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Mortgages and Divorce
Should We Wait To Buy A House?

Rising mortgage rates have scared off many prospective home buyers, but as we’ll learn today, it may still be a good time to buy a home. Marc Edelstein of Ross Mortgage joins Paula and Jon as one of their very first guests. Yes, interest rates have risen, but home prices have fallen. Marc walks…
Read MoreVA Home Loan Refinance

If you’re a veteran in Oakland, Macomb, Wayne, or any Michigan County, and you own a home using your VA home loan benefit. Does the stack of mail above look familiar? In some instances, local veterans have reported receiving 10-12 of these letters a week. So, what are they and why are you getting so…
Read MoreRECASTING A MORTGAGE
There are a number of ways to lower your monthly payments on your mortgage. The most popular is certainly refinancing, because you can lower your rate, extend your mortgage back out another 30 years, or eliminate mortgage insurance. But refinancing often carries fees and can be an intensive process. Another common way people lower their monthly…
Read MoreHow Much Down Payment Do I Need To Buy A House?
This is a common question I am asked by clients, and I would say it is a pretty good question to ask. If you watch the news, there are reports seemingly ever day which contradict each other on the topic of down payments. Some will say put at least 20% down to avoid mortgage insurance and have…
Read MoreWHO NEEDS A MORTGAGE PREAPPROVAL?
Mortgage preapproval letters have become a standard practice in the home buying process. Most sellers would like something of substance from a lender stating that you actually have the means to buy their house before making it unavailable to other buyers. Why take their house off the market and go into contract with you, when you could…
Read MoreWHAT IS AN FHA 203K MORTGAGE?
So we’ve discussed conventional and FHA mortgages, but an important type of FHA mortgage is the FHA 203k mortgage. The FHA 203k mortgage was created to help people buy houses which need repairs. Prior to the 203k loans, lenders were becoming increasingly strict when it came to lending on a house which needed work. But with the advent of this new FHA…
Read MoreFHA vs CONVENTIONAL MORTGAGE INSURANCE
As I discussed last week, mortgage insurance is a necessary evil for many prospective home buyers, especially those who are first time home buyers. It is a tool which allows individuals to buy the home of their dreams even if their credit is less than perfect or their down payment is less than 20 percent. This insurance…
Read MoreHOW TO GET A MORTGAGE CLOSED IN LESS THAN 30 DAYS
As the year comes to an end and we enter December, the crunch begins to meet year-end closing deadlines. There are a number of reasons why people want to close by the end of the year, but most of them revolve around taxes. And I find that every year during this first week of December,…
Read MoreTHE FIRST TIME HOME BUYERS SERIES! “BECOMING A HOMEOWNER”
First Time Home Buyer Series Overview: Over the next couple of months I will be doing the most comprehensive blog series on becoming a “First Time Home Buyer” you have ever seen! We are going to tackle 9 different topics that are crucial to making an often-dreadful process, amazing! These topics include: What does it…
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