While the title says that FHA is the main loan program in Connecticut, the truth is that FHA is probably the main Loan Program in many other states as well.  With all of the changes that have happened in the last year to Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, PMI Companies, and changes in Appraisal Guidelines, have made FHA is a very attractive Loan Product right now. In the past year we have seen Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae incorporate several point adjustments into the pricing of loans that are backed by them.  There are hits for points if the FICO Score is under 740, further hits if the LTV is over 80%, and the price adjustments for Condo's, Multi Family, and Investment Properties are through the roof.  In some cases the price adjustments make it impossible for Lenders to be able to do a loan. On t... 06/23/2009

One of the great faults that many people in sales have is thinking that they know better than their clients.  They feel that their knowledge of the product that they are selling somehow entitles them to the freedom of making decisions for those who are the ones who are spending the money.  Having this feeling or attitude creates many unnecessary problems.  Having this feeling or attitude leads the sales person to somehow think that they have the right to decide what their clients should purchase, and how much they should purchase.  After all they are the experts on the product and they know best. When I first got into sales, selling Life Insurance in a small territory where you went into the houses of those who had insurance policy's with me, and collected the premium on a weekly or mon... 06/22/2009

  ****************************************************************************************************************** Info about the author: George Souto is a Loan Officer who can assist you with all your FHA, CHFA, and Conventional mortgage needs in Connecticut. George resides in Middlesex County which includes Middletown, Middlefield, Durham, Cromwell, Portland, Higganum, Haddam, East Haddam, Chester, Deep River, and Essex. George can be contacted at (860) 573-1308 or gsouto@mccuemortgage.com   06/21/2009

  ****************************************************************************************************************** Info about the author: George Souto is a Loan Officer who can assist you with all your FHA, CHFA, and Conventional mortgage needs in Connecticut. George resides in Middlesex County which includes Middletown, Middlefield, Durham, Cromwell, Portland, Higganum, Haddam, East Haddam, Chester, Deep River, and Essex. George can be contacted at (860) 573-1308 or gsouto@mccuemortgage.com 06/20/2009

Lately more and more of my Borrowers having been calling me, because they have been receiving offers in the mail that make it seem like they were sent by us.  These offer covered a number of areas, from refinancing, loan modification, bi-weekly payments, lower interest rates as well as others. These offers are not sent on McCue Mortgage Letterhead, but will mention McCue Mortgage very early in the letter, and are worded in a way to make the Borrower think the letter was sent from us.  This is a very sneaky way of trying to get the Borrower to call the phone number that is provided on the letter, thinking that they are contacting us. This is unfortunate and is in my opinion a total misuse of the public information that these people are unfortunately able to obtain once a loan is closed, ... 06/19/2009

  ****************************************************************************************************************** Info about the author: George Souto is a Loan Officer who can assist you with all your FHA, CHFA, and Conventional mortgage needs in Connecticut. George resides in Middlesex County which includes Middletown, Middlefield, Durham, Cromwell, Portland, Higganum, Haddam, East Haddam, Chester, Deep River, and Essex. George can be contacted at (860) 573-1308 or gsouto@mccuemortgage.com 06/17/2009

Well so much for my blog yesterday about not having seen any change to the Underwriting Guidelines lately. This morning my office made me aware of FHA's latest Mortgagee Letter 2009-19 that was issued on June 12th.  In this latest Mortgagee Letter FHA is announcing MAJOR change to their Condo Approval Process. "In accordance with the passage of the Housing and Economic Recovery Act (HERA) of 2008, the Federal Housing Administration (FHA) is implementing a new approval process for Condominium Projects to insure mortgages on individual units under Section 203(b) of the National Housing Act. FHA will now allow lenders to determine project eligibility, review project documentation, and certify to compliance of Section 203(b) of the NHA and 24 CFR 203 of HUD’s regulations. HUD will continue ... 06/16/2009

