Arnold 's Blog

One of the facts about buildings that is becoming paramount to lenders is that buildings require maintenance, repair, and replacement, in order to maintain use. No lender wants to foreclose on a wreck about to be condemned by the Building Department, but it is their primary security. They could a...

It appears the federal government is working at assessing blame for the current state of affairs. Naturally, since FIRREA took care of the dangers of over-valuations on appraisal, that is no longer worth addressing. The President's Working Group Policy statement therefore focuses on the socially ...

Monique watches out for her clients, and talks straight about options, her position, and where you want to go with no  "hide the ball" game.  If you want a property and she's representing you, she'll not only do her best for you, she'll rope in half a dozen other people to do their best for you. ...

I note that the Federal Reserve has stepped in to the mortgage market, and tried to work at elaborating that legal cause of action so wished-for by the trial lawyers: the offense of lending money.I'm not kidding. In the bulletin, they also purport to remove the borrower's ability to finance the ...

It's always amazing to see the lengths Congress will go to in order to make things worse. For one thing, despite the fact that subprime loans are not the major problem here, they are easy to report on as if they were (and, after all, can we expect reporters to notice houses that HAVEN'T been fore...

Well, as it turns out, there is a way to find out what the "Collateralized Debt Obligation" that people invested in should be worth, after plugging in a few numbers. The problem, though, is that any good market maker will take that, say, "It's a reasonable guess, but are you BUYING at that price,...

Probably the most important reason to use a mortgage broker, rather than going down to the bank is that you get the chance to see which of several possible ways to finance your property might work for you.  Every lender has a limited suite of loan products: the advantage of brokerage is that we s...

It's time for a confession: when I was first introduced to computers, everything that went into them went in on punch cards, and there was not only a question of what computer language to use, but how to get the JCL to process the cards properly. As an undergraduate, the closest I came to seeing ...

This question has been the subject of a lot of hand-wringing, and several people eager to expand their reach have leapt in ineptly. There are two tests for "what is a security".  First, from a federal perspective, the answer comes from the case SEC v. W.J. Howey Co., 328 U.S. 293 (1946).  An inte...

I have discussed Rev. Proc. 2002-22 before here in the context of requirements and form of ownership.  What I'm going to do today is discuss the whole thing on the head of a pin:First, a Tenancy in Common Interest must allow each owner to treat their fractional interest the same as if they owned ...