There is a common adage which says you should never leverage your house (a long term asset) to pay off short term debt. The reason being you don’t want to lose your house over what should otherwise be credit card debt or medical bills or some other, less important debt. And while there is some […]

On Tuesday I talked about ways to buy a house with bad credit. While it can be difficult, it is certainly something which can be overcome. The only thing harder in the world of credit to overcome is no credit history, at all. Underwriters have nothing to base your creditworthiness on, meaning they have no […]

There are many ways to get a mortgage. Some benefit borrowers with large down payments, some benefit those with less to put down; some benefit borrowers who plan to be in the home for less than 7 years, some benefit borrowers who plan to be there for 30 years; some benefit borrowers with good credit, […]

This is a very interesting topic, which is a popular questions, especially for first time homebuyers. I run into many young executives and engineers who recently graduated from college and have been working for several years at their first job, but know they will be switching companies at some point in the not-so-distant future. So […]

After you buy a house in Michigan, there is a lot that needs to be done. You need to set up utilities, figure out moving arrangements, childcare arrangements if you have kids, update your driver’s license, and so on. But there are two important forms which must be filed with the Tax Assessor’s Office that […]

When you buy a house and get a mortgage, you generally do so with a specific financial institution. And while many lenders will keep your mortgage for the full term of the mortgage, occasionally the lender will sell your mortgage to another lender or servicer. This transfer impacts who you pay every month, but should […]

It’s surprising to me how often people ask me about automatic payments. Something which, in the grand scheme of the mortgage process, seems so inconsequential can really get some people thinking. But while I consider the mortgage process from a processing and underwriting standpoint, the payment piece becomes the long-term concern for the borrower. So […]

On Tuesday, I wrote about the relative worth of mortgage insurance. For some, it is a welcome expense; for others, it is a needless expense best avoided. But for those who go the mortgage insurance route, it is usually not very long before they want to get rid of that extra monthly insurance payment. To […]

The value of mortgage insurance is different for every potential home buyer. To some, it is a way to get into a larger house or into a house, at all. For others, it is an unnecessary additional expense, only offering an unnecessarily large budget or small down payment. So the value of mortgage insurance is […]