KnowYourPro

Hot off the press :)

KnowYourPro wants good karma. We also want to have lots of members- a spectacular community of all sorts of interesting people. We say 'the Yellow Pages, on steroids' because that's what we envision. Who uses the yellow pages these days? I know I don't. If I need to find someone, I look online. The only problem is, most websites out there have an 'agenda', and it's usually simply to make as much money as possible. The consumer's interests take a back seat to $$$.

There are websites to help people find all kinds of professionals- some of which CONSUMERS have to pay for! How crazy is that? On the other hand, you have websites that are nothing more than a gigantic database, and whoever pays the most money gets the best listing- no care to how that person does business. 

In the hopes of keeping this site up and running for many years to come, we have to get creative. In looking for ways to finance our endeavor, we have already taken charging fees to consumers and/or professionals off the table. We were looking for a unique way to make an impact while also making a living, and I think we've found it.

Our idea is simple. We'd like to organize fundraising events for organizations in our communities. I am very passionate about education, so some local schools are on my list. I would invite ALL members (professionals and consumers alike) to let us know who/what/where we should be holding fundraisers in YOUR area. We have members from Massachusetts to California, Florida to Michigan. This is grassroots. This could be AWESOME. 

All we ask in return is a share of the funds raised- 10% to be exact. We will do all the work, and make sure our 'co-fundraiser' exceeds all expectations. Why do all that just for a measly 10% share? Because we are AMAZING people, that's why!

So let's get cracking- I think we should have a nationwide event with a ton of fun local fundraisers sometime over the summer. Let's make it happen!

Thanks so much for reading.


Jen and Paul
 

I'm sure that everyone's heard about the new Real Estate Settlement Procedures (RESPA) law that's come into effect, specifically, the new Good Faith Estimate (GFE) form that's now required as of January 1.  Upon first blush, the new GFE, which is now 3 pages compared to 1 page of the prior version, is fairly simple and clear to read; many complained of the prior version's esoteric layout and confusing brevity.  For instance, the new form states specifically whether the new mortgage will have escrows required and what the exact charges of the transaction will be, not simply estimates; that's where the title of the new form is deceiving.  It's not really a good faith estimate as it is a good faith GUARANTEE.

Where the form really deviates from the prior iteration is in its enforcement or effect.  Specifically, the new form does not tolerate upward deviation from the disclosed fees to the actual fees at the time of closing, except in certain circumstances where services can be shopped by the borrower, such as attorneys fees, it can tolerate a 10% deviation.   Again, this appears to be a consumer protection mechanism of the new law; now a loan cannot close unless the original GFE matches the settlement statement, or HUD-1, pretty much to the T.  

Again, no one can impugn the intention behind this new law; borrowers have been taken advantage of in the past and they need additional protections in the future.  However, there is a fairly significant oversight in the end result of the document, i.e., a loan CANNOT close if the documents differ.  This means that for certain fields if there is any difference between the documents, no matter how small or unintended those deviations may be, a closing can be put in jeopardy.  

For instance, in the state of Illinois, it is customary that the seller pay for the owner's title policy at the closing.  Now since it is only customary, and not codified or statutory, then according to RESPA this title charge needs to be entered on the GFE under Box #5, which will also be added to the bottom line, Box B, of the borrower's total closing charges.  Now you may ask yourself, why would a charge that is customarily a seller's fee, need to be disclosed as a buyer's charge?  Logic aside, this is the new law and everyone, including the buyer, must accept it because if it is not disclosed as such, then the loan will not be permitted to close.  So in essence, the borrower will not be able to close a loan because a fee that they customarily are not charged, and were in fact never going to be charged, was not disclosed to them at the inception of the loan process.  

Now, there is a simple and required fix to this: disclose a owner's title charge.  However, there is a fairly obvious problem with having an originator quote title charges to a consumer, i.e., the originator is not a title agent and frankly would have no idea of the owner's title until the policy is issued by the title company.  So the originator is left with guestimating those charges based on past experience.  Again, in Illinois, the owner's title can vary quite a bit depending the title company used by the seller.  I've seen owner's policy range from $1200 all the way to $2500.  Based on that alone, an originator would have to assume worst case, again because of the 10% tolerance, so $2500.  Remember, this fee will show as a borrower charge and be added to the bottom closing charges on the GFE.  

