Articles

The most dreaded part of applying for a mortgage is all the paperwork. Mortgage documentation requirements are more stringent than ever and every “T” must be crossed and every “I” dotted. Fortunately, at this point, there is no truth to the rumor that you and your pet’s blood type are required to get a home mortgage. Low doc and no doc loans no longer exist. If you can not prove your income, assets, etc you will not get a loan.

A competent mortgage originator will look at your individual situation and see if he can minimize the pain. An example would be a salaried borrower with one job. In this case, W-2’s would probably be sufficient and the borrower would not need to furnish tax returns. Make sure the information is legible and complete. When a bank statement is requested, it means the complete bank statement and not just the front page.

Your mortgage originator does not need a history lesson on how things were done when you applied for a loan five years ago. While your friends mean well, if they have never been in the mortgage industry, they are confusing you and wasting everyone’s time. I had a client who had some unusual, and unworkable, ideas about a purchase mortgage.   I tactfully asked where these ideas were coming from. She said she had a friend who was in the oil industry – they worked at a gas station – but “spent a lot of time on the web”!

If you will be out of town, let the loan officer know as soon as possible. The mortgage industry has not embraced electronic signatures. While you may be able to have documents faxed or emailed to you when you are gone, the printing costs may be frightening. With loan packages running over 30 pages, and hotels charging $2.00/page to receive or send a fax, do you really want to spend $120 because you did not plan?

Help your lender help you. Your lender should be committed to providing the best service possible to make the process as fast and painless as possible. Remember that mortgage originators hate to bother clients but need the information to close the loan.   The sooner you provide the information, the sooner you can close. And look forward to something pleasant, like a root canal.

Chip Allen

Crestline Mortgage Bankers

A Division of Universal Lending Corp

Direct: 303.947.2109

Fax: 303.987.0676

Loanchip@hotmail.com

Your Lender for Life!

When people you care about need a mortgage,

for purchase or refinance, please do not keep me a secret.

I have often talked about the battle between buyers and sellers in today’s real estate market and I don’t want to badger the point any further, but I think that the problem has now spread to the realtors.  I think today’s realtor gets up every morning and puts on their proverbial fatigues and helmet then heads out the door to what to do what he or she perceives to be “going to war.”

Today’s realtors are stressed out more than ever. The pressure to sell homes, sell them quickly, and sell them in a “not so hot market” has never been greater. Talking with agent after agent each day, I have concluded that they are getting sucked in the toxic dance that has been happening with buyers and sellers. I have a short story that illustrates this point well.

I called an agent inquiring about putting an offer in on behalf of my buyers on his listing. On the phone he was charming, helpful, eager, and it sounded like it would be pleasant to do a transaction with him. We put the home under contract with his sellers and my buyers and the agent went from Dr. Jekyll to Mr. Hyde. During the subsequent weeks while we were going through inspection, appraisal, and amendments he was defensive, uncooperative, and combative to say the least. I got to thinking why? Why are more and more agents finding it so hard to get along? Don’t get me wrong, it’s ok for an agent to be a hard negotiating advocate for his or her clients, but this isn’t war. The only explanation I could come up with is, “it comes from the top down.”  We clearly have a trickledown effect from the sellers to agents, buyers to agents, and brokerage firms to agents. The mood of the country is essentially setting the mood of all parties involved.

Back to the story: We ended up closing deal and the buyers got the home they wanted, but it wasn’t remotely smooth. It caused a lot of unnecessary trouble and stress for my buyers and all because the listing agent had a mindset of “who wins, who loses, and who gets their way.” It could have all been avoided.

What’s the moral to the story? It’s three-fold: 1) The economy has put a lot of people in a bad mood, but as agents, buyers, and sellers we need to find a way to rise above that. 2) Buyers and sellers need to understand that in most cases agents want to do a great job for them. Beating them up (figuratively) is not going to help. 3) The story above just underscores how valuable a truly good agent can be. It can make all the difference between a smooth and pleasant transaction and one that is a Nightmare on Elm Street.

Dan Polimino is a Realtor with Fuller Sotheby’s International Realty. He can be reached at DPolimino@fullerproperties.com and www.coloradodreamhouse.com/denverpost

http://www.coloradodreamhouse.com/index.php/news/ Two things stop more people buying from purchasing a home more than anything else…down payment and credit score. In this week’s market update Dan Polimino tells us that there is help for people who need down payment assistance and how anyone can easily clean up their credit. To find how you can get money to buy a home or how to clean up your credit watch this week’s market update with Fuller Sotheby’s International Realty agent Dan Polimino.