Smart Borrower Blog

Archive for September, 2007

Avoiding Subprime Mortgages

The Federal Reserve has been making attempts to inject liquidity into our stalled-out housing market. However that doesn’t really address an underlying problem–the subprime loans. Now that we’ve had our little scare involving subprime lending, a lot of people are wondering exactly what it is all about. A subprime lender is a lender who will […]

Countrywide Financial Hustles To Regain Footing

In the bleak sub-prime market, Countrywide Financial Corporation is struggling to keep a good grip on its financial holdings.  Already laying off over 12,000 employees, they are feeling the fallout of the problems the housing market has rendered.  Countrywide has all but eliminated risky sub-prime loans in an attempt to regain footing.  The company, established […]

Fallout From The Sub-Prime Woes

I have written about the trickle down effect from the sub-prime issues this year.  On a blog such as Loan.com, these gloom and doom reportings seem a bit out of place for a company that makes it easy for the consumer to find an ethical lender and not fall into the trappings of a predatory […]

FTC To Crack Down On Deceptive Lenders

 If you watch the evening news at all, you have seen segments featuring people that are facing foreclosure stating that they had no idea of the terms of their contracts with the lending institution.  I witnessed just one example on NBC Nightly News.  The lady said that at closing they just kept shoving more and […]

Housing Market Will Remain Weak

Alan Greenspan, who has been called the “greatest central banker of all time,” is the former chairman of the Federal Reserve. He left that position in 2006, and was replaced by Ben Bernanke. Greenspan’s interview with 60 Minutes is going to be aired on Sunday night. Ironically, his new book is coming out on Monday. […]

Bi-weekly Mortgage Payments

So you want to build equity faster? Did you know simply making one extra mortgage payment per year will shave approximately six years off a 30 year mortgage and save you thousands of dollars in interest payments? One of the easiest ways consumers can quickly build equity is to set up a bi-weekly mortgage payment […]

Should You Refinance Your Home?

One question a lot of people are asking right now is whether to refinance their home. Even people who aren’t going to feel the mortgage crunch–at least not directly–are questioning whether the rates will change significantly. If you’re old enough to remember the early 80s, when interest rates were roughly double what they are now, […]

Will The Feds Cut Rates?

Top companies like Countrywide Financial and Hovnanian Enterprises Inc have done a good job of painting a dire view of the condition of the market.  They feel that if the Fed doesn’t bail out the economy with a rate cut, that the economy will worsen and bring turmoil to the market place.  You have to […]

Countrywide Financial Cuts 12,000 Jobs

Countrywide Financial Corporation is slashing about 20% of its work force, or about 12,000 jobs.  The report on Yahoo! News says that Countrywide is concerned about soaring foreclosures and defaults, and needs to slash costs.  Countrywide feels that new mortgages will fall about 25% in 2008 from where it is today.  Countrywide Chief Executive Angelo […]

US Regulators Examine Credit Rating Firms

My research for the Loan.com blog takes me in a lot of directions. I subscribe to several top newspapers, get Yahoo alerts, and use my unique talents for research to stay on top of the news in the mortgage market today. Because I am not a mortgage broker or have a lot of experience in […]