Down below by the hour glass is a blog I wrote back in October of 2009 Talking about the Adjustable Rate Mortgage discussing the philosophy of when to consider refinancing out of your current ARM loan And moving to a  fixed rate loan. I am Andrew Hahn and as  a Refinance Specialist located in Commerce City Licensed in the state of Colorado its time to up date that old post and point out that NOW is more than likely that time to make the move to the fixed rate loan. For those of you who have ARM loans you need to know your Index and your Margin; this is the information you need to be able to calculate what your interest rate is going to be. There are two main index’s that are used, either the LIBOR (could be 6 month or 1 year) or the 1 year treasuries CMT, It makes a big difference you need to know this information. If you don’t know you can search through your old closing documents or to make it easy on yourself and call your loan servicer and ask them for this information, OR you can always contact me Andrew Hahn and I’ll help you; you need to write it down and keep where you can check it from time to time, ALTHOUGH NOW IS THE TIME TO KNOW THIS INFORMATION. Ask them what your index is; ask them what the margin is (you add the margin plus the index to figure out what your interest rate well be) another important bit of information is ask them in what month do they calculate your interest rate. Generally its one month before your ARM is set to adjust. So if your loan is set to adjust in December they well use the index from November and your January payment would be the 1st month of your newly adjusted interest rate.  Although now what you need to consider is that those index’s are not moving up as fast as the mortgage interest rates so your loan could adjust down yet another time or two. You need to think that if your true intention is to lock in the lowest fixed rate that time would by all indication be now and that the absolute best rates might be behind us now. So in order to not lose any more ground regarding catching those fixed rates I feel now is the time. I don’t think we are going to see the 30 fixed rate below 5% again or at least for anytime in the foreseeable future. In fact the prediction is to see interest rates in the low to mid 6% by the end of this year. Since the end of December rates have been creeping up; a loan that I could have locked before Christmas at 4.875% would now be at 5.25%. One of the most important thought here is that if your looking to stay in your real estate and want the better rates NOW IS THE TIME in the long run Mortgage interest rates could go way back up due to inflation that is bound to happen from all the bailout money that has been printed over the past year. If you have any question or want to talk to me about your refinance strategy give me a call or write me a comment or email  me which ever works best but don’t just sit there and think rates are going back down I don’t think that is going to happen.Visit my business website all my information is there CapitalAdvantageMortgage.com or my personal website Andrew-Hahn.com

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.

Don’t waste this opportunity to get in to that fixed rate loan; Contact Andrew Hahn your refinance expert located in Commerce City Licensed in Colorado Mortgage refinance in Denver and the entire State of Colorado.

CapitalAdvantageMortgage.com and for an interest rate quote Click Here

For those who still have equity in your home and are thinking about consolidating dept here are some points to consider when paying off those credit cards and or fixed term loans such as a car loan or unsecured loan.  What ever you consolidate into the new loan is going to paid off in the loan term of the new loan, so if you had a car with 3 years left on the term and you refinanced to a new 30 year term that balance just got spread out over that same 30 years.  Now on the other hand your payment went down considerably and the the interest on the car payment that probably wasn’t tax deductible you might find yourself deducting it now with your mortgage interest deduction ( not accounting advise you need to talk to your accountant to determine how it would affect your tax situation).  Now when considering consolidating credit cards again there are points again to consider like the car the balance you consolidate into a new loan are again spread out over the term of the new loan.  Some big differences are that the fixed term on a loan being paid off is done paid in full, now with a credit you pay it off and you can use it again and again potentially running the balance up again with the unintended consequence of not helping but putting you even further in dept.  The only cure for this is SELF CONTROL, easy to say hard to do but if followed through  can put you back to the road to prosperity.  Another option of closing the account sounds good but can be bad for your credit score.  When you close a credit card account it hurts your credit score, a factor in determining the credit score is how much credit you have (credit limit) vs. how much credit you’ve used ( credit balance).  I’m not sure where the line falls some say when you get over 50 to 60% of used credit it can start to have a adverse impact on your score.  It’s hard to determine but it’s like this if you have credit cards that you have close to maxed out that’s not good and well hurt your score.  I think that if you can refinance out of a high interest rate to a lower rate you can’t lose, why pay 18%, 21%  or more in an interest rate when you can pay 5% .  I feel the goal should be to take some of the amount of money you would be saving because of the lower payment and start powering down on the saving account.  Here is a great tool for you to use to help determine how long it would take you to payoff a credit card CLICK HERE to go to this website.  For those of you who’s interest rate is over 21% it starts to get pretty scary on how long it would take you to payoff a credit card and the amount of interest you would the credit card company.

