Rich Sweum's Blog

And people wonder how we got in this mess! Then:  DTI's that are a smidge over 50% on 2nds.Now:  LTV's that are a smidge over 50% on 2nds. Then:  $850k Purchase, zero down, 80/20, Option ARM on the 1st, qualify at minimum payment, stated income "Agricultural Harvest Engineer" (AKA...fruit picker)...

Client called me today, there were late by 24 hours due to a vacation in paying on their $10k balance on their $70k National City Heloc, they got a letter from NC telling them that their line limit has been reduced to the amount of the balance and it has been converted to a 10 year full am loan.I...

I was in full time ministry for a number of years and I was thinking this morning on my way to work, "What if the Gospel was as fluid as the lending industry?"...Scripture change notifications....mid-day "grace" notifications....mergers (heaven forbid)...implosions...(churches that are failing).....

Ok, this latest Federal Reserve action gets a little(understatement) complex, but to make it really, really simple, imagine you are at summer camp and you have a relay race.  Everybody has a spoon and has to try to empty the bucket of water using their spoon into an empty bucket back at their lin...

The good news...FHA Down Payment Assistance Program still makes 100% financing possible!The other news...MGIC will stop issuing coverage for 100% coverage on My Community, Flex 100 and Freddie's 100% Home Possible programs at the end of March.Say goodbye to 64% back end ratio zero down financing....

Thornburg mortgage will likely vapoo-rize in the next 2 weeks.  Sad.  Real people, real jobs, real pensions.  Their underwriting was well respected, tight and well thought out guidelines for a great deal of their jumbo product offerings.  They can't meet their margin call obligations and if they ...

60% of all jumbos originated in the last 3 years were stated income.  It helps that the new limit is full-doc only.40% of all jumbos originated in the last 3 years were interest only and borrowers only had to qualify at the interest only payment (including pay option arms).40% (estimated) have no...

3 high level lender execs have all alluded to the fact that bond investors have all but stopped buying securitized conforming ARMS.  Did you see what happened to rates today......this is flat out crazy, we could be seeing some "unprecedented" market and government activity in the next 4 trading d...

Seattle, Bellevue, Everett Area:  New FHA loan limits (not Fannie/Freddie, that will come later this month).  This is great news, we have been doing scads of FHA business in the past 5 months, and this will help to get even more buyers and potential refinancers into "action mode!"   The new "conf...

Wholesale used to be .375% better in price than correspondent, and about .625% to .75% better in price than retail rates...what happened?  Now, they are often times worse than correspondent rates or equal to some retail rates.No buy back warranty; poorer performance than retail and correspondent ...