Jerry Thomas's (constructionloan) Blog

  I’ve been doing residential construction loan lending for over 30 years now. Until the last few years I rarely had a builder that insisted on a Cost Plus contract. Now I see them frequently and it’s a problem.   A Cost Plus contract is different from a Fixed Price contract. It’s more of an empl...

Building a home is a major undertaking. There are many costs and issues that people often overlook during the process. Here are some key ones to be aware of: Underestimating the Budget: One of the most common mistakes is not accurately estimating the total cost of building the home. You need to s...

Land equity refers to the value of the land you already own outright, the money you previously put down on the purchase of the land and/or the appreciation of the land since you purchased it. Land equity can be used in lieu of a cash down payment and may also allow you to roll in your closing cos...

I’ve been lucky enough to be a Mortgage Loan Officer for 30 years now. While I’m happy to have any business that comes my way, I’ve specialized in construction lending almost from the beginning of my career. As we came out of the housing crisis in 2010, the options for construction lending had sh...

I just read a nice blog posting about how to deal with appraisal issues. That is, a low appraisal and the options that the buyer and seller have. I'd like to speak about how to avoid the issue or, at the least, how to set the proper expectations with the buyer and seller.First, understand what an...

To follow up my posts about the role of the Loan Officer and Underwriter I'd like to offer this post about the role of the appraiser. The appraiser's job is to give a profession option of the value of a property, working within the parameters given to them by lender funding the loan.The process s...

As a follow up to my blog on the role of the loan officer I'd like to say a few words about the role of an underwriter. First, understand that there are two underwriters, the automated one and the human one. All conventional and government loan files are first submitted through a software package...

I was inspired to write this blog by a recent question on this site, "What is your role in the loan process". I'm the loan officer, the middleman, plan and simple.On one side of my business I have my clients that need money to buy, build or refinance their home. On the other side are the lenders ...

https://www.annualcreditreport.com. It's the site Experian, Equifax and TransUnion had to set up so we can all run one totally free credit report per year.If you're working with a buyer that is at all concerned that they might have a credit issue, have them run their own report there. Don't let t...

Update-As I write this, current interest rates are up significantly. This makes this blog even more important than what it was back in 2018. With mortgage interest rates on the rise it's becoming very important for every Realtor to understand the potential benefits of assuming the seller's curren...