Conditions in the Canadian housing market remain "favorable," with overall prices rising and few signs of excess supply, Sheryl Kennedy, deputy governor of the Bank of Canada, said in a speech on Monday.
"The moderation in activity and price increases that we have seen in recent months is both expected and welcome," Kennedy told an investment industry conference in Banff, Alberta.
House prices play a big role in the nation's economy, she said: they can directly affect inflation, consumption, and decision-making in "the real economy" if a bubble inflates or pops.
Policy makers at the Bank of Canada consider those implications when setting interest rates, Kennedy said.
The central bank surprised financial market watchers earlier this month when it refrained from cutting interest rates, citing a higher risk of inflation from rising energy prices.
A major, widespread reversal in house prices is "unlikely" in the near term because the proportion of unoccupied, newly built dwellings in most Canadian cities is below historical average, Kennedy said.
The recent deceleration in house prices has been most noticeable in certain markets, such as the energy-rich province of Alberta, which had racked up "very steep" price increases in the past two years, she said.
Earlier this month, Statistics Canada said the annual rise in new housing prices slowed to 5.2 percent, its weakest pace since September 2005, as prices in the Western Canadian cities of Edmonton and Calgary slowed.
A declining trend in building permits also suggests that supply is adjusting to softening demand, while "the Canadian mortgage market is in reasonably good shape," Kennedy said.
Although the Canadian housing market is not showing signs of excess supply, current problems in the U.S. housing market and lessons from previous boom-and-bust cycles mean that policy makers cannot become complacent, she noted.
In the short term, new house construction and resale listings can be slow to adjust to market changes in demand, "and therefore significant price changes can occur," Kennedy warned.
The deputy governor talked about Canada's "more conservative mortgage culture," but urged domestic lenders to apply consistent standards in both good times and bad.
Innovations in mortgages and home equity loans should not depend on an assumption of appreciating house prices, and they need to be transparent so that market participants understand the risks they are taking, Kennedy said.
There's a new way to , or at the very, least hold it off for awhile and it's quite simple to do. As simple as asking your lender for a copy of your promissory note. According to a recent report, up to 40% of the time, lenders are unable to produce the promissory note. from CNN.
If you ask them for the promissory note, they must produce it. The case that CNN is following still hasn't been resolved but it looks like it will at least buy you a few months if you are in the lucky 40%. :) Be sure and give it a try if you are in . The report also advised to always get an attorney, so that should be your first stop.
We hear about it all the time…you need a good FICO score, but do you know what that means, or how it can effect getting a home loan? A FICO score is a credit score developed by Fair Isaac & Co, and it is a method real estate lenders and mortgage brokers use to determine whether or not it is likely you will pay your bills. FICO scores started being used in the late 1950s, and they have become widely accepted by real estate lenders as a reliable means of credit evaluation. And as you may or may not know, a good credit evaluation is vital in ensuring you get your home loan. A FICO score, or credit score, attempts to condense a borrower’s credit history into a single number, and in this case, the higher the better
Many mortgage brokers and real estate lenders base how much they will lend you on how high or low your FICO score is. The number these lenders determines to be good can vary from state to state and may depend on what’s going on in the housing market at the time you are trying to get a home loan. That being said, you are usually going to be ok with a FICO score of 700 or higher. Again, real estate lenders and mortgage brokers have to base the number on how big a risk they can take at any given time, so it’s always good to know the current standing of your FICO score, especially if you are in the market for a home loan.
Credit scores analyze a borrower's credit history considering numerous factors such as:
Late payments
The amount of time credit has been established
The amount of credit used versus the amount of credit available
Length of time at present residence
Negative credit information such as bankruptcies, charge-offs, collections, etc.
There are really three FICO scores computed by data provided by each of the three bureaus––Experian, Trans Union and Equifax. Some lenders use one of these three scores, while other lenders may use the middle score.
