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Blown Mortgage on Vacation: Yes, But Can You Afford It? 2007-09-08 09:36:26 My friend and colleague, Morgan Brown of Blown Mortgage, is basking on a beach in Fairfield County, CT, watching the leaves turn colors.  Morgan’s given me the opportunity to hijack his weblog and speak to his audience.  Mortgage veterans will often refer to the Three C’s of Lending when explaining how lenders view potential borrowers when underwriting a mortgage loan: 1- Credit- How does the borrowers pay his obligations? 2- Collateral- Is there sufficient equity protection if the loan defaults to recover the loan amount? 3- Capacity- Does the borrower have the income to make the payments? Pay attention the the final factor,  capacity.  In short, the question is “can they afford this house?”.  In Southern California, among other fast-growing markets, the honest answer is a resounding “No.”  The go-go years of SoCal real estate and lending displayed an utter disregard for this simple factor.  The prevailing thought was that the first two f ...

Downtown Toronto Condos - West End 2007-09-08 05:56:19 Here is look at the condos deveplments currently on the market in the western part of downtown Toronto, from Yonge St. to Bathurst St., south of Bloor St. Parking and storage locker are not included in the purchase price unless indicated. 1. 455 ADELAIDE WEST: 455 Adelaide St. W., east of Portland St. Builder: Freed Development and Lash Development Corp. A nine-storey, 103-unit precast concrete and glass building and 10 two-storey condominium townhouses. Prices: from $419,900 for 965 sq. ft. to $639,900 for 1,603 sq. ft. Fees: 30 cents per sq. ft., plus hydro. Sales: 11 left. Status: under construction. Occupancy: May 2008. Sales centre: by appointment, 416-368-5262; 455adelaide.ca. Source: Allison Harness 2. BOUTIQUE CONDO: Southwest corner of Simcoe and Nelson Sts. Builder: Urban Capital, West Development Group, Malibu Investments Inc., Alit Canada Inc. A 15-storey, 333-unit brick and glass building and a 19-storey, 191-unit building. Prices: from $530,000 for 1,051 sq. ft. to $9 ...

Time for a Vacation 2007-09-07 15:09:16 The past 10 days were unbelieveable.  With all the recompeted contracts coming out at work I have been busy working day and night.  Literally.  There were a few nights where I spent more time working then sleeping.  My portion of all the projects are done.  I am heading out and won't be back until Wednesday.  After all this I need the vacation. I plan on spending a few days relaxing and catching up on everything that has been happening around the world.  I'll be in Cape May, New Jersey soaking in some sun and fun.  I haven't had time to check out any of the blogs I like to read, no news, not much of anything except work. I'll spend some time reading the blogs I enjoy on the Internet.  Having a Wireless Broadband card for the laptop is a nice thing.   Not long after I return I should learn the outcome of all the efforts.  Hopefully we win all the new work we bid on…and keep the contracts that we had in place.  If we have a ton of wins I'll b ...

Guest Post: Housing Wire on Mortgage Reform 2007-09-07 08:15:15 Unless you’ve been living under a rock, you know that Senator Dodd has come out firing in favor of industry reform — what you might not know (yet) is that the legislation he intends to propose will seek to legislate a fiduciary relationship between borrower and broker. It’s an idea that has become the Holy Grail of mortgage reform on Capitol Hill as of late, with Democratic Senators Hillary Clinton and Charles Schumer having recently made their similar agendas known in this area. What is a fiduciary relationship? From Wikipedia: A fiduciary duty is the highest standard of care imposed at either equity or law. A fiduciary is expected to be extremely loyal to the person to whom they owe the duty: they must not put their personal interests before the duty, and must not profit from their position as a fiduciary, unless the principal consents. The fiduciary relationship is highlighted by good faith, loyalty and trust … At Housing Wire, I get all sorts of press rele ...

Toronto market remains hot 2007-09-06 14:04:08 August sets the stage for a strong autumn market More people in the Greater Toronto Area bought resale homes last month than in any August before, Toronto Real Estate Board President Donald Bentley announced today. The 8,059 sales reported last month exceeded the previous best performance for August “? set in 2005 “? by seven per cent. August also brought year-to-date figures up 13 per cent over the same period last year. So far this year 67,146 homes have sold as compared to 59,488 at this time in 2006. The pace is also 13 per cent ahead of the same timeframe in 2005, which became the best year on record. “With five consecutive record-breaking months, spring and summer activity was unprecedented and given the strong economic fundamentals that remain in place, we have tremendous confidence in the autumn housing market,” said Mr. Bentley. The Greater Toronto Area’s strongest sales activity in August took place in widely diverse neighbourhoods. In West Agi ...