Now feel free to contact me if you would like an interest rate quote or CLICK HERE to go to my website and fill out a secure online loan application.  If you have more questions feel free to contact me and I’ll go over your situation to help you find the best solution for you goals.

Andrew Hahn Capital Advantage LLC a mortgage lending company

I am an independent mortgage broker with over 18 years experience in the mortgage industry.

This is not a website that’s a lead generating website that sells your information to other mortgage companies.

Here is the statement by all accounts a pretty boring statement with little change.  What we are going to have to wait and see is how in the up coming weeks when the Fed stops buying mortgage back securities is going to affect the mortgage interest rates.  They have made no movement towards continuing the program.

If your looking to purchase or refinance and want an interest rate quote please CLICK HERE

Andrew Hahn

Federal Open Market Committee Policy Statement
(Italics/highlight indicate material changes in wording from last statement)
Release Date: March 16, 2010
For immediate release
Information received since the Federal Open Market Committee met in January suggests that economic activity has continued to strengthen and that the labor market is stabilizing. Household spending is expanding at a moderate rate, but remains constrained by high unemployment, modest income growth, lower housing wealth, and tight credit. Business spending on equipment and software has risen significantly. However, investment in nonresidential structures is declining, housing starts have been flat at a depressed level, and employers remain reluctant to add to payrolls. While bank lending continues to contract, financial market conditions remain supportive of economic growth. Although the pace of economic recovery is likely to be moderate for a time, the Committee anticipates a gradual return to higher levels of resource utilization in a context of price stability.
With substantial resource slack continuing to restrain cost pressures and with longer-term inflation expectations stable, inflation is likely to be subdued for some time.
The Committee will maintain the target range for the federal funds rate at 0 to 1/4 percent and continues to anticipate that economic conditions, including low rates of resource utilization, subdued inflation trends, and stable inflation expectations, are likely to warrant exceptionally low levels of the federal funds rate for an extended period. To provide support to mortgage lending and housing markets and to improve overall conditions in private credit markets, the Federal Reserve has been purchasing $1.25 trillion of agency mortgage-backed securities, and about $175 billion of agency debt; those purchases are nearing completion, and the remaining transactions will be executed by the end of this month. The Committee will continue to monitor the economic outlook and financial developments and will employ its policy tools as necessary to promote economic recovery and price stability.
In light of improved functioning of financial markets, the Federal Reserve has been closing the special liquidity facilities that it created to support markets during the crisis. The only remaining such program, the Term Asset-Backed Securities Loan Facility, is scheduled to close on June 30 for loans backed by new-issue commercial mortgage-backed securities and March 31 for loans backed by all other types of collateral.
Voting for the FOMC monetary policy action were: Ben S. Bernanke, Chairman; William C. Dudley, Vice Chairman; James Bullard; Elizabeth A. Duke; Donald L. Kohn; Sandra Pianalto; Eric S Rosengren; Daniel K. Tarullo; Kevin M. Warsh. Voting against the policy action was Thomas M Hoenig, who believed that continuing to express the expectation of exceptionally low levels of the federal funds rate for an extended period was no longer warranted because it could lead to the buildup of financial imbalances and increase risks to longer-run macroeconomic and financial stability.