Obviously, a seasoned originator will be able to explain this particular quirk to a disgruntled borrower, and hope that another originator who is willing to bend the rules doesn't offer them a GFE without those attendance and required charges.  But what does this do to the state of mortgage lending?  Aren't we back to square one again in terms of confusing or misleading loan disclosures?  Shouldn't the mortgage process be clearer and more approachable for borrowers, rather than more opaque or confusing?  Is there anything more confusing that being offered a document stating one thing, and having your mortgage professional tell you the complete opposite in terms of actual costs at a closing?  Clearly, there must be a better way!  Perhaps it would have helped our lawmakers to solicit feedback from actual lending practitioners before implementing such dramatic changes to such long used processes.  It would appear from both a consumer's and originator's perspectives that the process remains broken, perhaps even more so.  

2009 was a year of ups and downs for me.

In January, my grandmother passed away. She was my last living grandparent, and the only one I knew.

In February, KnowYourPro was born. Conceptually anyway. ;)

In March, my partner of 7.5 years asked me to leave the home we had shared for 6. A home that I had found for 'us'. That 'us' was now dead.

In May, my mother had some health problems that required surgery. Because I was the only offspring around at the time, I was by her side for that. Nothing is scarier than watching your parent get prepped for surgery. Well, I suppose watching your CHILD is much scarier. In any event, it was around this time that I decided to start my medication. Yay!

In June, I had some serious work-related issues that continued for the better part of the rest of the year. 

In July, I met someone who made my heart sing. I felt things I hadn't ever felt before, and it was wonderful.

In August, my father had a heart attack and emergency surgery. I also had my heart broken. 

In October, KnowYourPro.org launched. The creation was and is a malleable piece of clay, and we love it. 

In December, I turned 31 and tried to end 2009 on a positive note. I think I succeeded!

I am sure I missed a few things. Moves, disappointments, familial issues. I think you get the gist though. Some years suck so bad you just want to stick your head in the sand and not peek out until the storm has passed. Since we don't have that option, we have to keep moving, we have to keep changing.

When we hit a bump in the road, we have to react in a positive way. The 'old' me would have checked herself into an institution after all this! But armed with my happy pills and a new outlook on life, I was able to get past each roadblock with ease. Well, maybe not ease... 

I'll give you a good example. When my father had his heart attack, I ended up taking an enormous amount of stress on. I was the one who made him get up and go to the hospital. I sat with him in the room waiting for the ambulance to take him to the hospital for surgery. I rode with him, scared out of my mind that he was going to die. I called the relatives that needed to know what was happening. I did everything I could have done, and instead of being ok with that, I questioned it. "What if _____?". I remember sitting in the waiting room at the hospital while he was having his procedure done. I discovered that we could HEAR what was going on in the operating room, so being the moron that I am, I would put my ear up to the door every ten minutes or so. Listening for 'FOR GOD'S SAKE MAN, WE'RE LOSING HIM!', and all I heard was soft music and 'Did I tell you about the time Ed and I went out to boohooojooo dood oddoodo'. 

A few days later, he was out of the hospital. It would take weeks for me to get over it though. I had to feel what I was feeling and recognize it, then let it pass. But doing this, being 'healthy', is something to get used to. The 'what-if' catastrophic thinking is a tough habit to break. But if we don't change, if we don't wrap our heads around what we feel and instead dwell on it and let it rule over us, we are doomed to a very miserable life.

While it's still hard or me to fully grasp some of the events of last year, I can't bother myself with them any more. Doing so would take away from what I am experiencing now. It would keep me from feeling great, and would most likely transport me form this place where I am happy, confident and eager to live back to a place where I was scared, worried and not too happy. No thanks!

Change is great, and if you want to make positive changes in your life, you can! One step at a time, live in the present. Try not to dwell on the past or worry about the future. Good things can be habits too!


The Anti-Anxiety Coach!
 

I've been doing some thinking, and have come up with a few ways that WE, the average citizen, can take our country back and help us recover from the economic crisis. In this blog I'd like to focus on one simple thing that we can all do to kick this recession to the curb.

Since it's tax time, a lot of us will be getting refunds. Some of us will get $500, some will get $8500, and most of us will spend it. Instead of blowing it on something that will not benefit our economy in any REAL way (a television, a new set of golf clubs, a brand new car), why not spend it on something that WILL help re-energize our local economy?

