Marc Brinitzer's (merlin) Blog

The benchmark 30 year fixed rate rose slightly to 6.00% with 1 point. Behind the Changes It’s been an active week in the bond market, with a number of significant economic reports.  All pointed toward a stronger economy, eroding hope for a Fed Rate cut this Spring.  The closely watched 10 year N...

Mortgage fraud is no longer the playground of two bit, school yard con artists.  The pros are in the game  If he were here today, Vito Corleone might have found it irresistible.   I find it frightening.  Apparently, there was an FBI conference in Las Vegas on the subject in December. I ran into ...

Rachel Dollar is Santa Rosa attorney and Certified Mortgage Banker who handles fraud recovery and litigation for lenders and capital market investors.   She is current President of the Sonoma County Bar and in 2005 was voted one of the 100 most influential people in real estate. However, she is ...

Okay, in our effort to create affordable payments, we laid a foundation with the 15 and 30 year fixed rate loans in Part I.  We stretched the repayment term out to 40 and 50 year loans in Part II, and then looked at shorter term intermediate arms—the 3/1, 5/1 and 7/1–-in Part III.  In Part IV, w...

You may have seen Bob Shallit’s recent Sacramento Bee article highlighting Sacramento Area Flippers in Trouble.  This is a local real estate blog that lists 470 area homes purchased in the last two years and now relisted at prices much lower than those paid.   I’m familiar with this blog, so Sha...

This just out from Mark Zandi of Moody’s Economy.com. I said the same thing in my post of November 30th October New Home Sales. Inventory levels are distorted by the HUD and the Census Bureau’s methodology, overstating the decline in housing inventory. The real estate hangover ain’t over yet fol...

It’s just a gut feeling.  You may not see it yet in the numbers, but industry partners agree.  Real estate activity in the Sacramento region is picking up, and at the most curious time. Normally, sales are slow through the holidays.  We expect that.  And the weather often discourages serious home...

A Rising Tide Lifts All Boats That was certainly true of the appreciation that carried real estate values high up the beach in the first half of this decade.  However, the tide has since rolled out, exposing the rocks and broken glass on the beach and leaving many a boat on its side in the sand. ...

In Part II of the Creating Affordable Payments series, we looked at 40 and 50 year loans to see if the advertising claims about lower were true, and we found that these loans do not really help, and the overall interest cost is much higher.   In Part III , we looked at Intermediate ARMs to see if...

How many pre-approved credit card offers do you get in the mail each day? Ever wonder how all those companies got your information? Do you worry about identity theft or what effect this might have on your credit scores? You should. My personal identity theft story Some years ago when I sold my fi...