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Plattsburgh, NY Real Estate News

I have been working on my mothers deal slightly over a month ago (sept.18th). I thought it would be a slam dunk because she meets the requirements for MCM. We ran into issues on her REO which is for all practical purposes a vacant lot (refer to "if you work for the recorders office get it right."). The tax assessor indicated that my mothers double-wide was on a slab. I proved that it is not affixed to the property by sending a property inspector up there. He did a very nice interior exterior inspection of the property and showed that it is completely uninhabitable. I thought that was the final stip that I needed to clear. UW cleared it and I thought that I was erady to close. At last minute they told me that since I am related to the borrower that the entire loan package needs to go thr...
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By Christopher Ohlsen
(Credit Werx, LLC.)
Anyone notice that UW's are getting real strict on appraisals? I have 2 deals in process right now with appraisal issues and my manager has 3 that are being held up in UW for appraisal issues. The difficult part is that my appraisals that are being questioned are very nice appraisals. The problem with the appraisals is that there are no recent sales within 12 months let alone 6. I am being stipped for more comps on both and the same is true for my manager's appraisals.It is difficult to comp out a property when inventory in the neighborhood is just sitting on a shelf. It's a catch 22; The comparable sales do not exist because of higher risk levels associated with lending money. Less people qualify for financing which leads to less homes being sold which further leads to deals dying in m...
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By Christopher Ohlsen
(Credit Werx, LLC.)
I have been getting a ton of encouragement lately from all different sources. I reached out for help and it has rained on me since. I read a newsletter today that I subscribe to that compared loan officers marketing strategies to popcorn. It was an interesting newsletter and I understand it completely. It talked about if you do not let popcorn get to a high enough temperature the popcorn will not pop. He then went on to talk about how so many Mortgage professionals (and I guess this applies to Realtors too). Do not stick with a marketing strategy long enough to get results before they swap it out for another "new" or "exciting" technique. I can appreciate this because I have been guilty of it. When I began my career I did not have to do any marketing of my own. I worked for a company th...
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By Christopher Ohlsen
(Credit Werx, LLC.)
I am off to a great start with my marketing campaign. So far I have signed up over 20 realtors whom are taking advantage of the free promotions that I am providing. Something that I've noticed recently is that refinance applications are up. So while I have been working very hard to get my foot in the door with regard to some great referral relationships a ton of refinance applications started pooring in. This is great!!!One of the deals that was referred to me last week was a $55,000.00 6 unit (commercial) deal. Great credit but a DTI through the roof, self employed borrower. He needed 100% financing on the property to make it work. Not sure how many of you have worked with commercial, but this deal was impossible to do. He owns 2 other homes one of which is his primary. The solution wa...
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By Christopher Ohlsen
(Credit Werx, LLC.)
I just experienced something that is a first for me. I posted before about a guy I'd been working with who decided not to go with me.He sent me an email with an explanation.He explained to me that he did not want to complicate matters and that he was feeling a feeling of exaustion  in dealing with this for the past couple of weeks. He also let me know that he appreciated the fact that my offer was competitive and asked me for my permission to to come to me for future financing and to send his friends and family to me.I should also mention that what he was referring to with regard to wanting to keep it simple is that I was not the original lender that he came to for qualification. He was already approved with a couple of other lenders before coming to me. This is the guy who in one of my...
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By Christopher Ohlsen
(Credit Werx, LLC.)
I have run into an issue on My mothers deal. The issue is that I have her approved for MyCommunity Fannie Mae mortgage loan program. One of the conditions to approval for MyCommunity is that the borrower cannot already own a home.My mother does own a property but it is a 48 acre parcel of land with a double-wide that is not affixed to the property. It still has an axle and a tongue and groove. There is no foundation period. Now according to the lender that I am brokering this loan to their consumer reporting agency has indicated that a 1 story home with a basement was built and recorded on the property in 2005.My parents neighbor did build a home prior to 05' and it was finally recorded in 05'. My parents land is shaped like an L and a portion of her property is behind her neighbors bac...
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By Christopher Ohlsen
(Credit Werx, LLC.)
I have so many deals in the pipeline right now. I have read all over the web that the real estate market is tanking and that there isn't a whole lot of business anywhere. What I am finding to be true is that there is a ton of A paper to be written out there. One of the lenders that I broker loans through laid off a couple hundred UW's in anticipation of a slumping market. That lender is now on a 4 day turn time for conditions because they are an A lender and they are getting swamped with business.Subprime is not thriving but there are still quite a few creative financing solutions that work for both the people we work for (our borrowers) and for the lenders. I just started doing A paper a few months back; now after seeing what I can do with Fannie and FHA I am baffled as to why this cor...
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By Christopher Ohlsen
(Credit Werx, LLC.)
I am getting close to closing my mothers deal. All stips on my end are clear now we are just waiting for title to come back and we can get this deal wrapped up. I am so excited about this deal despite the fact that it is my smallest deal of the month. I just really can't wait to go up there with my mother for the weekend. We are closing around the 9th of Oct. and I am going with her to stay for the weekend. The place is so nice for its size, there is so much to do in the surrounding area (if you like the outdoors).I am going to bring my bike and my dog. There are over 1000 acres of hiking trails in the area so I plan on doing some serious mountain biking and hiking. I am bringing my gigantic dog with me because I know that he will love being out there in the country.My mother is very ex...
