Sunday, 12. December 2010
The paperwork and requirements for a first are much more difficult to satisfy. Why? I owe nothing on my home, I want a first on it, but because I work abroad and can’t show tax returns for 2009 I can’t get a first. But home equity seems do-able. Why?
Actually, I live in the house 4 months out of 12, and my Bank of America account shows monthly deposits from Tokyo. And the house is free and clear. They will give me a second (in first position) , but not a first. I don’t understand the difference: why give me a second, but not a first? Is it related to the source of the funds?
I simply want to understand how the system works. For future reference.
Interesting Blogs
Saturday, 11. December 2010
I thought a home equity or a heloc as sometimes referred to can only take action if the first mortgage institution forecloses on the property. Can a second position initiate foreclosure?
Interesting Blogs
Thursday, 2. December 2010
The situation
We bought a condo in 2005 at the height of the housing boom for 8,000. Our loan was financed by Wells Fargo, and the type of loan that we qualified for consisted of an 80%/20%, hence it was 100% financed. Both loans were called Smartfit Home Equity accounts and were fixed Interest Only for the first 3 yrs . We were ofcourse told by the loan officer that we should be able to refinance by or before the 3 yrs and get into a regular fixed loan.
Forward 2 yrs later and with the bust of the economy, deep decline in housing values, and unemployment, we are just one number among the millions of people facing default on their mortgage loan.
One of us lost our job last year in 9/2007, and that is when we started contacting Wells Fargo trying to be proactive with our situation because we knew in 2008 the loan accounts were becoming variable, and we wanted to be ahead of the ball. At that time, Wells Fargo said they couldn’t help us because we were not in a hardship and we were not past due. All they were offering us was to modify the loans for 1 yr. However, we didnt want a temporaty modification cause we knew 1 yr later we would be in the same situation again, facing variable unpredictable loan payments (needless to say it is 1 yr later and the economy is worse than it was in 9/07). We decided to keep making payments until early 2008 when the payment on the 80% loan converted to variable and we saw that we could not afford it. Again, Wells Fargo could not offer us any assistance because supposedly we could still afford the variable payments. We were told we could not refinance since the value of our property was not there (duh!). That left us with upside loans and variable rates.
So here we are in 11/2008 we tried getting assistance from Wells Fargo one year ago and currently STILL trying. It has been several months since we have stopped paying and still no notice of forclosure and currently waiting on a representative from Wells Fargo to call us in regards to HUD’s HOPE for homeowners program.
To top it all off we were never informed that our 20% loan became due and payable after the 3 years expired.
We recently found out both of our loans might not be considered regular mortgage loans. Since we have a Smartfit loans which are Home Equity accounts and possibly recourse loans. Meaning they can come after us after the difference opposed to a regular mortgage loan.
We strongly feel we were painted a pretty picture and since we were young and eager into getting our own place we took the Wells Fargo information as face value and belived what they had to say and not knowing we would not be able to afford our monthly house payments if this was a principal/interest and taxes regular 30 year loan. I guess you can called it stupid or naive but this loan was basically a bad loan to start with, not a Smartfit……..
Interesting Blogs
Tuesday, 23. November 2010
My girlfriends ex-husband tricked her into signing a revolving line of credit for the house they owned together when they were married. He also has her listed on the property deed as well as the deed of trust for the revolving line of credit. She recently signed paperwork to get her name removed from the property deed. What forms does she need to file in order to have her name removed from the home equity revolving line of credit?
Interesting Blogs
Monday, 22. November 2010
i have it under contract for ,000 and the house needs ,000 in work. the arv is for 0,000. but, my rehab loan is only for 65% with 10% down. so where can i get money for the 10% down,also, once i own the home can i get a home equity to cover the rest of the repairs not covered by the rehab loan?
Interesting Blogs
Thursday, 28. October 2010
Historically, home prices are super high compared to the average earnings even though the huge drop has already happened. People are angry that they are losing equity, are underwater on their loans, and some just walk away from their loan because they are paying a lot more than their worth. So I don’t see TARP or anything like that helping or protecting people’s home equity.
I bought a SUV last year and the deal was either ,000 off (and have 10% financing) or no rebate and offer 2.99% interest rate. To me, those who took the 2.99% deal paid 00 more for the same SUV. For the dealership though, they were able to sell it for more than what others thought it might be worth.
I think housing prices still need to go down a lot more. I am wondering if the government can offer incentives or interest free loans to banks so that they can offer super low rates in the 3% range to get people to buy at these higher prices. Then the economy awakens again. Yes there will still be foreclosures but then a turnaround will be coming quicker.
I have talked to realtors over the past few years and it is always the same. "There is no way rates will go lower than now.
So is my idea correct or is there pretty much no way we can have 3% mortgages. If not 3%, how far down can they go?
Interesting Blogs
Monday, 25. October 2010
I would like to consolidate 5 different Sallie Mae student loans and a fixed rate 30yr loan on my condo INTO one 5yr loan. The intention is to get a decent rate and reduce overall interest paid by making larger payments for 60 months.
I’ve ran the numbers and can afford the larger payments. I have more than enough home equity to finance the loan.
A HELOC seems advantageous since the interest rate is fixed and not amortized and would help if I could pay the loan off early. But I’m not sure how high this interest rate would be compared to a typical amortized loan over 60 months.
Does anyone know of a reputable lending institution that would allow this? Or does anyone have any other advice to accelerate these loans (possibly just make additional principal payments and leave the loans as they are??)
I’m finding that many lending houses offer a minimum of 10yr terms.
I did contact Countrywide. They do this type of consolidation, but not as low as 5yr terms. Their lowest tenure is 10yrs. I prefer to get all of this paid off in 5yrs instead of 10.
Interesting Blogs
Sunday, 24. October 2010
So, I have read some really negative about refinancing… My husband and I can pay our mortgage we just want to roll our credit cards into one low payment. We ended rolling some our credits cards into one low interest cc last year but not all of them. We are not sure what to really do.. is a home equity better? or do we refinance? does this hurt our credit scores? whats the negative and positive sides?
We don’t have more than 10k worth of cc debit, we are just sick of paying different interest rates and want to try to save a little $$$.
I would love to hear your opinions and suggestions. 
thanks!
i forgot to add we have an 80/20 mortgage
Interesting Blogs