So, if you are in the market for a home loan, or if you think you may be in the future, it’s always a good idea to know what your FICO score is. For more information on this or anything else regarding buying or selling property, visit us at or contact
Ok, we all know that foreclosure bargains are out there, but how do you find them? I've researched a few of the top websites to find foreclosure bargains. The first website I checked out was . They offer a free 7 day trial period which you have to sign up for to even find out the price. I couldn't find the price of their service anywhere on the website. I'm not going to give out my information just to find out what the price is per month. Forget about this one.
Next I went to . This foreclosure website also has a 1 week trial offer for $1 or you can purchase a 6 month membership for $99 or a 1 yr membership for $179. You must provide credit card information to sign up. If you don't cancel after the 1st week, the $1trial membership will be billed for $39.80 per month directly to your credit card. At least I could find the prices on this one and they give you the full information unlike Realtytrac.
After looking at just a couple of sites, I think that you are better off searching the and contacting a real estate agent in the area that you are interested in purchasing a home. The foreclosed homes will be listed on the MLS. It doesn't cost you anything to have the real estate agent look up properties for you, so why not let them do the footwork for you.
WHAT’S IN A NAME: WHY THE WORDS “ASSET BACKED SECURITIES” IN THE PLAINTIFF’S NAME OF A FORECLOSURE CASE SHOULD MAKE YOU DIG
In view of the fact that the bulk of mortgages, especially those created in connection with refinance and home equity lines which were initiated between 2002 and 2007, were only a small cog in a much larger machine, anyone even vaguely familiar with foreclosure litigation knows that the plaintiff in the foreclosure action is often styled as something along the lines of “So and so as Trustee for XYZ Asset-Backed Securities”. There is much more to this denomination than meets the eye, and whether or not such a plaintiff even has the right to institute a foreclosure case at all is a question which anyone defending such a foreclosure should be asking right up front.
There are numerous articles on this blog which explain the threshold concept of why the plaintiff in these types of cases winds up being a trustee for a group of otherwise unidentified holders of securities. The “Cliff Notes” version is presented here for the purpose of this article and to give the reader a place to begin their inquiry. However, it is strongly recommended that the reader delve into the wealth of information on the blog in order to have a more complete understanding of the entire transaction of which the mortgage was only literally “the pimple on the elephant” before taking the actual step of defending a foreclosure based on any of the matters herein.
In the case of the “asset-backed security” plaintiff, the sceanario went something like this:
(a)borrower seeks refi or HELOC (home equity line of credit) from mortgage broker, asking broker for best loan program available given borrower’s income, credit history, and ability to repay the loan;
(b)mortgage broker either initially tells borrower that they qualify for a fixed rate loan with an even payment throughout the loan and later changes this to “the only thing available to you is an adjustable rate loan”, or makes this representation at the outset if the borrower has sketchy credit, low income, etc.;
(c)mortgage broker presents borrower with loan application;
(d)loan is “approved” either on original appraisal or “revised” or “amended” appraisal if original was not sufficient to create the necessary loan-to-value to approve the loan;
(e)loan is also “approved” on basis of borrower’s qualifying for “teaser rate” only, not the adjustable rate later in the life of the loan which the originating lender knew the borrower could not qualify for, but did not care about as the loan was already either presold to aggregator or would be after closing;
(f)assignment of the mortgage to aggregator has either already been made at the time of the initial approval for the loan, at the time of the application, or is made shortly after closing;
(g)closing takes place. Original “lender” (which in certain cases was nothing more than a front for a securities brokerage) has already sold or assigned the mortgage or will do so shortly;
(h)mortgage is assigned to an aggregator, “bundler”, or other third-party for further resale;
(i)aggregator sells mortgage, with hundreds or thousands of others, in “bundles” to investment bankers;
(j)investment bankers create series of “mortgage-backed securities” to be sold to investors with false, unsupported, or outright fraudulent AAA ratings, as underlying stability of the borrowers (who oftentimes were not and could not have been approved for the life of the adjustable rate loan) is dubious at best, and probably nonexistent as borrowers did not qualify as having ability to repay loan after “teaser” rate expired and higher rate kicked in;
(k)borrowers default in droves, causing loss of value of security;
(l)trustee or other third party is appointed to represent the holders of the “mortgage-backed securities” to foreclose on the collateral (the property).