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By Christopher Ohlsen
(Credit Werx, LLC.)
I have have a client who is seeking a home loan for the purpose of aquiring a foreclosed upon property. His plan is to renovate it then either flip it or rent it. He has not decided yet. Unfortunately he was laid off just prior to getting ready to close. He is laid off every winter. This winter everyone in his area who works in a similiar capacity is being laid off early.He is also rehired every summer and has averaged around the same annual income for the past six years. I decided to get creative and contact his employer. I asked them to sign a contract of employment that I wrote myself. It did not bind them to anything that they were not already prepared to do. I submitted the contract of employment and told my borrower that I would have an answer quickly. The answer has not come so q...
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By Christopher Ohlsen
(Credit Werx, LLC.)
I am working with a gentleman who moved to NY from FL. His girlfriend is still in FL for the time being. She plans to move to NY with him once he gets his business off the ground. He used to have good credit, but something happened that was outside of his control and he lost his credit rating. His credit is now below 500. His girlfriend is going on the loan as the primary. Her cerdit rating is in the mid 700's. He called me today to ask me if I know of anyone in the area that does credit repair. Unfortunately I do not know anyone in my area who specializes in credit repair. I am very good at credit repair myself, but he is not looking for as long a process as it will take with me. I have helped many people repair their credit in order to qualify for a home loan, but it is not an overnig...
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By Christopher Ohlsen
(Credit Werx, LLC.)
This is an interesting time that we live in. There is so much uncertainty in the stability of peoples lives across our great nation. What people thought that they had built up in equity is fast disappearing, Jobs are becoming more scarce, and it takes a little more credit to get to where you want to be than it used to. Something that I believe is underestimated however is the fact that our economy is cyclic.Our economy is designed to give and take. It is designed so that when something is off kilter it makes adjustments automatically and corrects itself. Some of those corrections are not always easy to deal with. Sometimes when we are in this type of a market due to instability in our economy we as individual American's really "feel the pinch".Home loan applications are down significant...
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By Christopher Ohlsen
(Credit Werx, LLC.)
I am a residential Mortgage Advisor. I work for a local company in Plattsburgh, NY. I was gone for a while getting my career started before coming back to this great town. It is beautiful and peaceful here. I have 2 children and I think that Plattsburgh, NY is a great place to raise them.Something that I have noticed about Plattsburgh upon my return is that the commercial sector has really picked up. There are many new restaurants, stores, and office buildings going up everywhere. There is even an international airport that has been built and is being setup right now. My business right now is exclusively residential. However I have the ability to broker commercial loans via the investors that we work with here at Lake City Mortgage but I have little experience with commercial loans.Comm...
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By Christopher Ohlsen
(Credit Werx, LLC.)
I started blogging a couple of weeks ago. Its been a lot of fun once I got over the stage feeling of stage fright that I felt when I posted my first blog. It's strange that the feeling is so common with Bloggers. Now I am far from a pro-blogger, but I am certainly motivated to become a top blogger in the nation. My question however is; What does blogging do for your business. I have heard that it does amazing things. I have heard that business increases many times over when you begin to blog. I know that it increases exposure which of course will lead to more business. However even if I do not get more business from blogging I am having a beneficial experience here on AR. I have read dozens of posts so far that have shed new light and perspective on many topics that are of great importa...
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By Christopher Ohlsen
(Credit Werx, LLC.)
I have an interesting situation that I am dealing with right now. I have been working on building my referral data-base by reaching out to realtors in my local community. It has been a successful experience so far. I just got a referral yesterday from a realtor who I gave a referral last week. The referral that she sent me is a difficult one to get approved. Their is a borrower and a co-borrower. I could get them approved through Fannie's expanded approval guidelines based on their credit but they do not income qualify. The borrower said that her mom will co-sign for her. They have a 5% down payment. I did some research and I found out that Fannie Mae allows non-occupying co-borrowers up to 95% LTV on their standard products. Now I have placed a couple of phone calls with my clients par...
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By Christopher Ohlsen
(Credit Werx, LLC.)
Taxes can be a very difficult thing to measure when you are preparing a GFE or trying to explain overall closing costs to a borrower. Taxes need to be paid at time of closing. I am often asked the question "why do I have to pay for the taxes in my payment if I am paying them at closing?". Well the reason is because school taxes and property taxes are due different times of the year. Sometimes taxes are paid semi-annually instead of annually (such as Long Island, NY). When you pay the taxes at the closing table if taxes are due they are paid right away. If School tax is due on Oct.1st and Property tax is due Jan. 1st and you close Oct. 8th school taxes will be paid immediately. Now if you do not pay the full years (unless semi-annual in which case 6 months) taxes there will not be enough...
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By Christopher Ohlsen
(Credit Werx, LLC.)
Business is really begining to pick up for me. Things were slow for a little while as I re-entered this business after being gone for a little while. A lot has changed and is continuing to change but I do believe this to be an exciting time in this industry. I read someones post the other day on activerain.com that made a comment stating that "the phones are not ringing" and to pick up the phone and make a call instead of watching them and waiting for a ring. So last Friday I did pick up the phone and made several calls to realtors in the area just to introduce myself. It turns out that I have done business in the past with one of the realtors with whom I spoke on Friday. I was at another company then, but she remembered how hard I worked for my client and how hard a deal it was to be a...
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