Reverse Mortgage, also known as “Aging in Place”, has been quite popular with the senior citizens since its inception in 1987. FHA along with Congress, NRMLA etc. are continuously working towards making reverse mortgage more attractive for the seniors.
Senior citizens who are aged 62 years or above could earlier cash out home equity with the help of reverse mortgage. But from 1st January, 2009 onwards, reverse mortgage will be available to senior citizens to buy their primary residence as well. Along with this, the reverse mortgage limit has been raised to $417,000 nationwide and those living in high cost areas can qualify for loans even up to $625,000.
It was noticed that the reverse mortgage program which was introduced to keep seniors in their home wasn’t helping those who wanted to downsize or those who were keen to move closer to their kids. But with the new development in reverse mortgage, things have become easier for the senior citizens.
With the raising of the reverse mortgage limit and changes in the traditional reverse mortgage, I think, a lot of senior citizens will be benefited. In order to get a reverse mortgage, it was necessary that the senior citizens had their own residence. The reverse mortgage was mainly used by them to pay off debts and medical bills. But now, seniors can also buy a home of their own with the help of a reverse mortgage.
Hi all,
Here’s wishing you all a Happy and Prosperous New Year. May all your dreams come true !
Hope you’ll all Enjoy and have a Great Year ahead 
May you live in peace and harmony.
Let’s hope we’ll get over the evil and bring in the best in our lives. Here’s wishing that things get on well with time and we’re able to get over the crisis in our financial markets. Let’s hope the community will grow even bigger and we’ll be able to bring happiness in the lives of all who’s a part of it.
It’s Christmas time once again! With the coming of the winters, the festive season is back with lot of gifts and goodies for everyone.
Christmas, for me, is all about the fun and frolic that it brings - the yummy roasted turkey, the gifts and greeting cards, the cakes and pastries, the Christmas tree and last but not the least Santa Claus!
I guess all of you must have planned something for this Christmas!!! I have lots of plans this year… This year I will be celebrating Christmas in Toronto with my sister. We will be meeting after a long time. Adding to the joys of Christmas, we have a new member in our family – Carolina, my sister’s daughter. So this year celebrations will be doubled!!!
You all must also have planned something for this Christmas! Do share your Christmas planning with me… Wish you all a very happy and healthy Christmas and pray to God that you all have a nice time!!!
With the Federal Reserve planning to buy $600 billion of debt owned by Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae, mortgage rates have plunged to the lowest in the past 7 years. Average rates on 30 year fixed mortgages with no fees and closing costs have gone down to around 5.25%.
Earlier when rates have been going high, home resales have hung up. However, the Fed’s move to purchase Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae loans is expected to bring some positive changes in the housing market.
The Fed also intends to set up a $200 billion program in order to provide financial support to consumer and small business loans. However, it is expected that strict lending rules and growing job losses in a weakening economy will make it tough for markets to come across a revival, even though rates may go down further.
It’s not a matter of what rates one can afford. Instead, it’s an issue about the supply of homes which is quite high. Until and unless the supply and demand get normal, the market won’t see stability and revival.
Let’s just hope that the Fed will be able to deal with the market crisis by clearing the market of subprime mortgage securities, the primary reason behind the mortgage mess.
Our Community members have so far been rewarded with more than $1000 mentor dollars – it’s a great feeling to share this with you all!
Whether it’s a mortgage professional, an industry expert or a common guy, the members have put in their valuable contribution towards helping people in spite of their busy schedules. Their guidance has helped visitors in times of financial distress. And the visitors have time and again returned and acknowledged their support.
I really appreciate the way our community members have stood by each other in times of financial crisis and offered each other help and support! Be it mortgage or any related financial issue, the members have tried their level best to offer the right advice when in need.
I’m glad to say that we have a wide range of professionals participating in our community. And, with the help of their cumulative knowledge they have been able to help people get through financial troubles in their lives.
Our reward system reflects our appreciation towards the efforts put in by the community members in helping each other. I believe the system has been good enough to encourage people to participate in the community activities. We shall keep improving the reward system so that we can encourage more and more people to participate and be an active part of this community.
Here’s something exciting that I’d like to share with you - MortgageFit Community has exceeded 28000 members!
Ever since we started off, the community has been growing with a number of professionals and common people joining and participating in the community activities. There are professionals from the mortgage as well as related industry like the credit and appraisal industry. Members like Gmakerly , Kim Patrick , Chris Burns etc are from the mortgage industry whereas Robert Banker is associated with the credit industry.
Moreover, our community has professionals like Jheard from the law industry. While the mortgage professionals have helped people with mortgage help and advice, Jheard has contributed towards assisting people in their property and deed related issues.
There’s a lot of interaction between the lenders and common people in our community forums. The forums provide for a platform wherein people can freely talk to lenders/experts on any financial or property issues. Other than the forums, the community members also interact with each other through private messages, quick message and mails. This brings in a sense of togetherness amongst the members.
So far, our members are satisfied with the way our community has been helping them – something which is evident from our testimonial section wherein people have shared their feedback. Let’s hope that our association will continue and more and more members will be a part of our community.
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.
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.
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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.
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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]