Clearing Churned Up Waters 2007-09-06 14:00:00 Recently I posted two similar blogs entitled: “Inconvenient Truths about Home Staging“. One, which was shorter edited version, was posted on Active Rain while a more complete and comprehensive version was posted here on this site. The post created quite a ruckus with a foundation training company whose website I quoted directly from and linked to, to prove that I was not making an unsubstantiated point. Agitated with what I said, they contacted me with Cease & Desist email and comment. I honored their request and removed all references to them in my posts and all links I had placed on both my blogs to their site. Obviously,I now know they view my words as direct attack on their program, which was not the point. This staging foundation training organization is/was NOT doing anything that most other training organizations within the staging industry are doing or have done. Heck, for all I know this training organization my offer one of the most compressive and in-expensiv ...

Toronto real estate remains hot 2007-09-06 13:53:42 August Sets New Record, Breaks 8,000 Sales August 2007 became the fifth record-setting month in a row, with 8,059 sales reported by TREB Members throughout the Greater Toronto Area, TREB President Donald Bentley announced today. “This figure is up 15 per cent over August of last year, and up seven per cent over the 7,498 sales recorded during the same month in 2005, which was the previous “best ever” performance for the month of August,” said the President. “Summer of 2007 has been hands-down the most active holiday season for the resale market in the history of the Toronto Real Estate Board.” While sales roared ahead, prices remained affordable in August, with a recorded average of $361,890. This figure is up seven per cent over the $338,192 recorded during August of 2006. “While the last decade has seen five record breaking years, and a good possibility of a sixth in 2007, year-over-year prices increases have remained in the single digits. ...

Lehman Announces Layoffs, Name Change 2007-09-06 11:08:59 Lehman Brothers, who earlier closed its sub-prime lending arm, BNC Mortgage, announced further changes and consolidation of its mortgage unit.  The Wall Street firm, owners of Aurora Loan Services, announced the closing of one of its Regional Operating Centers and renamed its mortgage operations Lehman Mortgage Capital.  If you received the Mortgage Lender Implode-O-Meter premium service you’d already know this by now.  In an email to affected brokers the company wrote: Today Lehman Brothers announced the completion of the restructuring plan for its residential mortgage origination business. The plan sizes the business appropriately for the current market environment. The Firm also announced that it will rename its existing mortgage origination and servicing businesses in the U.S., Japan and Europe, including Aurora Loan Services, Lehman Mortgage Capital. Changes at Aurora Loan Services Challenging financial markets and the uncertain mortgage landscape have caused us to mak ...

Will Mortgage Credit Crunch and Impending Foreclosures Cause Increase in Homes For Sale by Owner? 2007-09-06 09:16:00 Much of the recent news regarding the mortgage meltdown and waves of possible foreclosures due to individuals who can’t refinance and can’t sell due to lack of equity raises the question if more people will sell their homes “For Sale by Owner”Â�. We happen to think that the number of FSBO listings will increase over the next few years due to a few reasons. We think this increase will be fueled by ...

Toronto market remains hot 2007-09-06 07:13:04 August sets the stage for a strong autumn market More people in the Greater Toronto Area bought resale homes last month than in any August before, Toronto Real Estate Board President Donald Bentley announced today. The 8,059 sales reported last month exceeded the previous best performance for August — set in 2005 — by seven per cent. August also brought year-to-date figures up 13 per cent over the same period last year. So far this year 67,146 homes have sold as compared to 59,488 at this time in 2006. The pace is also 13 per cent ahead of the same timeframe in 2005, which became the best year on record. "With five consecutive record-breaking months, spring and summer activity was unprecedented and given the strong economic fundamentals that remain in place, we have tremendous confidence in the autumn housing market," said Mr. Bentley. The Greater Toronto Area’s strongest sales activity in August took place in widely diverse neighbourhoods. In West Agincou ...

