Finding a Mortgage Is Getting Tougher
The news is all over the place–from my lenders I get daily updates with program changes, rate changes and borrower criteria changes. Then I also hear– “bring us the mortgages anyway–we’ll get creative”.  I’ll be honest with you–it is not as easy to get a loan as it used to be in recent years. So — OK — they’re more realistic now, and we won’t find ourselves two years later with an outlandish payment we can’t afford.Â
This blurb came to me from Realtor Magazine:Â
Borrowers with good credit but without 5 or 10 percent to put down are likely to be shocked at the rate they’re offered, if they’re offered a mortgage at all.
Lenders are eliminating certain products altogether as well as requiring higher credit scores and down payments, more extensive appraisals, larger savings accounts, and additional income verification.
To Washington state appraiser Bill Hanson, the shift is dramatic. He says lenders are “asking for unrelated information, such as permit numbers for remodeling work,” he says. “Before they would ask: ‘Is the home still there and does the roof leak?’”
“We thought the dust was going to settle, but instead, it just blew up,” says Mitchell Reiner, president of Mortgage Associates, a Los Angeles-based lender that does business in 48 states. “Everyone is being affected.”
Source: The Wall Street Journal, Jonathan Karp (08/14/2007)