Let's get one thing straight here- as much as the politicians in Washington say they want to help us, the fact is simple- we need to do it ourselves. So, let's compare what we do with our money now, and what we could do that might make a real difference.

Now, we get a few bucks, we run out and get the cool new phone, or the nice television set. That money goes to the stores we buy it from, which pay their employees less than stellar wages, offer little opportunity for advancement, and are generally 'meh'. The money also goes to manufacturers, mostly in China. It goes to the 'brands' that sell their wares. When it comes down to it, a very small percentage actually ends up back in our local communities. 

What we could do is simple. Spend that money on goods and services offered by local stores and providers. I'll give you a great example. My uncle owns a pest control company. He employs a small workforce, but could employ more. He pays them well, treats them with respect, and runs a tight ship- everything we should want to invest in. He charges a flat fee for a year's worth of service. Let's say 20 people chose to utilize his services instead of buying a plasma tv this year- that means another employee hired, more money spent in local shops, and a stronger local economy. Multiply that by the millions and we are back in business.

I know a lot of people will say 'Stop berating the big box stores! They employ a lot of people!'. Well, the problem is, as illustrated above, the MAJORITY of the money you spend goes elsewhere. Far, far away. 

What if we keep it local? What if we say 'Va fangul' to the banks, the Wall Street fatties, the nay-sayers, the depressing 'oh, we're all gonna die' folks? What if we take our fate in our own hands, and get it right for once? 

This is the truth, so listen up. No one but US cares about our survival. No Washington politician cares. No big shot Wall Street guy cares. No dividend-receiving old fogy cares. All they seem to care about is how those 30 stocks are doing, what the 'consumer confidence number' is, and what their mistress wants for a snack. CONSUMER confidence? Who wants to be a consumer? I don't. You shouldn't either. 

Let's stop consuming, let's start UTILIZING. Utilize our local talent, local farms, local land, local brains, local people! Pay a person, not a brand. Not some dude who does not care if this country lives or dies.

Just a thought.


JM

 

Thanks to Jen commenting on my last blog post, I now have my next blog post. Continuing my compliance theme, today I'm talking about licensing and how it came about in MA. Starting in the early 2000's, our state association was pushing for Loan Officer Lincensing. One year it came real close to moving on, as the bill was filed and it went to comittee. There was a lobby to oppose it, and that lobby was lead by the banks. Why would the banks not want non-bank Loan Officers to get licened? Take your guess in the comments. I'll check back in between shoveling snow to see if anyone has the correct answer.

So last week in my quest to be completely licensed we went to go get finger printed. Its a wacky system the National Mortg Lic System uses. You pay through them, you schedule an appointment, you show up, and then call the Finger Print company to check that they received your prints. My appointment was at a UPS store in Boston about 1/2 drive from the office. When I got there, the workers said the person that is trained on the system was not in and was not going to be in. So I called the finger print company and told them the situation. I don't think they were happy. I wasn't, as I took time out of my day. About 15 minutes later, they called me back and told me to go back to the UPS store. I guess the workers were magically trained by telephone. So the prints are done and the last item is the national test.

PS- the licensing system is now available for consumers to check their Loan Officers:

http://www.nmlsconsumeraccess.org/Home.aspx/MainSearch

Note: If you are working with a LO from a bank, that LO may not require to be licensed through the NMLS system.

That is the question.

Every time I mention to someone that I have battled anxiety for my entire life (well, as long as I can remember), we inevitably end up discussing prescription drugs and why I didn't start taking them earlier.

To be honest, I was deathly afraid of taking medication. I have never taken a painkiller, (well, maybe a teaspoon of liquid Tylenol a time or two), and until May of 2009, I'd never swallowed a pill. Ever. At first, I chalked it up to not being able to swallow a pill because of a gag reflex or something like that. But the truth is, I thought I would immediately go into anaphylactic shock and die if I took any 'pharmaceutical'. Crazy right? Anxiety has a tendency to push rational thoughts aside in favor of crazy thoughts. 

In my journey to get well once and for all, I encountered a person who actually knew what I was talking about. She went through the experience too, and even told me the story of when she first started her medication- she sat outside of a hospital ER just in case something bad happened. So, I invited her to join me for my first attempt at taking a 'drug'.

