Shawn Gerhardson Minnesotas Preferred Lenders Blog

What’s Ahead For Mortgage Rates This Week – November 10, 2014 Last week’s economic reports contained mixed reports indicating that the economy continues to recover with occasional “blips” in its progress. Construction spending was lower than expected. A Federal Reserve survey of senior loan offic...

Negotiation Tips: How to Ask the Seller to Pay the Closing Costs You’ve found the perfect new house or condo, and you are now preparing an offer that you believe the seller will find tempting enough to accept. However, you know that there are going to be thousands of dollars in closing costs that...

Did You Know That Your FICO Score Can Drastically Affect Your Mortgage? Here’s Why Are you about to apply for a mortgage loan in order to buy a home? If so, you may be curious about your credit score and how this might impact your financing. Let’s take a quick look at how FICO credit scores can a...

You Ask, We Answer: What is a “Reverse Mortgage”? If you’ve recently considered your options for taking some of the equity out of your home you may have heard about reverse mortgage loans. If you meet the requirements for a reverse mortgage it can be an excellent way to tap into the value of your...

Have You Had Trouble Getting a Mortgage? Three Tips for Sprucing Up Your Credit Before Reapplying If you’ve had some trouble getting approved for a mortgage recently, you’re not alone. Many individuals face mortgage challenges due to past blemishes on their credit reports or a personal financial ...

What’s Ahead For Mortgage Rates This Week – November 3, 2014 Last week’s economic news brought mixed developments as pending home sales moved to their second highest level of 2014. The Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) announced the expected end of asset purchases under its quantitative easing...

Buying a Vacation Home? A Quick Guide to Renting Out Your Second Home to Generate Income Are you thinking about buying a second home to spend some time in when you’re on vacation? Whether you’re picking up a small house near the beach or you’re looking at a ski-in/ski-out condo at your favorite s...

Case-Shiller 20 City Home Price Index And FOMC QE Update According to the S&P Case-Shiller 20 City Home Price Index, Home prices rose by 0.20 percent in August. Three of the 20 cities tracked saw home prices drop, while Detroit, Michigan posted the highest price growth. The seasonally adjusted gr...

Four Ways You Can Enhance Your Home’s Value Before You List It for Sale Whether you’ve decided it’s time for an upgrade or you’re moving on to a new city, if you’re selling your home you may be wondering how you can boost its value before listing it up for sale. In today’s blog post we’ll share f...

Buying a Home? 4 Steps You Can Take to Ensure You Start out with a Low Monthly Mortgage Payment Are you thinking about buying a new house or condo? If so, you’ve likely given some thought to your mortgage and as to how you can pay as little as possible in order to own your new home. Below we’ll s...