Paper trails

I am convinced we will never be a paperless society. This week I had several closings, and the amount of paperwork each year seems to have gotten larger and larger! HVCC added 2 documents to our application, and this year, the new GFE has added 4 pages to our application, and 2 pages to the title company documents. I wonder how many trees that is? So, paperless………… no way.

What about the paper created/wasted with all the foreclosures and short sales? Just imagine ALL that paper floating around, from realtor to bank, to appraiser to realtor to bank again. It’s amazing. And legislators are trying to save the consumers money. All this paperwork, and cost, and compliance, must come from somewhere. Do you want to know how? The end cost to the consumer eventually, if it has not already, will be passed on to the consumer. Higher fees, higher rates, or a combo of the two.

The stock market rallied a lot this week, and for reasons you may not expect. Greece is on the brink of a financial collapse. Who would have thought? And the news of the EU coming to its aid affected the stock market as much as 4% as stocks rallied back and forth with mixed emotions at the news. China announced it will tighten its lending guidelines to slow the country’s economic grown and avoid inflation. Stocks did not like the news – good news for bonds. US treasuries were not well received at the auction- translation- no one wants to buy our debt! Maybe ‘no one’ is a strong word. Weak demand might be better said. So this week we had a lot of ups/downs. The takeaway here is that there are SO MANY factors that determine interest rates. When your time comes (or your clients) to commit to a lender and lock a loan, they should not ‘dily daly ‘ (as I tell my 4 yr old)- they should lock, and forget about the potential emotion of the thought of a lower rate.

An interesting headline for you that was on CNN Money this morning: “Eight million in assets-and can’t get a mortgage”. Some statistics that you may find interesting: 12% of US mortgages > 1 mm are delinquent. That is triple of one year ago. Assets don’t count for much anymore. Jumbo lenders are skiddish. It’s all about credit, equity, and ability to repay (monthly income). Assets come and go. People spend money (what if this borrower decided tomorrow to give all his money to charity? Money is gone………so we look for monthly income (that is likely to continue) for purpose of debt to income ratio. Tax returns, and full disclosure. We really want to know.