I was prescribed Lexapro, and I started taking it on May 6th, 2009. Approximately 2 weeks after I had gotten the prescription, and 15-20 years after I should have. 

I want to back up for one minute here. By all accounts, I should have been prescribed anti-anxiety medication in high school, but certainly by the time I was 19 and expressing concern to my doctor that 'my heart was beating out of control, I felt weird and lightheaded, and I didn't like crowds'. He tested my thyroid, which came back normal. That was the end of the story. No diagnosis, no discussion of any mental causes. I share this because it illustrates the importance of finding a decent doctor- one that understands that there may be more to certain issues than they learned in school. Yes, my thyroid was fine. So what was making my heart beat at 120 bpm and sending me into panic mode? Maybe he could have dug a little further, and given me what I was looking for- a concrete answer to what I was feeling. Being able to call it anxiety, and get treatment for it was extremely helpful, and I think that if he were paying attention I would have found that a lot earlier. Help. Comfort. Something.

Back to the Lexapro- I started taking 5mg a day. By day 4, I was feeling good. I no longer had this sense of an electrical current coursing through my body.  It may have been psychosomatic, or it may just have been the fact that my body was not used to drugs and therefore more 'accessible' to the chemicals in the drug- but in four days, I woke up happy. That was something good.

Lexapro is an SSRI, Selective Serotonin Re-uptake Inhibitor. It helps the body manage its use of serotonin. At least, that is my understanding of it. Some people try a few different drugs and dosages before they get relief, I was lucky. First drug, first try, low dose. I am extremely thankful for that, because I know that if it had not worked, or given me some unpleasant side effects, I probably would have given up. This isn't to say I didn't have any side effects- there were sleepless nights, sleepFULL days, days when I would get really depressed for seemingly no reason, but I kept going, much to the surprise of pretty much everyone I have ever known well. I had to keep trying, I wanted to finally beat the beast of anxiety out of my body.

If you are thinking it's time for medication, and are scared, or worried that it will hurt you or change you- have no fear. I thought it would kill me, or make me lose my personality- turn me numb. It hasn't yet. What it has done is help my brain settle down. It has let me relax and be who I was meant to be. I can let bad things roll off my back, and I can have the strength to go after the good things. I went from someone who was afraid to leave the house (literally) to someone who loves going to the climbing gym so I can climb to the top of a forty foot wall, look down and smile. No more fear. 

Would I rather do it without the help of medication? Absolutely. But for now, I am perfectly happy taking drugs. My stubborn side be damned!



The Anti-Anxiety Life Coach-

I'm always here to help!  

Who loves Farve? Who hates him? One of my favorite Boston Sports websites tells us why the media is facinated with Brett Farve:

http://www.bostonsportsmedia.com/2010/01/why-the-media-loves-brett-favre

Was anyone suprised how it ended for him?

My all-time favorite Farve moment is non-sporting. It was his cameo in It's Something About Mary. I could watch it 100x more and still laugh when Ben Stiller points back to the apartment and says "what about Brett....?" while mangling Brett's last name.

:D

Just in from one of our lenders:

To build capital and reduce risk, the FHA announced that it will raise insurance rates and tighten credit score requirements. The major changes include increasing upfront premiums from 1.75% to 2.25%, reducing the maximum seller contribution from 6% to 3%, and increasing the level of FICO scores from 500 to 580 below which a down payment of 10% is required. At this point, the expected timing of the upfront premium increase will be in the spring, and the other changes will take place over the summer.

 

Lets break this down point by point:

-Build capital and reduce risk. Remember when Barney Frank said FannieMae was in great shape?
-Increase in UpFront Mortgage Ins. Premiums. This will hall have some effect on qualifying but this premium is financed into the loan so it should not affect a borrowers cash to close.
-Decreasing the max sellers contribution. This will make FHA more in line with Fannie/Freddie guidelins. It will also help to stop a property's selling price from being over inflated. In high cost areas, this is a non-event. In areas where selling prices are much lower it could be an issue.
-Fico score and down payment requirement. Is anyone writing FHA loans for people with credit scores that low??

So to recap, mostly a non-event. So when it comes time for a mortgage the question is: Would you like Vanilla, Vanilla Bean, or Choc Chip (which is really vanilla with a few choc chips).