited, bla, bla, bla.
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