DENVER REFINANCE, COMMERCE CITY REFINANCE

It’s the day after Thanksgiving and today was a shortened session  in the market rates pretty much remained unchanged.  Credit standards starting to become more strict making it more difficult to purchase or refinance.

Fannie Mae plans to raise minimum credit score requirements next month and limit the amount of overall debt that borrowers can carry relative to their incomes, The Washington Post reported on Thursday.

Starting December 12, the automated system that the government-controlled mortgage finance company uses to approve loans will reject borrowers who have at least a 20 percent down payment but whose credit scores fall below 620 out of 850, the newspaper reported. Previously, the cut-off was 580.  COMMERCE CITY REFINANCE

They just keep making it more difficult. If your thinking about refinancing now is the time. Appy now CLICK HERE

Happy Thanksgiving, and the countdown to Christmas begins. Are you ready for black Friday? I’m Andrew Hahn and I specialize in Denver Refinance as well as Colorado refinancing. I’m pretty darn good at your Mortgage purchases too. I have over 18 years experience and I am licensed and fully insured. This time of year it’s always tempting to use those credit cards for those holiday purchases and if you do, do yourself a favor and create a budget and stick with it. Sorry don’t mean to sound like a stick in the mud but as we all know getting credit isn’t as easy as it used to be. In those past years it was easier to to get that HELOC (Home Equity Line Of Credit) or a closed end Second Mortgage.These day’s it’s a bit more difficult to refinance because of the reduced property values, the elimination of many Second  Mortgage loan programs  and with tightened credit standards. I do have Second Mortgage loan programs available and depending on your loan to value and your current interest rate sometimes it still might make sense to consider refinancing your first mortgage. If you get a few extra minutes give me a call or drop me an email so we can take a look at your unique situation to see how we can improve your current mortgage.

When considering you Denver Refinance make sure to explore all your mortgage loan options to insure you get the best loan possible. Please visit my business website CapitalAdvantageMortgage.com get rates quotes, fill out a secure loan application or utilize my recommended professionals.

Have a great Thanksgiving Andrew Hahn

And be careful Black Friday can be ruthless

When you’re looking for help you’ve come to the right place. When considering Refinancing in Denver or more over I specialize in Refinancing in Colorado, dont’ go to a webiste that just collects your information to sell as a potential lead to multipul companies go direct to my website CLICK HERE. I’m a licensed and fully insured Mortgage Broker located in Commerce City Colorado and have been in the mortage business for over 18 years. On the lighter side if you would like to meet me and learn more about me visit my personal website. Andrew Hahn

YOU MIGHT BE SURPRISED:

I’m Andrew Hahn a Colorado mortgage broker located in Commerce City Colorado on the north edge of Denver who specializes in Colorado refinancing.

Even in this market there are a couple loan programs that could to help you.  First these programs are either Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac loan programs that are designed to replace an existing loan that is already owned by them.  So the first and most important bit of information you need to know is who owns your loan.  The company you make your loan payment to is a servicer not necessarily the entity that owns your loan. The easiest way to find out who owns your loan is to call me and I’ll help or call the servicer and ask them if your loan is owned by Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac, if your loan IS owned by one of these agencies your one step closer to being able to take advantage of today’s low rates.  If your loan isn’t then at this time there is no loan program that allows you to refinance at the Loan to Values that the programs I’m going to talk about do. These programs take into consideration the declines in property Value and let you refinance at up to 125% Loan to value. This means that if your loan is $312,500.00 and NOW because of the declining market you property only well appraise at $250,000.00 you can still refinance your loan at today’s rates.  There are interest rate adjustments but rates are still pretty darn good. The best way to figure out if this loan program can save you money is to email me or give me a call and we can run some comparisons to see if this works for you.  This loan program can extremely helpful if you want to change from an ARM type loan or from an interest only loan and replace it with a new 30 fixed rate loan.  This program allows for up to 125% loan to value on the first mortgage. Even if you have a second mortgage you can still refinance with the condition the second mortgage subordinates to the new first mortgage. If you want help to see if you can qualify for these loan programs, contact me and I’ll help you. I’ll help you find out if your loan is eligible for this program and run loan comparisons to evaluate the benefit’s. If you would like you can CLICK HERE and go to my website and fill out a secure loan application and I can start working on it right away.

