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…)

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.

Technorati Tags: mortgage bill, mortgage help, fha refinance

Here’s something interesting to talk about!

We have come up with the Video Forum in MF to help you share and learn finance the easy way. Our purpose is to empower you with financial knowledge so that you can make wise financial moves.

What is it all about?

The Video Forum is an interactive platform wherein you can add financial videos or browse through those shared by others. What we get to see and hear leaves a lasting impression on our minds. That’s the reason videos are so effective in spreading financial knowledge.

What you need to do is, select a financial video from YouTube and add the video url into the forum. Not only can you add videos, but also you can post your opinion and comment on videos added by others. However, the community will not encourage promotional or commercial videos. They have the right to vote in the negative and prevent anyone from posting such videos. Only helpful videos will be allowed into the forum.

Who can add videos?

Only registered members will be able to share finance videos into the forum.

How do you benefit?

As a community member, you get the chance to add financial videos, share information and earn dollars. Whereas, lenders can add videos and refer them to their clients thereby helping in their business promotion.

So, are you interested to share and learn through videos? Check out the MF Video Forum .

Technorati Tags: finance video forum, add finance video

Well, with due respect to the companies out there I don’t think getting quotes online are reliable enough with respect to your specific situation. What I mean is, the lenders are not able to get an overall idea about your situation, and analyze what to do if you’ve had any credit problems. Moreover, the industry has a wide variety of loans to offer and as such it’s not easy to select the right program for you simply by going through the little details you provide.

The lenders need to analyze your financial situation and creditworthiness, assess your ability to pay off loans and take into account your liabilities prior to approving your loan. But this is only possible if you attend a face-to-face meeting with the lender and discuss your loan options along with any credit repair steps to be taken. That’s the reason I feel, getting quotes online won’t do much for the borrower. It’s very generic and in most cases borrowers end up getting the best offers. And then later on when he applies and gets approved, he finds himself being offered something which he can’t afford.

Thus, one can opt for companies which gives the chance to apply online and wait till lenders/brokers review their basic information and contact them depending upon whether the latter are comfortable signing a deal with the former.

Just in case you’d like to take a quick look at the entire discussion on how reliable are online mortgage quotes, refer to http://www.mortgagefit.com/quote/online-reliable.html

Technorati Tags: online mortgage quote, online mortgage, mortgage quote

Having a good credit record is a primary factor for getting some of the best mortgage offers. But in today’s market, one of the major concerns for those looking for mortgage is having bad credit.

Due to low score or negative remarks on credit report, sometimes it’s simply not possible for us to get a mortgage and fulfill our dream - that of having a Sweet Home. And even if we get an offer, the rates and fees are too high.

So, all you do is to leave aside your dream home just because you don’t qualify to be the most creditworthy borrower! Or else you take out loans with higher rates and payments and then like many out there end up in foreclosure which seems to be rising day by day.

It’s time now to wake up and start thinking on it. By this I mean, we need to think twice if we’re looking to get mortgage and our first job then will be to check our credit status and start analyzing what went wrong or how we can make it even better.

“Oh no! How could you analyze it? You are not aware of any tips and traps of making your credit better” – This is what you may think and frankly speaking this is what I often used to think.

For all those having credit issues, there’s nothing to worry about! MortgageFit Credit Repair Tool is your solution.

MortgageFit has come up with a tool “Credit Repair Tool - Analyze and fix your Score“.Here you can start analyzing your credit report yourself and get valuable suggestions to repair all your negative remarks for 5 main sections that can bring down your score by several points:

1. Bankruptcy
2. Charge-Off
3. Collection
4. Judgment and
5. Late Payment/Delinquency.

So what are you thinking? Let’s start analyzing your credit! And while you do so, don’t forget to leave behind a comment stating how this tool helped you.

Technorati Tags: credit repair tool, credit analyzer, improve credit score

The borrowers, who miss payments in 2 consecutive months or at 2 different times in the last 12 months, will be able to refinance with FHA Secure Expansion program if they meet 97 percent loan-to-value ratio requirement. Even borrowers having 3 missed payments in 3 consecutive months or at 3 different times in the last 12 months can refinance if they meet 90 percent LTV ratio requirement. The lenders will have to ensure that the borrowers have the capability to pay back their mortgages.

Borrowers who are currently using FHA Secure is saving on an average 400 dollars per month than their previous sub-prime loans. So the bottom line is that the government is providing a golden opportunity to the sub-prime borrowers so that more people can refinance with FHA Secure and avoid facing foreclosure.

For further details, check out the community discussion on FHA Secure Expansion

Technorati Tags: fha secure expansion, fha refinance, mortgage help, avoid foreclosure

Today we have come up with our Industry News section with a new look and after fixing some logical bugs.

Now the community members can share any mortgage news or latest happenings in the mortgage or finance industry from any news site or blog.

I personally feel, it will give a platform to financial bloggers who can share their interesting blog posts covering industry happenings with a large community and collect their comments.

And the members who don’t have their own blog can also share any new site or other blogs covering latest industry happenings with the community.

So, let’s make our community aware of the latest in finance!

What if you wish to move out? Well, you’d probably negotiate for a short sale if you’re upside down on the mortgage. Or perhaps you may try to negotiate for a deed-in-lieu because this is one option where you need not pay the deficiency as the law says.

But how about keeping the home and at the same time paying down the mortgage? This is quite possible if you’re filing bankruptcy chapter 13 which allows you to follow a repayment plan (approved by the trustee and your lender) and pay off a part or whole of the mortgage within a period of 3-5 years so that the rest can be paid off using a separate repayment plan or a refinance as allowed by the lender.

Interested to know more? Check out why chapter 13 is often a far better option .

Technorati Tags: chapter 13 or foreclosure, chapter 13, avoid foreclosure

This is the first time when FED is accepting the housing debts as collaterals.  Fed has assured to offer 200 billion dollars in a new Term Securities Lending Facility (TSLF) with a term of 28 days. The loans will be given with an auction process and it will start from 27th of March 2008. Fed has also declared that they may raise the amount of loan that they make available to the banks to 100 billion. FED has been injecting billions of dollars into the banking system to help the economy to get out of this credit crisis.

Technorati Tags: credit crisis, housing debt collateral, fed move

On November 15th 2007 it was also 6.24 percent. But since then we saw a steady downfall in the mortgage rates. During January 2008 the rates were falling steadily and refinancing had hit 12 months highest in that month because homeowners were trying to take advantages of the lower rates to make their monthly payments lower.

Other mortgage rates have also been increased in this week. Rates on 15 year Fixed rate mortgage rose to 5.72 percent whereas it was 5.64 percent last week. Rates on 5 year ARM rose to 5.43 percent compared to last week’s 5.37 percent and rates on one year ARM rose to 5.11 percent compare to last weeks 4.98 percent.

Technorati Tags: FRM, Fixed Rate Mortgage, Refinancing, Mortgage