Featured Properties
Event Calendar
Categories
- Georgia Mountain Foreclosure reVIEWS
- Family reVIEWS
- Front Porch VIEWS
- Real Estate Made Simple
- Georgia Mountain Community reVIEWS
- Georgia Mountain Real Estate VIEWS
- Georgia Mountain Home Buyer's reVIEWS
- Georgia Mountain Home Seller's reVIEWS
- Realtor reVIEWS
- Georgia Mountain Got-To-Do reVIEWS
- Georgia Mountain Dining reVIEWS
- Professional Associate reVIEWS
- Georgia Mountain Cabin Rental reVIEWS
- Georgia Mountain Market reVIEWS
- Mortgage & Finance reVIEWS
- Georgia Mountain Sightseeing
- Georgia Mountain Slang
- Clients reVIEWS
- Georgia Mountain Golf & Resort reVIEWS
- Featured Listing reVIEWS
- Georgia Mountain Home Tips
- Outdoor Adventure reVIEWS
- Georgia Mountain Shopping reVIEWS
Area Information
Porch Posts
Bank Mortgage Lending Policies Appear To be Easing
The tightening in mortgage-lending policies that characterized the last 3 years appears to be slowing.
According to the Federal Reserve’s quarterly survey of senior bank loan officers, roughly 1 in 10 lenders added mortgage qualification hurdles between April and June. It’s a huge departure from just 2 years ago when the mortgage industry was facing its first wave of challenges.
During that period, eight in 10 lenders added hurdles.
For mortgage applicants in the North Georgia Mountains , this quarter’s Fed survey results signals that mortgage lending may have reached its limits of restriction.
Since 2007, mortgage guidelines have become increasingly restrictive. There’s extra scrutiny on assets and tax returns; employment history is given more weight; loan purpose matters. There’s a bevy of traits that can stand between you and an approval that didn’t exist a few years ago.
That said, lots of homeowners are still getting loans.
Verifiable income, good credit scores and equity are the “magic formula” and banks want to lend to good credit risks. And the best news for those that qualify is that mortgage rates are fantastic right now.
According to Freddie Mac, mortgage rates are as low as they’ve been in history.
So, if you’re among the many wondering if now is the right time to buy a home — or refinance one — remember that, although mortgage guidelines likely won’t get worse, mortgage rates probably will.
The Right Way To Take A Cash Gift For A Down Payment
As lenders tighten mortgage guidelines for Blairsville Home Buyers, minimum down payment requirements are increasing. Several years ago, you could finance a home with nothing down. Today, most conventional mortgages require at least 10 percent.
Anecdotally, guideline changes have led to an increase in the number of home buyers accepting cash gifts from family.
Gifts are allowed in most cases but the problem is, if you don’t accept the gift in a “lender-friendly” way, the mortgage underwriter could reject it, and negate it.
You can’t just deposit a cash gift into your bank account. You have to follow a series of steps and keep records.
- Provide an acceptable gift letter signed by all parties
- Provide documentation of the gifter’s withdrawal of funds via teller receipts
- Provide documentation of the giftee’s deposit of funds via teller receipts
Lenders require these 3 steps for two basic reasons. First, they want to make sure that the cash gift is “clean” (i.e. not laundered). Second, they want to make sure the gift is really a gift and not a loan-in-disguise.
It’s why lenders typically require that the loan application be accompanied by a signed, dated letter.
For example:
I am the [relationship to recipient] of [name of recipient] and this letter serves as evidence that I am gifting [name of recipient] [amount of gift] to be used for the purchase of the home at [complete address of property].
This is a gift — not a loan — and there is no expectation of repayment.
Signed,
[Signature of gifter]
As an additional step, home buyers receiving cash gifts should make sure that gifted funds are not commingled at the time of deposit. If the cash gift is for $10,000, therefore, the bank’s deposit slip should indicate that a $10,000 deposit was made — nothing more, nothing less. Don’t add a random $100 deposit to the transaction, in other words. The $100 deposit should be a separate transaction.
It’s also worth noting that gifting funds between family members can create both legal and tax liabilities. If you’re unsure about how donating or receiving a gift may impact you, call or email me directly. If I can’t help you with your questions, I can refer you to somebody that can.
![Reblog this post [with Zemanta]](http://img.zemanta.com/reblog_e.png?x-id=02db6eef-a724-4535-b41a-29f47c3caca0)
Bank Closings Really Hit Home This Time
Three more Georgia community banks failed today, two of which were right here at home. Appalachian Community Bank of Ellijay will reopen on Saturday as branches of Community & Southern Bank, while Bank of Hiawassee, which also had branches known as Bank of Blue Ridge and Bank of Blairsville, will reopen as Citizens South Bank. In small communities it seems everyone knows everything, and that unfortunately held true today. It had been a rumor from the beginning of the week that this Friday was in fact Seizure Day here at home, and that rumor turned out to be true.
What impact will that have here in the North Georgia Mountains? Well, that is a question that only time will tell. To say the least it is a concern of mine. How will they handle bad loans, and folks who are struggling and in danger of losing th
eir homes, their family farms, and even their businesses? How will it affect the overall Real Estate Market? Will it even change at all? And what about the employees that have been working for many, many years with these banks, will they keep their jobs? These and many others are questions that we would all love to have the answers to, and I am sure we will in due time.
![Reblog this post [with Zemanta]](http://img.zemanta.com/reblog_e.png?x-id=2cafbdf0-48ac-431a-97b4-4f7bfe5a71d8)
Mortgage Approvals Are Getting More And More Scarce
The economy’s improving but lending standards are not. Nationally, banks are making mortgage approvals harder to come by.
Underwriting guidelines are tightening.
The data comes from the Federal Reserve’s quarterly survey to its member banks. The Fed asks senior bank loan officers around the country to report on “prime” residential mortgage guidelines over the most recent 3 months and whether they’ve tightened.
For the period October-December 2009:
- Roughly 1 in 4 banks said guidelines tightened
- Roughly 3 in 4 banks said guidelines were “basically unchanged”
Just 2 of 53 banks said its guidelines had loosened.
Combine the Fed’s survey with recent underwriting updates from the FHA and generally tougher standards for conventional loans and it’s clear that lenders are much more cautious about their loans than they were, say, in 2007.
Today’s Blairsville home buyers and would-be refinancers face a bevy of new borrowing hurdles including:
- Higher minimum FICO scores
- Larger downpayment requirements for purchases
- Larger equity positions for refinances
- Lower debt-to-income ratios
So, if you’re on the fence about whether now is a good time to buy a home, or make that refi, consider acting sooner rather than later. It doesn’t necessarily matter that mortgage rates are low, or that there’s an up-to-$8,000 home purchase tax credit for households that qualify. With each passing quarter, fewer and fewer applicants are eligible to take advantage.
