We are happy to announce that the Community has rewarded 8 valuable members with the ranks “Community Mentor” and “Community Experts“.

Sam (Site Admin of MortgageFit) along with Team has reviewed the members’ participation and come up with the short-listed members. While short-listing, the Team tried to filter members on the basis of defined criteria, the members’ quality and his intention of sharing information.

MortgageFit Community Mentors:
George M. Akerley Mortgage Consultant First Horizon Home Loans Bloomfield, Connecticut
Jessica Bennet Financial Writer MortgageFit Ohio
Samantha Taylor Financial Writer MortgageFit Massachusetts
MortgageFit Community Experts:
Eugene Volovik Account Manager Team USA Mortgage Minneapolisticut
Michelle Keck Mortgage Consultant Mortgage Network Solutions
Charles “Chuck” Armbruster Loan officer Lifetime Mortgage LLC Mesa, Arizona
Robert Enriquez Sr. Mortgage Consultant North Carolina Mortgage Charlotte, North Carolina
Cedric Kalvesmaki Mortgage Broker Freedom Mortgage Dallas, Texas

From now onwards, we are going to open this challenge to our moderators, who will decide upon the upcoming community mentors and community experts. As a community, we are looking forward to get their valuable contribution in future too.

[tags]community mentor, community experts[/tags]

The Community is soon going to introduce Ranks - “Community Mentor” and “Community Experts“.

The ranks will be awarded to professionals for their valuable participation in different community activities. Currently, we are going to short list a few members on the basis of some preliminary criteria.

Criteria for Community Mentor: Should posses sound knowledge of mortgage/finance and property issues. Need to make 600 quality posts in forums. Must be an active participant for the past 6 months. Should be able to help people with the right financial advice. Should be moderator of at least 1 forum.
Criteria for Community Expert: Should have good knowledge of finance, property and other issues discussed in forums. Need to make at least 100 quality posts in forums. Must be an active participant for past 1 month.

The community experts and mentors should be able to guide people in the right direction.

We have designed 2 different logos for two different ranks which will get highlighted on the short-listed members’ page along with the forum rank. Also the logo’s source code will be available to them, so that experts/mentors can use it on their signatures and place it on their website/blog or anywhere they prefer. Such a thing will hopefully help them in promoting their business.

And, very soon our community moderators will be selecting our community experts and mentors.

[tags]community experts, community mentors, moderator ranks[/tags]

As a part of the Economic Stimulus Bill, jumbo mortgage limit has been extended especially in higher cost areas. And recently rates on jumbo loans have also dropped down. But in spite of this, borrowers aren’t able to make use of the rate cut or the extended limit. This is because even though rates have gone down, lenders have tightened their lending criteria. As such, getting a jumbo mortgage does not depend only upon the appraised home value and your credit score, but also on the condition of the housing market in your area.

There are 3 types of jumbo loans:

1. Jumbo-conforming loans: These loans (between $417,000 and $729, 750) and satisfy the Fannie Mae/Freddie Mac guidelines and are sold off to the secondary market.

2. FHA jumbo-conforming loans: Such loans meet the guidelines put forward by the FHA.

3. Bank jumbo loans: These loans do not conform to the FHA or any agency.

As I said before, lending criteria for these loans have tightened and as such you’d have to pay at least 20% down payment if you’d like to get a jumbo-conforming loan. The other criteria are:

• A credit score of 660 and above
• A housing market which isn’t on a decline.

(more…)

Once again a Bill has been passed on Thursday 8th May 2008 to relieve millions of homeowners who are facing problem with their mortgage payments. To stabilize the housing market, Massachusetts Representative Barney Frank, who is the chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, has authored the bill.

The main provision of this new bill is that FHA will guarantee about $300 billion of refinance loans. The borrowers who have taken sub-prime loan and ARM and also have the ability to pay the refinanced loan can have a reduction on their principal balance and it will be converted into 30 year FRM. That will make monthly payments lower so that they can afford to pay off their mortgages.

This is totally a voluntary plan as because no lender or bank require to participate in it. If they accept the reduction on the mortgage amount of borrowers in default, or those likely to be in default, then they will get federal guarantee on the refinance mortgages. Any loss from the defaulted FHA backed loan will be borne by the Federal government. The lenders or the bank will not have to bear any loss. It is predicted that this Democratic House Bill will provide help to more than 1.5 million troubled borrowers.

[tags]mortgage bill, mortgage help, fha refinance[/tags]