I offer it to you now, for your consideration.  I believe it captures some of my creativity as well as the absolute perseverance needed to successfully close any loan that I originate.

Here it is- (with apologies to Emma Lazarus)

“Give me your tired of misleading lenders, your poor and rich of cash, your huddled masses yearning for home ownership,

The stretch-ed current homeowner of your teeming shore who longs for guidance in a sea of muddy financial waters.

Send these, the homeless, and the FHA, Jumbo, and Conforming loans to me,

I lift my lamp and steady hand of expert mortgage knowledge beside the golden door of your new or previously owned home.”

If I can be of any service to you, please don’t hesitate to call me.  Thanks for letting me share the love.

The new Conforming loan limit for Ventura County will be $598,000.  Using the above scenario, your best rate at 20% down would then let you now buy a home up to $747,500.  That’s a pretty big jump!  Los Angeles county is even higher with a new limit of $625,500 which translates to an 80%LTV purchase of $781,875.  This will ultimately help more people qualify for more house, so it’s a pretty big deal in our industry.  Last year, the Conforming loan limits did not increase at all from the previous year, so this will be a nice improvement. 

If you’re looking for the new Conforming loan limits in your area, you may click on the link below.  All states are shown alphabetically and then alphabetically by county as well.  2009 should be a better year for real estate on all fronts.  Go make your best offer on a home now and if you need financing advice, I happen to know a very knowledgeable loan officer who’s been in the business for 28 years. That’s right, it’s me! Give me a call. 2009 Conforming Loan Limits

Escrow companies are what I call the “referees on the field”.  They’re the ones who take the property from the seller and the money from the buyer and only after everything is agreed upon by all parties do they make the switch, by giving the property to the buyer and the money to the seller. 

California is an “escrow” state.  Other states, like New York, are not.  They use attorneys on both sides, but California entrusts this important task to the ”neutral” escrow companies.  Once the escrow is open, it’s the lenders turn to get the loan final approved and from the first meeting with the lender, the lender’s computer software will approve or dissaprove the loan, based on the information plugged into it. 

After that, the lender collects the purchase contract and the preliminary title report from escrow and turns it in along with the completed loan application and all supporting documentation.  An appraisal is ordered to make sure that the home is worth what the lender is lending on and once all of the documentation is in the hands of the processor, it then goes to the underwriter for final underwriting. 

Once all underwriting conditions are met, the final loan documents are ordered and sent to the escrow company for the borrowers to sign.  After these docs are signed, they’re sent back to the lender to make sure that all signatures are in the right place and then the funding (money moving from the lender to escrow) will occur.  After the funding, the recording can take place which means the home is officially yours.

Obviously, there is a lot more detail to what I’ve just explained, but this should give you a basic idea of the process.  For more detailed information on this and any other financing question you might have, please feel free to give me a call as I have all the answers and if I don’t, I know where to get them.

It’s an open and closed case!

Banks are lending money!  Okay, there, I said it.  Have the guidelines changed?  Yes, they have, but not to the point where you can’t get a loan if you’ve got decent credit and some money to put down.  100% financing is all but gone, but since it is my business, I’ll tell you that loans are still being funded and closed.

Want to buy a new home?  Got terrible credit?  Have no money at all for a down payment?  Relatives won’t kick in to help you?  Then you’ll probably have to wait a while for the market to come back to you.  In the meantime, I would suggest saving for a down payment (if you can) and keeping your credit as clean as possible.  Remember that credit scores are based on “What have you done for me lately?”.  If you have an unpaid outstanding collection, that collecton is still considered current bad credit even if it’s years old.  Try to distance yourself (time-wise) from any late payments as well.  The further away they are, the less they matter today.

Let’s try that again.  Want to buy a new home?  Have average credit?  Have at least 3.5% down (FHA)?  Maybe even 10% down?  You can probably buy a home.  The only real question is how much home can you buy.  The bottom line is that lenders are lending to qualified borrowers and if your interested to know exactly how much you qualify for, call your favorite lender, which by now should probably be me.  Talk to you soon!

Getting approved today may be more difficult than it was before the mortgage crunch, but getting the loan closed is where you really must have a veteran loan officer to guide your loan through the murky waters.  Recently, I was able to approve and close borrowers who were previously approved by another lender, but were “un-approved” before the loan could close.  Yes, (he said boldly) they should have come to me first, but how could that have happened, anyway?

It’s called WORK, or lack of it in this case.  Many loan officers nowadays are just taking loan applications and giving them to processors who may or may not put the deal together properly.  It’s an experienced loan officer who knows how to structure a deal before it even gets to the processor.  In other words, it takes work.  It takes listening to the borrowers and showcasing them to the processor and underwriter in the strongest possible light.