Sorry I haven’t blog for the past several weeks took a break. But getting back at it. Over the past month we seem to be in a pretty narrow range as far as interest rates are concerned. One day it looks as though they are going to start that trek upwards then something happens and they work their way back down. This month should show us how this spring might shape up. This is the month that the treasury is supposed to stop buying mortgage backed securities. There has been predictions that when this happens that interest rate could rise, those predictions range anywhere from up .40 basis points to up a full 1%. While there is still talk that the fed well have a difficult time withdrawing from purchasing mortgage securities at this time given the still very fragile housing industry.  Mortgage foreclosure are expected to get even worse than they are now. In 2009  as it was stated 2.8 million people came under the cloud of foreclosure and they are predicting that could rise  to 3 to 3.5 million in 2010 not good.  CLICK HERE to read further regarding the foreclosure rates.  All this while processing foreclosures has slowed down as banks try to deal with the continued flood of foreclosures.  SOME GOOD NEWS the program that i have been telling you all about the HARP Home Affordable Refinance Program has been extended for another year; it was slated to end June 15th 2010 but now has been extended until June 30 2011.  CLICK HERE to go to my website to see if you qualify.  We know the programs extended for another year but are the rates going to stay low?  Of coarse this won’t mean much If they don’t keep the rates down and if rates rise I feel it is going to really hurt those hoped home buying season as well; especially with the home buyers credit set to expire at the end of April (as it stands for now).  Now keep in mind with the tax credit  you have until the end of April to have a property under contract but have until the end of June to close on the property.  I’m sure that is going to be an interesting time for sellers who have buyers wanting concessions to execute those contracts; I’ll bet home inspections are going to get a lot more attention as far as getting the sellers to get the little stuff fixed or else.  Please visit my website www.capitaladvantagemortgage.com it’s complete with mortgage calculators comparisons and you can even shop through Real Estate listings. I just added a new listing by Pat Knapp CHECK IT OUT and here is a link to a video tour as well CLICK HERE . Please feel free to ask me any questions you may have, I’ll be bloggin at you again soon.

Remember to get pre-qualified visit my website or give me a call

Andrew Hahn

I have in some of my past Blogs pointed out the value of MAKING HOME AFFORDABLE PROGRAM. Here is yet another reason why I like it. For those of you with Rental Properties this program well allow you to refinance you rentals up to 105% of the value of the property and like with your primary residence it must be a Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac owned loan. One of the differences between your primary residence vs. your investment properties you cannot have secondary loans on the property. So if you have a second mortgage on the property you are not going to be eligible for this program.  Now if your current loan does not have mortgage insurance then you are not required to obtain MI and if you do have MI on the property you are only required to maintain the same level of MI that you currently have. NOT BAD. If you would like to find out more about this program CLICK HERE to access on online loan application or you can feel free to call or email CLICK HERE for my contact information

 I can’t stress enough that it is a great time to refinance.

The Home Affordable Program helps those who have a Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac owned loan. This program will help those who owe more than their home well appraise for refinance at todays low rates. If your not sure if your loan is owned by Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac, it’s time to give me a call or CLICK HERE and I’ll help you.

This program actually helps a lot of people, even if you have a second mortgage you still could qualify, you need to check it out. If your current rate is at 6% or above you could potentially save a pretty good amount of money. The higher the loan amount the more you can save; the reason being that certain costs are fixed and on the lower loan amount the longer it is going to take to repay that cost vs. when your loan amount is greater than the savings is more that intern shortens the pay back time of the closing cost insuring value when you consider a refinance. The best way to calculate your savings is to get a Good Faith Estimate and find out what your monthly savings could be and what the time span would be to payoff the closing costs. CLICK HERE to obtain your free interest rate quote and free evaluation to determine if refinancing is right for you. Right now rates are remaining pretty low so nows still a good time to consider a refinance. Another factor to consider when refinancing is what is your time frame in which you plan on living in your property.  If you are considering at some point in turning your primary residence into a rental again something to consider is it is a great idea to refinance locking in a long term low rate; now with that though in mind when you refinance your primary residence your really cannot turn that property into a rental property for 12 months.  If you where to buy a new property they are going to want to cross reference information to determine this fact, so keep this in mind for future planning. Please leave any comments or questions you may have I’d be glad to address them. If your a Colorado residence and our considering a refinance please give me a call or email me I’d be glad to give you a free mortgage consultation to determine if refinancing makes sense for your situation. Andrew Hahn your Denver refinance professional; located in Commerce City Colorado serving Denver and the Metro area.

Andrew Hahn Mortgage professional for over 18 years, helping refinance in Denver and the Front Range; licensed in the State of Colorado.

A guest post from Sandy T

Is it possible to get a mortgage without any down payment?