Thus, the name of the plaintiff in a foreclosure lawsuit can reveal a lot about where the underlying mortgage went and how it got there. With these types of actions, one knows, right away, that there had to have been multiple assignments of the mortgage from the time of initiation to the point where the mortgage became collateral for an “asset-backed security”. As such, the first series of questions to be asked are those surrounding the assignment process:
(a)for each assignment, was there a valid assignment given by one with full authority to transfer the interest in the mortgage?
(b)was the assignment recorded?
(c)was there any consideration for the assignment (e.g. were any monies paid to purchasethe mortgage at a discount, thus creating a payment against the obligation on the mortgage note)?
The answers to these threshold questions will directly impact how the defense of the foreclosure will proceed. If all of the assignments in the chain were valid, then the ultimate assignee (here, the Trustee for the Certificate Holders of the Asset-Backed securities) took the mortgage subject to all defenses which the borrower could have raised against the originating “lender”. As such, on proof of a valid chain of assignments, defenses which the borrower may have had against the originating lender under the Federal TILA, HOEPA, and RESPA Statutes; state Consumer Protection statutes; and other laws (see blog glossaries for definitions of these terms) can be asserted against the “trustee” plaintiff. Obviously, if the assignments are nonexistent or problematic, the borrower can assert that the “trustee” plaintiff does not have the legal capacity to even institute the foreclosure action in the first instance (known as “lack of standing or capacity” in legal lingo).
The next level of inquiry in any multiple-assignment process involves a determination of whether any payments by any of the assignees to the assignor in connection with the assignment can be characterized as payments against the underlying obligation of the note to which the mortgage attaches. The originating “lender” is obviously not going to assign the mortgage to an aggregator for no money. As such, there is the possibility that the foreclosing plaintiff may have wrongfully claimed the borrower to be in default, which results not only in a fraud being perpetrated upon the borrower, but also on the court as well. Unrecorded or unapplied paydowns against the note result in the foreclosing plaintiff not only seeking monies which it is not owed, but also in effect causing the theft of property to which the plaintiff is not entitled.
These threshold issues should be addressed at the outset of any foreclosure proceeding where there is an “asset-backed security” plaintiff, as the results of the inquiry may open up numerous additional avenues of defense and potential affirmative claims as well. Obviously the more diligent one is with their inquiry, the better potential for an effective, multi-level defense against the foreclosure.
A word of caution, however, which we have echoed in other blog articles: although these concepts may appear deceptively simple, asserting them properly in a foreclosure action as a defense, affirmatively in a separate legal action, or inside of a Federal bankruptcy proceeding is both a science and an art best left to attorneys who are versed in the technical terminology and the proper procedural rules in order to render these defenses effective. We thus repeat the recurring caveat to all non-lawyers reading these articles:
The Federal Bureau of Investigation isn't wasting time. America needs some fall guys. Who better than lying and scheming financial salesmen? Finally, crooked bankers, financial gurus and investment brokers should be shaking in their boots. The FBI is on the stick and hasn't been wasting much time. Obviously, the preponderance of evidence is huge or the government wouldn't moving this quickly. Previously, the FBI stated that the first arrests could have taken two years or more.
The first criminal cases of the credit crunch are two former Bear Stearns hedge fund managers, Ralph Cioffi and Matthew Tannin. The men allegedly misled investors in two funds that collapsed last summer on mortgage-backed securities.
