Jim Kochakian's (jkochakian) Blog

Are you a realtor who has Bank owned property listings? If so, you are going to love this program. It is a FHA 203K streamline rehab program for owner occupied home buyers. They can finance up to $35,000 in repairs and still put only 3% down. The underwriting of the file is just like any other FH...

Enough with the bail outs. I just found out this week that the $700 Billion package passed in September is not going to be used for it's original intention. Remember how the government was supposed to buy up bad mortgages from banks to improve their balance sheets? The government was going into t...

Last week I discussed in my blog the fact that mortgage rates had moved higher in a short one week period to 6.5% with 0 points on a 30 year conforming fixed. I also predicted that rates would come back down. Well my prediction has come true. Over the past week rates have been coming back down an...

What a difference a week makes. In one week mortgage rates have gone up over a half point. From 5.875% on a 30 yr fixed with 0 points to over 6.5%. This will not help the already struggling housing market and many ask why this is happening when the Fed just lowered short term rates last week. It ...

What a difference a week makes with respect mortgages rates. In my 20 years in the mortgage business I have never seen a period like this filled with uncertainty and volatility. At the beginning of this year mortgage rates dropped significantly due to uncertaintly with the financial markets. A 30...