Nowadays, you can get a mortgage without making a down payment. These mortgages are also commonly known as 100% mortgages or 100% loans. No or low down payment loans need small or no cash from the borrowers at the time of closing.
About 20 years back, the average down payment for a home loan was 20%. At present, people can qualify for mortgages even by making a down payment of as low as 4%. To be precise, a 0% or no down payment mortgage is a loan for which you don’t need to make any down payment at the time of buying a home. In today’s mortgage market, getting a no down payment home loan might be quite hard unless you have an excellent credit score. If you’re a veteran, you can qualify for a VA (Veterans Administration) loan with a somewhat lower credit score.  Mortgage rates for these loans are usually higher than other types of conventional loans.
No down payment loans for veterans are always a secure option for both borrowers and lenders.
Should you go for a 0% down loan only since you can?
Not essentially. Given below are reasons that should be taken into consideration prior to taking out a 0% down loan:
    You’re more probable to lose your home.
    No down payment signifies a smaller home.
    You need to make higher monthly payments.
    It’s difficult to qualify for these loans.
    Very few lenders offer these loans.
    No money down loans require you to buy private mortgage insurance (PMI).

Underwriting prerequisites for 0% down loans

Usually, the underwriting prerequisites for these loans include the following:

    All borrowers should live in the property
    A minimum credit score of 660 with no late payments mentioned in the past 12 months.
    Maximum amount of loan is $417,000, though many lenders are providing 0% down jumbo mortgage products
    Only 1-2 unit primary residence. Includes sanctioned PUDs (Planned Unit Developments) and condominiums. Investment property is not allowed for 0% down payment loans.
    No foreclosure or bankruptcy within 7 years of closing.
    Your debt to income ratios must not surpass 45% of your income.
    You don’t have to be a first-time home buyer.

You should go for a 0% down loan only if you have good credit and you’re confident about repaying the loan on time.

I would like to thank Sandy for her contribution to my blog Keep up the good work

Guidelines you need to know about for those who have Residential Investment Properties in Colorado.

For those who want to take advantage of today’s Real Estate Market and turn your current primary residence into a rental and take advantage of the $6,500.00 tax credit while purchasing a new home  DO YOU QUALIFY Housing Tax credit There are some interesting rules for existing home owners.  Mainly you need to have lived in your current residence for 5 years or more and if your married that needs to be the both of you.  One of the new guidelines that can be a determining factor is, is that for the example of converting your primary residence and buying a new home is you are going to need to qualify with both payments. The way the lenders are looking at rental property is that they need to be reported on your schedule E of your tax return in order to use rental income (or loss) and they are going to use actual figures off your tax returns and there is the chance they could ask for 2 years tax returns and the they are going to average the 2 years income from those properties to determine the income or loss from that calculations. The number of years tax returns needed well be determined when the loan is underwritten through the Fannie Mae’s or Freddie Mac’s automated underwriting programs. Also another change is that they are going to want to see 6 months reserves for each property you have financed; example if you have 2 properties and each has a $1,200. dollar payment which includes PITI then you are going to 2 x 12oo x 6 = your going to need assets of at least 14,400. now if one of the properties has an HOA fee of 150.00 you are going to need to ad that to the amount of reserves, so keep that in mind as well.  But it’s all worth it to be able to tale advantage of today’s low rates. If you would like to apply go to my business website Capital Advantage Mortgage to apply or to contact me to see if your eligible for the program.

APPLY HERE

One area I haven’t seen much on is the refinancing of investment properties.

For everyone who has investment properties you need to know; The making home affordable program works for you too. Even if your underwater and your property value is less than what you owe you can still refinance up to 105% and in some cases up to 125%. Please visit my business website CapitalAdvantageMortgage.com or leave me Andrew Hahn a comment so we can determine what you qualify for. This is a great opportunity to take advantage of these low interest rates. I’m Andrew Hahn and My company is Capital Advantage LLC. a Mortgage Lending Company. I have over 18 years experience in the mortgage industry. When looking to Refinance your properties located in Denver and the front range Give me a call 303-331-8040 or you can go to my business website and fill out a secure loan application. This program for investment properties is very similar to the program for primary residences, although there are a bit more hoops to go through and the documentation is more cumbersome it well worth it in looking to lock up long term money at these interest rates on income property. A must look at for all those with rental properties.

From Andrew Hahn its free to ask and could save you 100′s call me

Denver refinancing expert Andrew Hahn helping people take advantage of the government programs that can help people save money and take advantage of today’s low rates.