Home Equity: Master Your Debts and Grow Your Money

05/24/2025

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Colorado Cash for Keys, LLC specializes in helping home owners solve challenges preventing them from selling their home and moving on in life.

10/26/2024

WHAT COULD IMPACT HOME LOAN RATES THIS WEEK?

10/24/2024

REAL ESTATE INVESTORS, CLIENTS, REALTORS, and SELF-EMPLOYED PEOPLE: Do you want to be added to my list of invitees? If so, let me know in the comments.

I'll be putting together a very specific presentation and inviting people onto a webinar to go over our Non-Qualified-Mortgage (Aka Non-QM) loan products.

This is a class of home loan products which, among other things, permits alternative and reduced documentation levels.

These kinds of loans empower people, instead of using 2yrs of taxes, 2yrs of W2s, and traditional pay stubs, to use things like bank statements, depletion of asset accounts, 1099s, P&Ls, or even just a rents report from an appraisal.

These can be for a borrower's own primary home, a 2nd home, and for rental properties.

The same product types can be used for 1-4 units, 5-20 units, and even mixed-use, such as retail/residential.

Many borrowers still think they are handcuffed to the traditional Fannie Mae/Freddie Mac conventional home loan blueprint.

We'll pull the curtain back on these powerful tools.

10/22/2024

"Wow! I mean I like it, but you are REALLY different once we have a home under contract!" That was a funny text from this morning.

Correct.

I, and my team, and once we have a contract in hand, are hellbent on running a perfect 4x100 relay race for you to a smooth closing. It's the only way to ensure outcomes.

In my almost 24 years of lending, I have only ever submitted a single deal that did not close due to something I, or my team, did. ONE.

During that same stretch, only a few, counted on a single hand, didn't close and that was due to 3rd party performance failure or a client ending the process because s/he could not get their act together.

Lending is a serious business with heavy implications for an entire train length of participants, from the borrower, to agents, to sellers, to service providers, and to families.

If you need to take a fresh look at your primary lending relationship, then let's jump off-line for a call, or face-to-face, to see where I can move the needle for you.

10/22/2024

Whether this home sells via owner finance, or whether it sells with agents, these ugly signs will have sold it.

Always market your owned/controlled homes with these trashy, ungodly, ugly signs.

Always.

10/11/2024

National One Year Appreciation:

For all of the doom and gloom one hears, and setting aside the past meteoric value increases which were NOT normal (thank you dollar debasing and inflationary spending), we should ALL be so content to see these figures, below, year in year out.

Stacking modest home value gains, year after year, is a powerful tool in this country.

P.S. People in other nations salivate at the opportunity which many Americans have to put their money to work as many other nations don't have our same/similar dynamics. Not even their OWNER OCCUPIED homes really help them build equity/wealth over time.

10/11/2024

Friday rate update:

Some inflation worries are creeping into both bond and t-bill markets.

Is it warranted? That's a topic over beers while we shake our fists at money grubbing/spending elected leaders.

That said, I told folks to lock last week. It was a very smart call as rates deteriorated since then a little bit.

What now? Keep your head on a swivel IF your rate is not locked already and in case things worsen today.

Have a great weekend.

10/09/2024

ALL WESTERN MORTGAGE: HURRICANE AND LOAN FUNDINGS

Due to the ongoing hurricane, we are suspending funding on all loans in the affected areas listed below.

The counties under the Florida State of Emergency are as follows:

Alachua, Baker, Bradford, Brevard, Broward, Charlotte, Citrus, Clay, Collier, Columbia, DeSoto, Dixie, Duval, Flagler, Gilchrist, Glades, Hamilton, Hardee, Hendry, Hernando, Highlands, Hillsborough, Indian River, Lafayette, Lake, Lee, Levy, Madison, Manatee, Marion, Martin, Miami-Dade, Monroe, Nassau, Okeechobee, Orange, Osceola, Palm Beach, Pasco, Pinellas, Polk, Putnam, Sarasota, Seminole, St. Johns, St. Lucie, Sumter, Suwannee, Taylor, Union, Volusia.

Once the storm has passed, we will require a reinspection of the properties in these counties to proceed with loan funding. Our primary goal is to ensure the safety and security of our clients and their investments.

Thank you.

10/09/2024

The million dollar question I am getting from both agents and clients: Why did rates actually rise after the Fed cut its benchmark interest rate?

To answer this, let's take a step back and use history as a guide to see WHERE rates went after a cut before we answer WHY they rose after the cut.

1. The below historical ledger is pretty clear. The 10yr treasuries often rose, and did so this time, after the Fed made its cut
2. First, look at the cut date. Then, look at the cut amount (2nd column). Then anchor your eye to column 3 to see the 10yr Yield at the time of the cut.
3. Next, look at column 4 to see how much the 10yr spiked. Column 5 tells us the post cut HIGH before the 10yr began to fall again.
6. Now it gets interesting. Look at column 6 for the Cycle LOW. What do you see? I see a pretty impressive fall in the 10yr each time.
7. The last column simply tells you the relative % decline and it's substation.
8. If we use HISTORY as a guide to the FUTURE, then we can make some assumptions, not predictions, about where the 10yr will go and it is LOWER...a good bit lower.
9. What does this foreshadow for home loan rates as those are driven by Mortgage Backed Securities (MBS) and not the 10yr? Well, the 10yr, while NOT a direct influencer, is a solid guide on future economic conditions. If we look at the AVERAGE decline % in the 10yr, in this case 37%, and if extrapolate that into where home loan rates could eventually end up, that means during the tightening cycle we just entered on the Fed Funds Rates could push the 10yr lower and the mortgage rates equivalent may land us back into the mid to high 4%s
10. When would we see those rates? Not right away, that's for damn sure. It takes time to unwind the historic rise in Fed Funds Rates. As the economy continues to weaken, and it will, and that's why the Fed took the action it did, we'll see money move out of places like the stock market and into boring as hell bonds, which MBS are...bonds. This will lower home loan rates over time. It's...a...process!

*Bonus point/mention: Now that you know the history of the 10yr below, and after the Fed made cuts to its rate, you know when and why the 10yr spiked. You should also now know that when the 10yr falls, we should see falling mortgage rates. Last point: There was SO much chatter about the Fed rate cut that mortgage rate sheets had already, and largely, baked the improvement into their rates PRIOR to the Fed cut, so once it actually happened, we did not see any meaningful improvement. As we move forward, and because the Fed, at least in the modern world, so blatantly and clearly telegraph their rate cut plans, expect mortgage rate sheets to improve leading up to new Fed rate cuts and then experience pops higher after the cut has been made.

10/09/2024

"Andrew, why are published rates online lower than what lenders are offering today in real life?"

Great question. Here's why:

1. While mortgage rates are driven by Mortgage Backed Securities (MBS), I will use the below image of the 10yr. Why am I using that? Well, because MBS move in the opposite direction of rates, which confuses folks, and the 10yr, as charted, moves in the same direction as rates.
2. Do you see the circled area? That is when online rate publishers gathered its SAMPLE of market interest rates from home loan lenders.
3. What happened after that? Well, the 10yr exploded higher. This same pump is reflected in mortgage rates as they spiked a bit since the circled consolidation area below.
4. Bottom line: Because published rates are literally a snapshot in the PAST, and becauses they do NOT reflect TODAY'S rates, and because rates are higher this week than last week, THAT is why on-line rates, or lender quotes, are higher than the "SAMPLE " rates you see when you are looking at websites which average rates out around the country.

Work with experienced lenders who understand these things. It will preserve your sanity.

10/09/2024