Looks like things have calmed down a bit, and hopefully Buyers will take advantage of this before the next storm hits. Over the last two to three weeks we have been seeing a lot of volatility in the market and as a result we saw a major upward movement in the interest rates. Prior to that it was changes to the Underwriting Guidelines for many of the Loan Programs, especially Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.  FHA saw some change as well in particularly to effort that were made to make the $8,000 Tax Credit available prior to Closing. The end of last week and so far the beginning of this week we are seeing things calm down a bit.  We have not seen any major changes to the Underwriting Guidelines for a few weeks now, and interest rates opened up lower today, and hopefully have reached a happy m... 06/15/2009

  ****************************************************************************************************************** Info about the author: George Souto is a Loan Officer who can assist you with all your FHA, CHFA, and Conventional mortgage needs in Connecticut. George resides in Middlesex County which includes Middletown, Middlefield, Durham, Cromwell, Portland, Higganum, Haddam, East Haddam, Chester, Deep River, and Essex. George can be contacted at (860) 573-1308 or gsouto@mccuemortgage.com 06/14/2009

As many of you know from some of my older blogs I love sports, especially baseball.  I am also a huge Yankee Fan, and have been so since I was 8 years old. One of the great things about living in New England for those of us who love sports is the great rivalry amongst our sport teams and fans.  Among these rivalries the biggest ones are between Boston and New York Fans.  We have the rivalries between the Celtics and Knicks, Bruins and Ranger, Patriots and Jets, and the biggest one of all Red Sox and Yankees. This past week was not a good time for those like me that are Yankee Fans.  Our boys in pin strips lost the 8th straight game to the Red Sox on Thursday.  The worst part is that it will be about two months before they play each other again so we get to listen to the Red Sox Fans rub... 06/13/2009

It was all over the news yesterday and on the news again today, it was even one of the lead stories on Yahoo Tech News this morning, Analog TV is now a part of history.  After months and months of announcements, warnings, and delays, it is still expected that more than 1 million households will be without TV service, because they did not convert over to digital. The analog signal has been around for about 60 years, t is what most of us grew up with.  I still remember watching TV on a little black and white screen, and we were lucky if we could pull in more than two stations.  Today we have been spoiled by a multitude of TV stations (even with just analog), but when those million or so households turn on their TV today and there is no signal it will be as if the world has come to an end.... 06/12/2009

  ****************************************************************************************************************** Info about the author: George Souto is a Loan Officer who can assist you with all your FHA, CHFA, and Conventional mortgage needs in Connecticut. George resides in Middlesex County which includes Middletown, Middlefield, Durham, Cromwell, Portland, Higganum, Haddam, East Haddam, Chester, Deep River, and Essex. George can be contacted at (860) 573-1308 or gsouto@mccuemortgage.com 06/10/2009

 THIRD CONGREGATIONAL CHURCH 94 MINER STREET MIDDLETOWN, CT  06457 Strawberry Shortcake Festival Thursday, June 11th from 11:30am to 4:00pm   The Third Congregational Church on 94 Miner Street in Middletown, CT is holding its annual Strawberry Shortcake Festival, tomorrow, Thursday, June 11th from 11:30am to 4:00pm. This festival has been going on for over 120 years.. yes, you heard me correctly 120 years.  People in the area look forward to this event every year.  The strawberries are native to the area and picked fresh.  Now picture this on top of a homemade biscuit, and REAL HOMEMADE WHIPPED CREAM.  My mouth is salvating already. If you haven't been by, tomorrow is your opportunity to partake.. and I bet you'll be hooked for next year.  I'm thinking of going twice once around noon an... 06/10/2009

