Back in the old, pre-financial market meltdown days, mortgages used to be among those products which benefited from these kinds of flight-to-quality moves. Today’s new securities, of course, have market and interest rate risks, but are built from mortgages comprised of much better borrower stock than those of a couple of years ago. This being [...]

Maximize Your Financial Future Financial Planning Crisis To any conscientious financial planner or mortgage consultant, the numbers are distressing. The federal government is so concerned that it has revamped provisions of the U.S. tax code at least three times in recent years in an effort to reverse the trend. Recent studies have shown that most [...]

In the last several years, significant changes have impacted financing for residential real estate. The issue I would like to bring to your attention today could impact the property value that will be used to underwrite your loan. The Home Valuation Code of Conduct (HVCC), effective May 1, 2009, governs the way in which appraisals [...]

S&P/Case-Shiller Home-Price Index Increased 0.6% from February 2009, the first gain since December 2006. Home prices in February were 30% below the peak reached in July 2006, indicating the industry that helped trigger the worst recession since the 1930s will take years to recover lost ground. The year-over-year gauges therefore provide better indications of trends [...]