Diane Gerdes's (dianegerdes) Blog

 Santa came early this year with the Senate passing (finally) the long awaited FHA reform bill.   Three of the major highlights are the following:  1. Down payment will now be 1.5% instead of 3% (keep in mind this can be gifted from a family member) 2. The increase of the loan amounts.   On some ...

 Ahh, Canada, the home of Celine Dion, Wayne Gretzky and the Canadian prairie dog.  Today Canadians are feeling pretty good about themselves.  Just four years after hitting historic lows their loonie vs. our dollar is soaring.  And the Canadians want to buy property in the United States.  Somehow...

But we are Canadian.....Mortgage FocusAhh, Canada, the home of Celine Dion, Wayne Gretzky and the Canadian prairie dog.  Today Canadians are feeling pretty good about themselves.  Just four years after hitting historic lows their loonie vs. our dollar is soaring.  And the Canadians want to buy pr...

This is such a beautiful time of the year.   And now we have the snow job* the government has provided for their "mortgage relief" program.  This is a voluntary program for lenders to follow.  Since many of the lenders aren't sure if they are the lenders, there may be a problem in finding the rig...

This coming Monday, Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson and Housing Secretary Alphonso Jackson will meet in Washington so they can press for legislation to reform FHA and push forward the much anticipated tax law foreclosure changes. Good Golly Molly, do you think FHA will ever reform their convolut...

A few years ago, I knew someone (o.k. it was me), that made some bad business decisions. It was not my fault. I didn't understand what I was doing when I signed the papers for that really big loan. Math and English were never my strong points. And when my partner (that sorry person I call ex-husb...

Friday's employment numbers, with better than expected increases in the public education and service industries, has Wall Street doing the happy dance. But like Brittney on a night on the town, they may have forgotten something. Last week’s hard, cold economic forecasts from major banks: Citigrou...

Dear Mr.Bernanke,   Thanks for the history lesson on housing today. We have been taught we can learn a lot about our future from our past, but somehow our future has a lot of factors that our past could not even imagine.  You know like that technology stuff,  global events, and our ever rising po...

Home Buyers that had loans with First Magnus,Great Southwest and all of their affiliates were left at the closing tables unable to get their keys because of lack of funds. And Countrywide accessed their entire credit line of 11.8 billion dollars. What is going on? All banks/lenders use credit lin...

The onslaught of bank closures and the reality of tighten lending sent the financial market into a tailspin this week. Why all the hand wringing? Last Sunday’s New York Times put the explanation in laymen’s terms: Sub-prime mortgages were packaged and repackaged into investments including some m...