Why fall guys you ask? The FBI will have to be up on their numbers to make this stick for these kind of high profile stakes. Bear Stearns managers have been far from alone in failing to warn investors. Wall Street has spent a lot of time deceiving themselves about the depth of the mortgage mess and continues to do so. They aren't alone.
Wall Street lawyers will joyously proclaim that these guys can't be wrong because everyone on Wall Street is so deceived. The crime is so large that the Feds may be tempted to run the other way.
More than 400 mortgage brokers, real estate agents, and other industry officials have been charged and nearly 300 have been arrested. These are the small timers with fraud currently running around $1 billion. The government has rounded up the Internal Revenue Service, the Secret Service, the Department of Housing and Urban Development, immigration and customs agencies, postal inspectors and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation to get the goods.
Will high-profile investment bankers and their cronies actually pay for their crimes because of their legal largess? Time will tell whether money will buy out the crooked finance industry. In the meantime, the finance industry would be well advised to watch their backsides.
If you're a foreign national that would like to buy a home in the United States and will need financing, your first step should be to get preapproved for a . Most real estate agents in the US will not even show you a home without a preapproval letter. The foreign national mortgage preapproval letter let's the sellers know that you will be able to get mortgage financing to purchase their home. A preapproval letter will make your offer on the home more attractive to the seller because they know that you are able to obtain mortgage financing.
When you ask for a letter you will need to provide standard information such as names, date of birth, employment and asset information. Keep in mind, on the foreign national mortgages that we provide, your employment isn't verified but your cash to close on the home will be verified.
It is very important that you get preapproved and speak with a specialist so that they can advise you of any issues that may come up on the purchase of your home in the US. It's not good enough to just be in contact with a real estate agent about buying a home in the US, because the real estate agent doesn't know the mortgage financing end of things, and usually doesn't want to.
No, this isn't a typo but the heading is in a foreign language! I get questions almost daily about the origin of my name. I was born on a barge on the Danube River in Southern Germany. In the last 20 years, I haven't had a lot of people to converse in German with unless I went home to Los Angeles for a visit. Yes, I've been to the Oktoberfests in Portland, Mt Angel, Los Angeles and Germany.
For years I have been looking for German-speaking Oregonians. I did find two groups called a Deutscher Stammtisch (loosely it means a group getting together to drink beer and speak German!). However, both of those groups were Americans speaking German and during the entire evening only spoke English. That was fine for them but not what I was looking for. Recently, I met a German-born Mortgage Broker here in Portland who also missed her German culture. She went on a quest to find a group and she did. Apparently, there are 25,000 German-born Portlanders. Where are they?
There is a website that serves all of the United States and connects different languages and cultures together if you are looking to reconnect with your past. Even if you are not a "native" of that country, there are groups that get together for the sole purpose of learning the language or to continue speaking it. I have an Italian friend who belongs to a group like this and when they get together it's everything Italian! So have some fun and learn a new language..."it's a small world, after all"! AUF WIEDERSEHEN!!!
(For more local and national real estate news, click on my monthly newsletter - JUNG'S JOURNAL - on my website ).
If you're a foreign national that is wants to , a great place to start your search is, Florida, the sunshine state. Home prices are very low right now because alot of Americans got in over their heads with their mortgages and Florida is one of the states thats been affected. You can pick up some great bargains on Florida homes, to use as a second home or as an investment property, that's entirely up to you. I live in Florida and love it. It's so beautiful with the gorgeous oceans and sandy beaches. Everyone loves Florida, from the tourists to the residents, which makes it a great place to buy a home in the US. In Florida there are tourist attractions such as Universal Studios, Disneyland, Busch Gardens and of course all the beautiful beaches. Miami and Orlando are very popluar with foreign real estate buyers.
Keep in mind when you are buying a home in the US you want it to be in an area that will bounce back from the housing slump, and Florida is that area. I just had a foreign national client pick up a condo in Miami Beach for $1mil that is appraising at $1.5mil. There are bargains at every price range in Florida.
