(This is Part 1 of a two-part series.)

The Mortgage Reform and Anti-Predatory Lending Act of 2007 (HR 3915) is now winding its way through Congress. According to the bill's sponsor, Rep. Barney Frank, D-Mass, one of its important objectives is to prevent mortgage brokers from steering borrowers into higher-cost loans.  more...

"My husband and I get paid biweekly. This year I made sure the mortgage payment was made every other paycheck. Next pay day (Oct. 26) I will be making the December 2007 payment. I figure I will be making one extra payment per year at this pace. My husband wonders whether or not this will really work to our advantage?"

The answer is "no." While it is convenient for you to make a monthly payment every four weeks, you won't benefit if your lender does not have a program that accepts payments on a four-week schedule. I have never seen a four-week payment plan.  more...

Two years ago I wrote a fairly critical piece about CMG Financial's Home Ownership Accelerator (HOA) loan program that did not do it justice. HOA is fairly complicated and this time I took a harder look.

HOA is a permanent mortgage that has some features found only in a demand deposit account at a bank and other features similar to those in a home equity line of credit (HELOC), except better.  more...

(This is Part 2 of a two-part series. Read Part 1, "Wholesale mortgage prices uncover true costs.")

Wholesale mortgage prices are "inside" prices, available to mortgage brokers and lenders but not to borrowers -- until now. Through a special arrangement with Amerisave, I now provide wholesale interest rates on my Web site.  more...

(This is Part 1 of a two-part series. Read Part 2, "Amerisave helps borrowers find loan's retail markup.")

Wholesale mortgage prices are those quoted by wholesale lenders to their clients -- mortgage brokers and smaller ("correspondent") lenders. (I will use the word "client" to cover both.) Clients mark up these prices to offer retail prices to borrowers.

Wholesale price data have never been available to the general public.  more...

(This is Part 2 of a two-part series. Read Part 1, "Too much equity can deny homeowners loan mods.")

The first article in this series pointed out that when a mortgage borrower is unable to make the required payments, the servicing agent has an obligation to the owner of the mortgage to resolve the problem in the way that is least costly to the owner. The usual method is foreclosure, but an alternative is to modify the loan contract to make the payment more affordable.  more...

(This is Part 1 of a two-part series. Read Part 2, "Let's make a deal: loan mod for 50% of price appreciation.")

A loan modification is a change in the loan contract agreed to by the lender and the borrower. The modifications of major concern today are those designed to reduce the payment burden on borrowers faced with impending rate increases that will make the mortgage payment unaffordable to them. Many are subprime borrowers.  more...

"My house is worth $400,000. The balance of my 5.5 percent first mortgage is $270,000, and I need $50,000 to pay off debts and make some improvements. I spoke to three mortgage brokers, and all advised me to refinance my first mortgage for about $325,000. I was thinking that I would just take a second mortgage for $50,000, but the brokers all rejected that idea. What am I missing here?"

What you are missing is a realization that, in selecting between a cash-out refinance and a second mortgage, the broker's interest and yours may be in conflict.  more...

The one thing that virtually all borrowers know about their mortgages is the amount of the initial scheduled payment. This is the amount they are obliged to pay each period under the terms of the mortgage contract. They know that failure to pay that amount is a violation of the contract, leading to late charges, delinquency reports and ultimately to foreclosure.

While borrowers know the amount, they are often hazy about how it is calculated and what it includes. I will illustrate the possibilities related to a $100,000 loan at 6 percent.  more...

I recently returned from a boat tour in Indonesia, and was impressed with the quality of the service provided by the tour company. The employees go out of their way to make the experience a pleasurable one for the customers. Other tour companies we have used in the past were equally good. My impressions are consistent with those of many other travelers with whom I have compared notes.  more...

In a recent article, I examined Bank of America's new no-fee program for house purchasers, under which lender and third-party fees are absorbed by the bank. On a fixed-rate mortgage, the borrower pays the interest rate and points, and that's it. Price shopping would be so much easier, I mused, if all lenders did the same.  more...

Gifts of equity within the family are common. Parents often provide the down payment on their child's first home purchase. Many parents, however, can't afford a sizeable gift -- among other things, they may be concerned about the adequacy of their assets for retirement. Yet they might welcome an opportunity to help their children if it took the form of a reasonably safe investment yielding an adequate rate of return.  more...

In recent weeks, my mailbox has overflowed with messages of distress from borrowers faced with an imminent rate adjustment on their adjustable-rate mortgages (ARMs). Most of them want to refinance, but many of those who had earlier taken 100 percent loans are stuck. With the current softness in the housing market, they now owe more than their homes are worth. Lenders are strongly resistant to refinancing loans with balances exceeding property values.  more...

Most recent commentary on the subprime market looks to removing abuses from that market -- not shutting it down. Underlying this note of caution is an assumption that, while a lot of bad things have happened in the subprime market, on balance it serves a socially useful purpose. While foreclosures are too high, the market has made home ownership possible for many who could not have achieved it otherwise.  more...

These days, I hear many complaints from home sellers. Among them: "It's been on the market for nine months with nary a nibble"; "I cut the price three times, still hasn't sold"; and "Three other houses on my block are up for sale, so I took mine down."  more...