Should You Walk Away From Your Mortgage?

Video from MSN Money

 

It's hard to do a mortgage signing when someone is looking over your shoulder.  It's even harder when they're actually SITTING ON YOUR SHOULDER.

You Get What You Pay For

That's what I try to tell potential clients when their main (or only) concern seems to be in finding the cheapest notary signing agent to handle their closings.  You may save a few bucks in the short term, but how long before errors, lack of experience, and lack of professionalism catch up with you and your bottom line?  It's inevitable.  Robert Franco at Source of Title just posted an interesting story about a client who left for someone cheaper.  I think the story fits in perfectly with what routinely happens in the notary signing industry.

Source of Title Blog: So, How's That Working Out For You? 

Sample Loan Packages For Every State

If you're a new notary signing agent preparing to handle mortgage loan signings, having a sample loan package to review can be extremely useful before heading out for signings.  I've added a link on my notary resource page that provides sample loan packages for every state.  You can find it under the heading "Forms, Documents, Resources."  Don't expect to see all these loan documents in every package, but these samples seem to do a very good job of covering 99% of the mortgage documents that you might come across. 

Thanks to Cody Doty for posting this on Notary Rotary. 

The Good News Is That The Bad News Is Not So Bad

So it's come to this.  We consider it good news when the bad news isn't as bad as we thought it would be or isn't as bad as it was before.  So, here's the news: Metro Detroit home values have dropped for the 4th year in a row.  But wait, the values didn't fall as bad as they have in the last two years.  Good News!  Yay!  OK, it does suggest to some experts that values are FINALLY bottoming out.

From October 2009 to Sept 1st 2010, values dropped an average of 7.5% in Oakland County, 8.73% in Wayne County, and 9% in Macomb County.   

Buy, Don't Rent

According to Trulia, it costs less to buy than rent in 72% of the top 50 major U.S. markets.  Sounds like a no-brainer.  Unfortunately, higher credit score requirements, larger down payment requirements, and stricter underwriting guidelines make buying easier said than done.    

Elizabeth Warren Is Watching Our Backs

I seriously like this woman.  Elizabeth Warren was appointed by President Obama as a special advisor to help set up the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, a federal agency in charge of financial, credit card, and mortgage oversight.  The agency creation is part of the Dodd Frank Financial Reform Act.  Thought the CFPB won't have rule making power until July 21st of this year, Warren has been an active and vocal advocate for years, and has already been meeting with banking executives and consumer groups.  One of her first goals will be to make the true cost of financial products easier to understand:

  "Think about how long a credit card agreement has become," said Warren.  "It's become pages and pages and pages of largely incomprehensible fine print. In effect, it's paperwork that says "Don't read me," and that's a real problem. Because hiding in that fine print can be anything.  So one of the things we want to push toward is trying to clear out that kind of shrubbery. So that if there are real changes that a company is proposing, they stand out. They're not camouflaged by all those other words." 

Hmm.  Couldn't that philosophy work with mortgage documents too?  Haven't we all seen the "shrubbery" in loan packages?  Endless disclousures, repetitive forms, confusing wording, the same thing over and over.  A mortgage package could be cut from 100 pages to 25 pages and still say the same thing without overwhelming the consumer.  I sure hope that's on her radar as well.

More from ABC News (Oh, and I love the photo.  Seriously, you wanna mess with her?)

 

National Snow Day - Snowpocalypse 2011

2011 Rescission Calendar

For those who are mathematically challenged, the 2011 Rescission Calendar for calculating a borrower's 3 day right to cancel is available for download.  You can find it on my resource page under Forms, Documents, & Resources.