My heart goes out to the good folks in the mortgage business these days. Business is TOUGH!
A significant percentage of buyers come equipped with enough bad credit baggage to fill a truck, what with having done a recent short sale or having a recent foreclosure or deed in lieu of foreclosure (same as a regular foreclosure, but it sounds nicer) or strategic foreclosure (a purposeful decision to walk away from a debt they CAN pay but don’t WANT to pay – don’t get me started on these).
Combine that with the over-reaction of underwriters making it nearly impossible to qualify for a loan if the buyer has to put gas in the SUV on the way to the closing (“Oops, sorry, that gas charge 15 minutes ago just bumped your debt ratio out of whack”) or if part of the buyer’s down payment is the gift money received from Grandma for graduation and Grandma made the money having a garage sale or the buyer’s publicly traded employer has recently filed a negative outlook report with Wall Street or any number of other scenarios.
Add in the burden of complex Good Faith Estimates which have to be redone every time anyone sneezes and you have a frustrating mix. (more…)
