The Federal Government took over control of FNMA and Freddie Mac this morning.(09/07/2008) As I was reading about it last night and again this afternoon, my thoughts go to how this will affect home buyers and sellers, as well as the economy in general.
The bad news is that it will have a huge and prolonged effect. Credit will become even tighter and qualifying for any type of loan will become more difficult.
As I take a perfect borrowers' credit report these days, I tell them upfront that I will be apologizing to them until the loan is closed. I will be apologizing because even though I have asked them for everything but the proverbial kitchen sink, the loan process will still be met with things not ever asked for before.
Prior to using credit scoring for loan approvals, we had to document and re-document the source of a home buyer's funds, income, job security, bank records, and every other aspect of getting a loan approval. My experience with that enabled me to ask the borrower for all the needed information up-front. Asking for this information up-front is much less stressful for the home buyer and agents, and of course, me.
In the past year, we have entered a completely different mood in the mortgage business. The news today will make the mood even more serious.
I tell all of my loan clients that it comes down to this: the person who is going to sign off on your loan approval wants to cover every possible thing because they don't want to lose their job.
This is the temper and mood of the mortgage industry in a nutshell.
The good news about the take-over is that more people who are having trouble will get help sooner. There will be more consistency in how mortgages that aren't working are modified so that people can keep their homes. This will keep values up and keeping values up is good for every single American.
I will write more in the coming days. I am very good at helping people improve their credit scores so that the cost of credit can be greatly improved.
Please check me out at http://www.creditfitness.net/calc.html