The talent for doing this does not come overnight.  It comes from doing the job for many years and suffering through the process enough times to know how to do it right.  Even though most of today’s initial underwriting is done by a computer, if it isn’t put together properly, it will fall apart when it gets to final underwriting as it did with the borrowers I mentioned.

When it comes time to get pre-approved with a lender, find an expert loan officer who comes recommended from a professional you trust.  Don’t just shop rates or you may end up having to do your loan more than once.  Get the picture?  There’s “work ahead” for your loan officer to get it done right!

Let me know if I can be of any help with your financial needs.  Jay Friedman, senior loan consultant at jay.b.friedman@chase.com or (805) 585-2326.

You could get pre-qualified, where you talk to a loan officer and he just “crunches” the numbers and takes your word for the income, assets, debts, and credit OR you could get pre-approved, where your credit is pulled and all of the pertinent information is actually run through an automated underwriting system.  That’s right, artificial intelligence (AI) is making these decisions.  Nowadays, underwriters don’t generally give an approval unless the AI of automated underwriting says APPROVED first.  The underwriter’s job now is usually just checking to be sure that what you told the system matches the documentation and then you’re final approved.

When a seller is choosing between two offers, do you think he’d prefer the one where the numbers were just “crunched” (pre-qualification) or do you think that he’d prefer the one where the credit has been run and the automated system said YES based on actual documentation (pre-approval)?  That was a rhetorical question.  The answer is obvious and that’s the reason to get pre-approved.  All that’s needed for the final approval at that point is an appraisal!

There is power in the pre-approval and Real Estate agents know it!  Get yourself pre-approved and have the power of a strong lender behind you.  You can’t afford not to!  Now go out there and make me proud!

Let me know if you have any questions about getting pre-approved.  Jay Friedman, senior loan consultant at jay.b.friedman@chase.com or (805) 585-2326.  Happy house hunting!

The lending business has always been a “risk-based” business, but the current guidelines for conforming and jumbo-conforming loan amounts are much more complicated today.  In order to determine your interest rate, the lender may look at as many as five different levels of down-payments (ranging from between 10% to 40% down) and as many as eight different levels of credit scores (ranging from less than 620 to above 740) before determining your interest rate.

In other words, credit scores matter more now than they ever did before, so keep your credit clean!  How do you do that?  Well, the FICO score from Fair Issac Corp. is used by one of the three major credit reporting agencies (Experian), and here’s how they score you.  Each of five types of information counts to make up your credit score – payment history (35%), amounts owed (30%), length of credit history (15%), new credit (like inquiries, 10%), and types of credit in use (10%).

Let me know if you have any questions about your credit worthiness.  Jay Friedman, senior loan consultant at jay.b.friedman@chase.com or (805) 585-2326.  Happy house hunting.

You refinance your own home, that’s what you do!  The reason why you do this is because it’s cheaper money.  The interest rate on a non-owner-occupied (investment) property is usually about one-half of a percent higher!  That’s a big difference in monthly payments.

One of the reasons that banks charge less for owner-occupied loans is because they know that you will take better care of a home if you own it.  Makes sense to me and it makes sense the them.  If I can help you with any of your finance questions, please don’t hesitate to call or e-mail me at (805) 585-2326 or jay.b.friedman@chase.com.

Use a lender that will let you renegotiate a better rate should rates improve within 30 days of closing.  Be sure your loan officer monitors the market and ask him/her how he/she does it.  There are several ways to do this, but I subscribe to a compay that sends me a text message any time the market moves even slightly.  This has saved my clients thousand of dollars over the years by allowing me to lock rates before they jump or hold off if they’re on the way down.

As a loan officer in Ventura county, I’ve been working in Thousand Oaks, Simi Valley, Camarillo, and Ventura for over 25 years and I can’t remember the market being this volatile in recent memory.  I had FOUR different rate sheets on Friday (9/19/08) alone.  The market is all over the place, up and down.  I suggest you grab a rate and hold on to your hat.

If you have any questions about locking or general finance issues, give me a call and I’ll explain another reason to lock called the “Principle of 66″. 

Jay Friedman (805) 585-2326 jay.b.friedman@chase.com

As a loan officer, I do a lot of pre-approval letters and I have been doing a lot lately for people who don’t end up getting the house of their dreams.  Why?  Because there are usually multiple offers (yes, multiple offers) on homes that are a real steal.

In other words, if you find something you like and it fits your budget and your housing needs, grab it now or it might not be there tomorrow.  I see it every day.  Oh yeah, and call me if you need to get pre-approved.  Jay Friedman (805) 585-2326 or jay.b.friedman@chase.com