Mortgage Loan Notes and Links

Mortgage Loan Notes

Option ARM Loan - Loan with 4 or more payment options. 30 year fully amortized payment, 15 year fully amortized payment, interest only payment, minimum payment/pay rate payment (usually between 1% and 3% - fully amortized over 30 years). Not sure why they make the pay rate payment fully amortized, but that is something I will find out at some point.

Interest Only Loan - Principal Optional Loan -> Get bad rap because they don't pay down the principal balance on a mortgage loan. But, the question is, why would someone want to put more than 15% or 20% equity cushion into their property when they will get zero return on it? The property will appreciate or depreciate with or without that extra equity. All paying down the principal balance does is give the lender more security. Better ideas are to put the money into a savings account to have cash on hand for when it is needed and to diversify your investments.

July 10, 2007 - Lending programs have changed dramatically over the past 3 to 6 months. Sub-prime lending has scaled way back. Interest rates have risen around 0.5% on most mortgage loan products recently. It will be interesting to see what affect these things have on the housing market.

Mortgage Loan Links

San Francisco Lender who can fund conventional and private money / hard money loans on property in California. Knowledgeable and honest. They tell it how it is unlike most of the loan jockey's out there. They have a great service for holders of option arm loans called their Recast Review, which shows borrowers exactly when they will hit their negative amortization cap and their option arm loan will adjust and payments become fully amortized.

Scottsman's Guide - Good list of lenders all over the United States.

Mortgage Broker Marketing - Green Hat SEO offers local search marketing for mortgage brokers. Pretty cheap way to get leads from the internet for mortgage professionals.

Mortgage Headlines

Wachovia Sells Mortgage Servicing Unit

Mortgage servicing tends to perform best when interest rates are rising, as they have been for the past year. Higher rates extend the life of the loan portfolio. By contrast, low interest rates prompt homeowners either to refinance their mortgages or pay them off early, and that decreases the portfolios value.

US 30-, 15-year mortgage rates up in latest week

Rates on U.S. 30-year mortgages were at 6.71 percent, compared to 6.63 percent the previous week, a rate not seen since June 2002. Fifteen-year mortgages rose to an average of 6.36 percent from 6.25 percent. They were last higher in May 2002, at 6.37 percent. One-year adjustable rate mortgages also climbed to 5.75 percent from 5.66 percent, close to the 5.77 percent they reached in August 2001.

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was officially launched today, providing all consumers with valuable mortgage information, options, rates, and the latest mortgage related news all in a blog format. The growing number of mortgage options that are available today has expanded and become a little more complex for many people. Mortgage Blog Spot(TM) provides borrowers with a great deal of free information on the many types of mortgages that are available to them today, the current trends, and many ways to save them money.