This is a great program don’t miss out.

Have a great day

Andrew Hahn

Take a closer look at you Adjustable Rate Mortgage; it might not be as bad as they make it sound

I think with all the rush/push to refinance out of that Adjustable Rate Mortgage in some cases, are alarmist and for people that have ARM loans with either Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac (not subprime) you need to step back and take a closer look at your loan and consider what your payment is going to do and understand how it works. With these ARM’s it’s more likely that your payment is going to go down. The key here is to know how your ARM works; you need to understand how to figure out what your interest rate is going to be. The interest rate is figured by adding an Index this is the variable component of your interest rate and a Margin this is the fixed component of your rate. You need to know what your index is, the two most popular indexes are either the 1-Year LIBOR (London InterBank Offer Rate) or the 1 YEAR TREASURY (1yrCMT); this is extremely important because this is the basis of your interest rate.  The index is what’s going to determine what your rate is going to be. Today 02/24/2009 the 1 year LIBOR is 2.08 and the 1 yr CMT is 0.64. Here is a great link to use to keep track of your index for the 1 yr LIBOR http://www.bankrate.com/brm/ratewatch/other-indices.asp and here is the link for the 1 yr CMT http://www.bankrate.com/brm/ratewatch/1yr-cmt.asp . Now you need to know your Margin this is the amount you add to the index to get what your interest rate will be. Most of margins tend to be between 2.25 and 2.75; again this is for non subprime loans. (The problem with subprime loans is that the margins are extremely high).  To find out what your index and your margin are, look in your closing folder and look for the Adjustable Rate Mortgage loan Rider. Now for examples sake we are going to use a margin of 2.75, now if you have the LIBOR as your index you add 2.08 ( YOU NEED TO ROUND TO THE NEAREST .125 ) this would make your interest rate if it adjusted today 4.75% this is not a bad interest by today’s standards at all. Now if your index is the 1 yr CMT at .64 (ROUND TO NEAREST .125) your rate today is 3.5% can’t touch this in today’s market. This presents a compelling argument that ARM loan aren’t that bad at this time. The question here is how long the indices will stay low. For those of you under water in your property this is the good news. All the talk from the new administration about allowing people who owe more than their property is worth is still just that HAPPY CHATTER; we will have to wait to see if they can make it happen.  Now for those few who can still qualify for a new loan you need to form a strategy of when to refinance into a fixed rate. You’ll also need to know how often your interest rate can adjust; it’s generally either every 6 or 12 months. What you want to do is enjoy your new rate but watch and lock in a new fixed rate loan when those indices start moving up to a point where your adjusted rate will be higher than what you can fix a rate at. Easier said than done; this is where you have to determine what works best for you. Also ask yourself all those important questions, like how long do you intend to stay in the property, how much are the closing cost going to be, ect… Loan to value and credit score are still extremely important and well affect your interest rate. The sweet spot is still 80% or less, whenever you go over 80% you run into mortgage insurance and this just adds to your payment. There are many factors that affect your interest rate and even your ability to refinance. If I can be of any help in determining what works in your best interest please contact me.

