Marc's Mortgage Matter's

Who? I don't know but seems the venerable N.Y.Times sure is abit confused, why in this weekend issues I was intrigued to find in the DataBank section (Sunday) national average is 6.11% while Saturday's Market Gauge had 5.87% (Source is bankrate.com - no comment!) (hmm I'll take 10 of those), and yet another section            today (RealEstate) had 6.47% which is more in line but also too vague to be understood as there is no hint of what type of loan this is. So is it 5.87 or 6.47? Well the rates did actually go up towards the end of the week and well over 6.50% but then again so many issues are involved overall.

You get what I'm getting at I'm sure, so buyer beware or better yet, know whom you are dealing with. In this arena it is almost never what it started at!

This week I read an internal memo that stated some 100,000 mortgage related jobs have been shed from late 2006 to late 2007, or about 20% of its workforce. Most have been in the sub-prime area, but I suspect it includes prime loans too.

Another article I forgot where I read it stated borrowers should avoid loans with prepayment penalties. Ummm no kidding! Most really are clueless to this little perk that lenders passed on. Simply stated the bank pays us more if we stick a prepayment penalty into the loan. That is if you pay it off within the first 1-3+ years (depends on State and various laws), yes that means refinance to better rates, get out of those option arms, the original lender gets 1-2% of the balance. Double Ouch! I never allowed this to be done to any of my clients all these years. The only exception is HELOCs with no closing costs.