Guest Post: Predicting the unpredictable: How far will prices fall? 2007-09-06 06:44:02 In our continuing series of guest posts Peter Viles, writer of the L.A. Land blog for the LA Times is gracious enough to share his thoughts on housing prices.  We interviewed Peter a while back, you can listen to him here. How far will home prices fall? Seven percent? 15 percent?? 30 percent??? 50 percent??? On my housing blog at the LATimes,  I put up a post over the Labor Day weekend linking to a post at a favorite LA blog of mine, Manhattan Beach Confidential, that collected various predictions of how far prices will fall from their bubble peaks. Here is my post on LA Land. The comments I received were, as always, enlightening:  Pat wrote, “Pricing is completely dependent upon the neighborhood. Auctions have shown 30% price drops already in parts of Riverside, San Bernardino, and San Diego counties. Other areas, like the Westside have shown drops of less than 10%.” Amir wrote, “Anybody who read Fooled by Randomness or The Black Swan knows that most predictions ( ...

Upswing in luxury home sales 2007-09-05 11:54:26 Re-Max reports upswing in ‘upper end’ market Sales of luxury homes have registered an “unprecedented upswing” in the first half of this year, the real estate company Re-Max said today. In their report on 16 major markets across the country, Re-Max said high-end home sales were up in all regions between January and July. The highest percentage increase was seen in Edmonton, where sales of more than $900,000 in value rose 521 per cent. In the Greater Toronto Area, sales of homes costing more than $1.5 million increased 28 per cent, while in Ottawa, homes with an upper-end price point of$750,000 saw sales rise 115 per cent. In Vancouver, sales of homes $2 million and more increased 48 per cent, while Victoria showed the lowest increase of 13 per cent in all markets surveyed. “Strong economic performance, especially in Western Canadian provinces, has bolstered consumer confidence levels to such a degree that purchasers in the upper-end are comfortable with a m ...

Guest Post: Why do traditional Realtors despise discounters? 2007-09-05 07:00:34 Our real estate brokerage, BloodhoundRealty.com, is about to list a house for sale in one of the pricier neighborhoods of Phoenix. Our listing strategy is like a military campaign, so we’re always aware of our competition. We knew a similar home two doors away was ready to go on the market, but we were convinced it would be marketed For-Sale-By-Owner so we didn’t feel threatened. Why not? Because despite what you might have read, a by-owner seller is no match for a skilled listing agent. I’m willing to concede that there are some unskilled listing agents, but that doesn’t matter to us. We compete against professionals, not amateurs. In fact, the seller went with a limited-service listing instead, which is slightly — but only slightly — more likely to succeed. By now, true FSBOs are thin on the ground. If you are willing to pay the buyer’s agent’s commission, you can get a true MLS listing at a range of discount prices, from $3,000 down to ...

Community Safety - Amber Alerts 2007-09-05 05:57:02 The Toronto Real Estate Board is a proud participant in the Amber Alert program. When an abducted child is in imminent danger an alert is posted immediately on TorontoMLS system. As professionals who spend a great deal of time in the community, Realtors recognize that being alert could save someone’s life. Being engaged in community safety not only makes good business sense, it’s the right thing to do. If you wish to participate in the Amber Alert program here is contact information: The Toronto Police Service posts recent incidents up-to-the-minute at: http://www.torontopolice.on.ca/newsreleases/ You can also register to have alerts emailed to you at: https://secure.torontopolice.on.ca/tpsml In York Region recent incidents are posted at: http://www.police.york.on.ca/media.asp To receive community alerts in York Region visit: http://www.police.york.on.ca/rev911/addrecord.asp Durham Regional Police post recent incidents in the media section of th ...

A brief history of your Blown Mortgage Scribe, Part 2 2007-09-04 23:27:49 A lot of people ask me about my background and how and why I am in mortgages. Most people want to know why someone in the mortgage industry has a web site like Blown Mortgage. I guess its a little weird having a site that is primarily focused on the negative aspects of the industry in which I work. So with out further ado, for those of you that care about who is writing this blog please enjoy this autobiographical article that should shed some light on who I am and why I write Blown Mortgage. Part 1 Here’s part 2: After College After college I took a year off and enjoyed the last of my halcyon Santa Barbara days. Enjoying the life of a nominally employed; I slept, swam, imbibed and for a gainful wage worked as a front door sentinel for a popular nightclub and waiter at the mildly famous (and tasty) California Pizza Kitchen. I still fought with myself about career direction and ended up making a poorly reasoned foray in to the dreary world of clinical research. It must be th ... History