Please visit my web site; Capital Advantage Mortgage

Thank you and I hope this helps Andrew Hahn

Bare with me on the first part of my explanation

                One seemingly complicated aspect about financing a property is the HUD form that discloses the fees involved with the transaction; there can be a lot of fees. There are necessary fees such as title company fees and generally an underwriting fee; then there are the fees collected on your behalf this would include the monies collected to reestablish your escrow account. More often than not the lender will require that you have an escrow account (there are some exceptions) these monies are collected and held in an escrow account to pay your annual insurance bill and your property taxes which in Colorado is  generally paid out twice a year, ½ on February 28^th and the other ½ on June 15^th. The timing on this can make a big difference in the amount that needs to be collected. For the taxes the closer you are to the date the taxes are due the more they are going to collect at closing to make sure there is enough to pay them when they are due. The amount needed for the escrow of your insurance depends on the anniversary date when your annual payment for your insurance is due. Also collected at closing on your behalf is the interest from the day you close tell the end of the month, so if you close at the beginning of the month they are going to need to collect more than if you close toward the end of the month (*if you are paying off an FHA loan it’s best to close at the end of the month).  NOW , for the other fees. OK now there is the appraisal fee, this is a necessary fee that due to the new mortgage industry rules needs to be collected and paid for upfront to an Appraisal Management Company or AMC this fee is around $370.00 unless you have a Jumbo or unusual property. We’ll have another Blog addressing this new rule the HVCC; Home Valuation Code of Conduct (it’s really not good). The remaining in my case FEE is my origination fee, this is what I make. For most other lenders it’s FEE’S there can be origination fee, credit report fee, processing fee, admin fee and in some cases even more fees. MY philosophy and the way I do business is my origination fee includes the credit report (**usually $25.00) I process my own loans so I don’t charge a fee for that.  The admin fee and those other fees are to collect more money from you with a different label, and I don’t operate like that. Now when you see other lenders offer free appraisals or some kind of closing rebate or discount, we all know that the appraisal gets paid for somewhere in the process and usually what they do is credit you at closing to make sure it’s paid for in case for some reason it doesn’t close. Nothings free it all gets accounted for one way or another. They way I prefer to do business is to quote the lowest fees from the beginning. The only fee collected before closing is the appraisal fee and that’s paid to the AMC not to me (because of the new rule it’s the new protocol). I do not undercut my fellow mortgage brokers to steal business. I prefer to take the professional high road on this one. There are good hard working brokers that provide a good service with reasonable fees; even though I rarely get beat on fees if I’m given the opportunity to give a second opinion I well be honest and upfront with you. Sometimes it’s not worth switching for a hundred bucks. Now don’t get me wrong competition is good and that’s why I always give my best quote and do not need to go back and change fees in order to compete for your business. I don’t want to get to long winded here so I’ll continue this on the next blog. Have a Happy Halloween.

For more information CLICK HERE to visit my website.

      I’ll provide topics that are related to the financing of Real Estate. With all the changes that have taken place in the mortgage industry it’s been difficult to keep up for most people who don’t monitor the events virtually on a daily basis. I’ll point out the changes that affect your ability to refinance your property or to purchase property. I welcome you to ask me questions that concern your specific situation. I’ll also work on keeping you in the loop on changes that are going to affect us in the future as they become known. I have over 18 years experience in the mortgage industry. I’m located in Commerce City Colorado on the north east edge of Denver Colorado. Capital Advantage LLC. is a small boutique style mortgage company with my priority on maintaining the highest standard of customer service combined with obtaining the lowest rates the market has to offer. I’m not in this business to have an office full of loan originators and not be able to provide the personal service I feel you deserve. By remaining a small independent mortgage broker I can also maintain the lowest fees in the industry. Be wary of lenders that offer free appraisals, as we all know they aren’t free and get paid for somewhere in the fees or by back end fees which require an increase in the interest rate. I provide an honest upfront method of doing business, my goal is your total satisfaction and to earn the highest compliment of a referral from you. I look forward to hearing your comments and questions. If you would like more information about me please Visit my website: Click Here

Refinance Philosophy for those with ARM loans

In today’s chase for the best rate, for those who have a *conforming Adjustable Rate Mortgage or to be more specific a loan owned by Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac the chances are your ARMs interest rate has been going down and is lower than today’s fixed interest rate loans. If you want to get out of the uncertainty of an ARM and want a fixed rate loan have you a decision to make. More than likely to make the move to a fixed rate loan your rate is more than likely going to be higher and therefore your payment is going to go up. Now the challenging aspect is going to be timing. You want to take advantage of your lower rate as long as possible yet when you make the move to a fixed rate loan you want to lock in at the lowest rate you can. Timing the market is always a tough call and trying to guess when the 30 year fixed rates are going to reach their lows is even more difficult given the challenges in the markets today. Unless there is another sizable drop in the market we might have seen the all time lows and rates are starting the trend back up. Now could be the time to start watching the rates to try to catch them on a dip and get locked in, in the upper 4%’s to low 5% range, at this time 4.75% or lower doesn’t appear to be in the stars; unless you buy the rate down (not usually money well spent unless paid by some else). So what I recommend is that we start crunching the numbers now to determine a strategy and to be at the ready when rates get to your sweet spot. To sign up for my rate quote click here.

* Non conforming loans such as subprime loans or portfolio loans (some institutions keep their loans) are probably seeing their rates go up and are not eligible for loan programs created by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.