More than likely you will need a to buy the home. Make sure that you have financing in place before you sign a real estate sales contract. That way you can be sure that you will have enough funds to purchase the home. A will be able to answer any questions that you may have.
Our is used by tens of thousands of mortgage originators throughout the country. Consequently, I know many of these originators and some of them are extremely good. This morning I want to recognize a few top originators to highlight what too often goes unrecognized – an unwavering commitment to serve the applicant.
Here they are, in no particular order.
Alan Vogan
First Lending Solutions
Riverside, California
(951) 317-3165 I’ve known Alan for years – and in the spirit of full disclosure, Alan personally handles all of my mortgage needs. When I need to better understand a new Fannie Mae underwriting issue, or the impact of new legislation on lending practices, I’ll call Alan. While its true that he understands the business of mortgage lending better than most, his true strength is an uncanny ability to see things from an applicant’s perspective. I recently referred a friend to Alan and his experience sums this up perfectly. While Alan was working on my friends loan he did the unthinkable and sent my friend to a competitor (Bank Of America) because he knew the bank had a very good loan program. Turns out that BofA didn’t offer the program as advertised, and Alan now counts my friend as a client.
Kevin Glackin
Village Capital
Mount Laurel, NJ
(856)-252-1517 Kevin has a very good understanding of mortgage credit – and is well versed in credit proofreading. Recently, credit proofreading discovered that the single derogatory item on an applicant’s credit report was involved a credit card the applicant used every day. However, though the card had the applicant’s name on it, he was actually an authorized user on the card. This means that the true card holder (his brother), had simply added a card to his account and then gave it to the applicant. The applicant’s brother was going through a difficult time and became late on the payments. Kevin’s credit proofreading tools revealed that since the applicant was only a user on the card, the late payments belonged to his brother, not the applicant. Kevin used his credit proofreading tools to permanently remove this derogatory account from the file in days. And, are you ready for this? The applicant’s credit score increased 240 points. Now that’s service.
Christian Lombardini
United Fidelity Mortgage
Nashville, Tennessee
(615) 383-5626
Christian is another one of my favorite loan officers because he consistently puts the client first. Sometimes this means working with a client for months (at his own expense) until the client is financially prepared to make a mortgage loan commitment. In one recent experience a client wanted a mortgage, but needed to increase his down payment amount. Christian consulted with the applicant and helped him devise a savings plan. Christian also used his credit proofreading skills to improve the applicant’s credit health at the same time. After following Christian’s advice, the client was able to buy his new home nine months ahead of schedule. The capper was that the applicant was referred by a real estate agent, and Christian went out of his way to make sure the agent received the all the credit. Nicely done.
Shane Jackson
ENG Lending
Little Rock, Arkansas
(501) 907-1126
Shane is another expert in credit proofreading, which means simply that he knows how to use software to detect and eliminate errors in credit files that damage credit health. When our company was interviewed by a leading mortgage publication about how credit proofreading helps borrowers, the magazine also interviewed Shane. Shane mentioned that more than 10% of declined applicants can be turned into approvals by simply proofreading their credit files, and removing errors. Imagine a couple declined for their first home simply because their credit score had been incorrectly evaluated due to errors within the credit file. Guys like Shane won’t let that happen.
If you are looking for a mortgage, I’d heartily recommend these folks. They’ll take care of you. If you are a real estate agent, and if you live near one of these mortgage professionals, do your client a favor and pass along one of these names. Tell them the Caped Crusader sent you.
The Federal Bureau of Investigation isn't wasting time. America needs some fall guys. Who better than lying and scheming financial salesmen? Finally, crooked bankers, financial gurus and investment brokers should be shaking in their boots. The FBI is on the stick and hasn't been wasting much time. Obviously, the preponderance of evidence is huge or the government wouldn't moving this quickly. Previously, the FBI stated that the first arrests could have taken two years or more.