California Mortgage Blog

How to Buy a House With an Affordable Mortgage  Mama mia!  If I've said it once, I'll say it a thousand times:  You don't need to be a poor boy from a poor family in order to get an affordable mortgage!  Yes, you do need to be a first-time homebuyer.  Yes, your income needs to fall below the AMI ...

How to Buy a House When You Have Bad Credit  It can be a real jungle out there if you're trying to buy a home and get a mortgage, especially when you have bad credit.  But if you've got an appetite for instruction, I'm going to show you the ways you can overcome the stress, intimidation and fear ...

How to Get Rid of PMI on Your Mortgage  Want to drop your private mortgage insurance (PMI) payments like a pair of cheap sunglasses?  Don't know where to start?  Look, when interest rates were moving lower and property values were moving higher, the headache of canceling PMI took a back seat. And...

Does Shopping for a Mortgage Hurt Your Credit?  Everybody who makes the leap into buying a home, especially first-time homebuyers, and even those who already own a home and are looking to improve their mortgage must eventually confront the pre-approval process.  That means a mortgage application ...

How to Rock the 2023 FHA Loan Limits!!!  I ain't foolin'! Even though it seems like there's been nothin' but a whole lotta interest rate hikes in 2022, thankfully FHA borrowers, including first-time homebuyers, will see an increase to the FHA loan limit in 2023. This means that where the one-unit...

How (NOT) to Destroy Your Mortgage Approval!!!  Ever wondered about the most common (as well as lesser known) ways mortgage borrowers sabotage their own loan process?  Do they dispute credit items and try to fix their FICO scores? Do they change jobs without telling their lender or broker? Do the...

How to Rock the 2023 Conforming Loan Limits!!!  I ain't foolin'! Even though there's been a whole lotta interest rate hikes in 2022.  And even though there's been a whole lotta rumbling about home values declining in some areas, the FHFA will again be increasing the conforming loan limits into 20...

The 10 American Indian Commandments  This Thanksgiving weekend, while we enjoyed time with family, gave thanks for our great fortune as Americans and even let our 4th grader relay to us what he'd learned about the origin of the holiday itself, I did also manage to find a few minutes to do some ho...

How to Rock an Interest Rate Buydown!!!  R U gonna let the interest rate elevator bring you down? Look --- it's a tough real estate environment right now.  Sellers and builders still would die 4 to get the list price and buyers would laugh in the Purple Rain to keep their rate and payment as low ...

How to Rock a Low House Appraisal Value!!!  You found the perfect home... And the seller accepted your offer... And your mortgage application is underway... Until your appraisal comes in low.  What now??? Never mind all the bad advice that swirls around this dilemma.  There are a handful of effec...