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Purchase a HUD owned Home with the $100.00 Down Payment Incentive Program

During the fall of 2011, all HUD owned properties that are under the jurisdiction of the Denver and Atlanta HUD Homeownership Centers are eligible for the $100.00 down payment purchase incentive.  What this means, home buyers in Minnesota, Wisconsin and the additional states under Denver & Atlanta’s jurisdiction can purchase a HUD Owned Property with [...]

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Friends Don’t Let Friends Use Zillow, Trulia and Yahoo Real Estate to Find Homes for Sale

If you live in MN and you want to use one of these sites to find your next home, you should know that approximately 20% of the homes for sale are not being shown to you.  Because these sites are riddled with data inaccuracies, Edina Realty decided to pull their listings from these third party [...]

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FHA Seller Paid Closing Costs Reduction Announced

To much fanfare, FHA announced measures to better protect their insurance fund in a recent Final Ruling published in the Federal Register.  Slipped in as a footnote to this announcement was a declaration that FHA is deaf to the concerns of the real estate industry.  They are taking aim to again attempt to reduce the [...]

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Fannie Mae Homepath Mortgage Loans…NO Appraisal, NO MI and NO Condo Certification!

Fannie Mae HomePath Mortgage Loans… NO Appraisal, NO MI and NO Condo Certification! Looking for a fix up property… with mortgage financing readily available? You believe you are either a handy person when it comes to home fix up projects or maybe you know someone who is handy.    Shopping for foreclosed homes seems like a [...]

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The Mortgage Process Put Simply

Understanding the mortgage process is a constant frustration for consumers. One can search the web and find all kinds of long articles breaking the mortgage loan process into anywhere between 6 and 9 individual steps. Upon reading these, a consumer gets even more confused since each individual step is confusing in and of itself. Unfortunately, [...]

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Do I Need to be Late My Mortgage to Qualify for a Short Sale? – Don’t Take Yes for an Answer

I have a lot of people call me to get pre-qualified to purchase a home using FHA financing after a short sale. Early on, not a lot of these scenarios panned out but these days, more and more of them do. When they don’t, the number one reason is because they took bad advice from [...]

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Twin Cities Off-Leash Dog Parks – My Dog Blog

If you’re a dog lover like I am, you don’t consider a move without contemplating neighborhood amenities for your dog. In my considerations for a move recently, I had a bit of a time trying to locate most of the off-leash dog parks in the twin cities metro area.  After collecting some information I’d thought [...]

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Criteria NEEDED by all Loan Originators to quote you a rate.

The lending environment has changed.  I’m sure we’ve all heard this on the radio and TV for years now… right? We also know that the Government wants to make “mortgage rates” a commodity and make it EASY to shop for.  But the problem arises when someone calls up and says “whats your rate?” and truly expects to [...]

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How Often Do Seller’s Pay Closing Costs? . . . . . Never.

The role of closing costs in a purchase agreement can be confusing both for buyers and sellers. In the present market, it is customary for there to be sales concessions. A real estate sales concession can be many things including but not limited to price, repairs and yes, . . closing costs. Asking the seller [...]

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Buying After a Short Sale is an Excellent Mortgage Credit Risk

While lenders will admit that it’s technically possible to provide mortgages to homebuyers who recently had a short sale without a waiting period, most lenders are not offering this product. Because of the complexities of the process involved with closing these loans that creates perceived risk, most lenders elect not to do them and fail [...]

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Did HVCC Expire Completely? – Nope, it Still Lives On – Fannie Mae’s Appraisal Policy Broken Down

Breaking Down Fannie Mae’s Appraisal Rules Have you heard of the Home Valuation Code of Conduct (HVCC)?  If you are a lender or Realtor, of course you have.  What I wanted to do with this post is breakdown Fannie Mae’s policy now that HVCC has expired.  Basically the Code lives on and has been slightly [...]

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Should I Stay or Should I Go Now?

Should I Stay or Should I Go Now? The million dollar question, should I stay, and continue renting, or should I go, and become a homeowner?    Sometimes, I think first time homebuyers are looking at this question as a million dollar question, and really, it is not. Are we at the bottom of the declining [...]

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Seller Contributions Towards Closing Costs on a Home Purchase

Doesn’t the Seller Pay for All of Our Closing Costs? We all have to remind buyers that they are responsible to pay the required down payment percentage (3.5% for FHA or 3-10% etc for Conventional) AND their closing costs/pre-paids too.  Even if you stipulate that the sellers contribute towards “closing costs and pre-paids” in the [...]

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The Mortgage Loan Process – From Shopping to Closing

It’s not hard to search and find bland descriptions of the mortgage process that paints in broad strokes. For the more information hungry home buyer, I’ve tried to collect snippets of audio and video that go into greater depth on this topic covering everything from shopping for your home loan to closing on your new [...]

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What’s the Difference Between an Appraisal and an Inspection?

A home inspection is a limited, non-invasive examination of the condition of a home, often in connection with the sale of that home. An inspector will check the roof, basement, heating system, water heater, air-conditioning system, structure, plumbing, electrical, and many other aspects of buildings looking for improper building practices, those items that require extensive [...]