It should not came as any surprise to those of us in the Real Estate Business, that the interest rates have been climbing for almost two weeks now.  Even though they went down slightly today, the feeling seems to be that they might go up some more.  Of course one person's guess is as good as another when it comes to interest rates.  If anyone could predict them accurately, they could retire in a very short period of time. We can look at the increase in interest rates negatively or we can look at them positively.  The first and natural reactions is to react negatively, and expect business to slow down because of the increase in interest rates.  But in my opinion I think that it should actually increase sales, especially when it comes to those Buyers that were waiting around for the inter... 06/09/2009

Last week I Posted a blog about what a great day last Sunday was for Open Houses "Great Day For Open Houses".  The weather was perfect and the Buyers were out, I even got to do a Pre-Appoval for one of the Buyers. Well as good as last Sunday was, this Sunday was even better. We were having our Annual Church Picnic right after Church, but there were two Realtors that I wanted to talk to, and they were both doing Open Houses.  So I stopped by their Open House, and each of them had Buyers at them.  Now this is not unusual, but to only stop at two Open Houses, and walk away with two Borrowers who need to be Pre-Approved is. I have already Pre-Approved one of them, and the other will be calling me in the middle of the week.  To get good qualified Borrowers two weeks in a row is very unusual.... 06/08/2009

  ****************************************************************************************************************** Info about the author: George Souto is a Loan Officer who can assist you with all your FHA, CHFA, and Conventional mortgage needs in Connecticut. George resides in Middlesex County which includes Middletown, Middlefield, Durham, Cromwell, Portland, Higganum, Haddam, East Haddam, Chester, Deep River, and Essex. George can be contacted at (860) 573-1308 or gsouto@mccuemortgage.com 06/07/2009

This morning Kim Neilson our Executive Vice President at McCue Mortgage sent out an e-mail to all our Loan Originators explaining why we have been experiencing an increase in the mortgage interest rates over the last week. For those of you who have not heard, last Wednesday the mortgage rate increased significantly, and have continued to slightly increase since then. In her e-mail Kim announced that the mortgage market had opened down again today because of news that Job loss claims came in @ 345,000 versus the prediction of 520,000.  She also stated that even though unemployment rate is at a 26-year high of 9.4%, many economists are hopeful that January's job losses were the peak since the last 3 months have shown signs of improvement for jobless claims. Another interesting fact that s... 06/05/2009

    ****************************************************************************************************************** Info about the author: George Souto is a Loan Officer who can assist you with all your FHA, CHFA, and Conventional mortgage needs in Connecticut. George resides in Middlesex County which includes Middletown, Middlefield, Durham, Cromwell, Portland, Higganum, Haddam, East Haddam, Chester, Deep River, and Essex. George can be contacted at (860) 573-1308 or gsouto@mccuemortgage.com 06/03/2009

A couple of years ago we at McCue Mortgage started offering what we call a Mortgage Inspection. In the Real Estate Industry, we don't think twice about recommending to a Buyer that they should have a Home Inspection done.  So why not also  suggest a Mortgage Inspection to make sure that they are truly qualified for the amount that they have been told. The Buyer does not have to the loan with the Loan Officer who does the Mortgage Inspection, but just like with the Home Inspection it can provide peace of mine for everyone during the home search process, especially if the Pre-Approval letter that they have is from a Lender that the Realtor does not know.  Time is too valuable to waste, so why take a chance on a Pre-Approval Letter that you have doubts about. It only takes a few minutes fo... 06/02/2009

Today was a perfect day for Open Houses, the weather was perfect, and the Buyers were out.  I stopped by four Open Houses and all were busy except one, because of the type of property. The Buyers that I saw at the Open Houses were mainly First Time Homebuyers, and all of them excited about the possibility of purchasing their first property.  Each of them had a lot of questions for the Realtors that were holding the Open Houses. It is unusual for me to pick up a new Borrower when I stop an Open Houses, but today was the exception.  I stop by an Open House that I gave a Pre-Approval Letter to the Realtor for one of her Buyers yesterday.  When I stopped by she filled me in on how the offer was going, and while we were talking a young couple came in.  The Realtor introduced me to them, and ... 05/31/2009