The Koitz Group's Blog: The Lending Industry

“Everyone around here is too scared to look out the window and see that it's not raining”

I’d love to take credit for coming up with that statement, but I can’t take ownership.  It is a quote from a lender concerning his organization and he used it after telling me that his underwriters had refused a loan that would have been a legitimate “gimme” a year ago and should have been the same today.  I don’t want to use his name, or the name of his organization, but it’s probably important to let you know that he works for an extremely well-recognized national lender. 

The day after hearing this wonderfully observant analysis on today’s lending market, I happened to meet with extremely well qualified clients who have outgrown their current home and are trying…

When, as part of the Economic Stimulus Package, it was announced that the FHA would raise their loan limits, members of both the housing and the banking industries rejoiced.  With the tightening of lending regulations (some justified, some an over-correction) this would help “free” up money and stimulate home buying.

Like every other real estate agent across the country, I was faced with the task of (re) learning the rules of FHA mortgages…but it was a relatively easy task because opportunities abounded for refresher courses.  Even with the initial uncertainty of the amount of the rate increase (which was determined by regional economic indicators), lenders went into high gear and provided as much information as possible.  In the Washington, D.C. area we…

The Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), today published the new single family loan limits for conforming and FHA loans.  These new, increased loan amounts were mandated by the Economic Stimulus Act, but we were awaiting the actual numbers to be released.  Congress had given HUD 30 days to publish these new loan limits and they managed to get them out over a week early.  The increases are local in nature and are based on the housing costs in various parts of the country.

The good news for what appears to be (on quick glance, I must admit) the entire Washington Metropolitan Area is that the new conforming loan limit and the FHA loan limit will be increased to the maximum amount of $729,750.  This is a HUGE benefit to our area, given that the…

I was reading the business section of The Washington Post today and it had an article about a Wisconsin couple who is going after Chevy Chase Bank for mortgage fraud. That sounds fine, on the surface, but it turns out that their attorney is also trying to get the courts to approve a class action suit to have all “bad” mortgages rescinded. It appears as though this is something that has not been allowed in the past and, although it only seems fair that lending institutions that made fraudulent loans should be penalized, the thought of thousands (probably hundreds of thousands) of loans being rescinded seems pretty scary.

According to this Post article, “83% of federally supervised banks that issued loans at the height of the housing boom in 2005 have been…