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Can I Buy a Home While I’m Getting Divorced in Minnesota?

It has been widely and wrongly asserted that someone who is getting divorced in Minnesota cannot purchase a home prior to finalizing a divorce decree and at the same time prevent their soon to be ex-spouse from being entitled to marital property rights in the newly purchased home. This used to be a serious problem [...]

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What are Compensating Factors When Qualifying for a Mortgage?

Although we wouldn’t know it from watching the six o’clock news, mortgage underwriting guidelines and mortgage insurance underwriting guidelines have been in a pattern of loosening, not tightening. This trend started in late 2009 and continues today with such examples as lower minimum credit scores for mortgage underwriting guidelines and fewer declining markets for mortgage [...]

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Home Buyer Search Tool Tour

Try It In Full Screen Mode by Clicking on the Button in the Lower Right Charles Dailey – iLoan – NMLS ID# 79048 – CA DOC, MN DOC & WI DFI – 612.234.7283 The Home Buyers Scouting Report® is provided directly to the buyer by HBM II, a licensed national real estate brokerage service company, [...]

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What are “extenuating circumstances”?

Many people trying to buy a home after a short sale find it difficult to navigate through loan programs that they may be eligible for and various waiting periods that may be applicable.  If late payments occur, most people are told that the waiting period for buying a home after a short sale is 3 [...]

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Contract for Deed (CFD) – Preparing for a Real Mortgage –

I’m going to explore with you some ideas on how to structure a contract for deed when buying a home so that when it comes times to ditch the CFD and refinance into a regular mortgage you can choose your path.  First thing you should consider is an attorney to assist in writing up the [...]

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Mortgages for Saint Paul, Minnesota Community Land Trusts (CLT) Housing

Community land trusts are created to preserve long-term affordable housing by purchasing homes in their communities, then leasing the land using a long-term ground lease to low-income and moderate-income families at affordable monthly ground rents. Community Land Trusts (CLT) have had a foothold in the Twin Cities for decades. More broadly, the leasehold form of [...]

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Buying a Home on a Lease with Option to Purchase – Rent to Own

Since the housing crash and great recession, there have been swelling ranks of people that have had credit damaged but have increased their savings and reduced their consumer debt. Many of these people, in a reasonable timeframe will qualify for conventional, VA, FHA, or Rural Development loans but at this time, do not. For those [...]

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If You Are Not Doing a 90 Day Burn Now, When Are You Going to Start?

If you are not doing a 90 day burn now, when are you going to start? Ok, we can all stand around the water cooler and compare our successes and frustrations with our current real estate market, and sometimes that is a great way to get and share ideas.  However, if you are finding yourself [...]

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HOME BUYERS: GET A REALTOR, PLEEEEZ! A Loan Officer Rant

The MN Mortgage Mom is on a rant. I’m a little crazy right now. ATTENTION BUYERS! Long gone are the days of easy real estate, no doc financing and everything in between. Let me direct your attention to “today’s world”: Short sales, foreclosures, banks and asset managers…are you really equipped to deal with these realities? [...]

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10 Home Renovations That Don’t Necessarily Add Value

Some people assume that all renovations done to the home will add value.   As a matter of fact most people spend thousands of dollars on expensive upgrades and renovations over a period of time. What these people forget is that the next owner may not like the renovations.  Everybody needs to remember that your home [...]

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Two Thirds of Minnesotans Will be Affected by Flooding in 2011 – Act Now!

If homeowners don’t act in ways not common in the past, many will stand to lose a fortune due to flooding in Minnesota in 2011.  It’s likely that sandbagging won’t do it this time and we need to start thinking about flood insurance and in some cases act quickly on flood insurance.  According to expert [...]

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Do’s and Don’ts with Credit During the Home Buying Process

When buying your next home, changes to your credit (additional accounts, closing accounts, fluctuating credit card balances) can result in the lowering of your credit score. If your credit score changes, that can affect your interest rate and even the loan approval itself. Therefore, it is imperative that there are no major changes to your [...]

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The Importance of an Updated Comparative Market Analysis (CMA) to Your Pre-Approval

When one is selling their home and subsequently buying another, it doesn’t necessarily come quickly to mind that it takes more than online home value calculators to provide an estimate of what you’ll make on the sale of your home. Even the online seller’s net sheet calculators can only provide an estimate of what your [...]

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Minnesota Home Prices Headed for a Double Dip? – Don’t Believe the Hype

If you’ve been watching the evening news or reading what’s been coming off the press, you might be thinking that the sky is about to fall on Minnesota home prices. You’ll hear a lot of doom and gloom and a lot about the S&P/Case-Shiller Home Price Indices. I assure you that the media will not [...]

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Does Your Loan Officer Wear Lime Green Polka Dotted Underwear?

Okay, perhaps that’s a little TOO much information!  Perhaps you really don’t need to know what splash of color your loan officer is bestowing on his or her bloomers on any given day. But what you SHOULD know is who your loan officer IS. Let’s see….scum bucket, slime ball, scammer, fraud frog…any of these ring [...]

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