John Meussner's Blog

Last year I wrote a post about a move to a new company.  The opportunity at the time presented a lot of great things.  After a year, though, a new opportunity presented itself and the right move for me was to go back to where I spent a decade of my life & career.As of this week, I'm officially ba...

Day 3 - Government Shut DownNow that it's pretty clear the government will be shut down for the foreseeable future (sides don't seem close to agreement at this point), I wanted to share info on how the government shut down is impacting the mortgage industry, and therefore, the housing market.The ...

What A Fed Rate Cut Means For You The Fed is almost certain to cut rates after their September meeting next week.  However, the result is often mostly confusion.  Consumers believing mortgage rates are plummeting (or holding off on a purchase because of that belief!).  People believing lenders ar...

Now Licensed To Lend In Kentucky, Washington, and Wyoming I'm happy to announce licensing approval in 3 new states - Kentucky, Washington, and Wyoming!While my move in late 2024 to Catalyst Mortgage caused a few exchanges (we lost a few and gained a few states!), we're continuing to grow and cont...

Queue the scene in Adam Sandler's "Billy Madison", when adult Billy paces back and forth waiting for the school bus singing "back to school...back to school....". After 9 years building a career and entering the corporate mortgage world with Mason-McDuffie mortgage, this week, I made the jump to ...

Every time.  EVERY TIME.  Every time the Fed cuts rates, mortgage ads fly from everyone's social media pages - "NOW IS THE TIME TO REFINANCE!!".  The phones start ringing.  "HELLO, I SAW THE FED CUT RATES, WHERE ARE RATES NOW!?". There is perhaps no more confusing moment for the general mortgage ...

IPCs and Realtor Compensation "Typical fees and/or closing costs paid by a seller in accordance with local custom, known as common & customary fees or costs, are not subject to the IPC limits..." That little slice of verbiage, part of the Fannie Mae selling guide, offers some clarity on a point o...

A Real (Estate) Disaster - Why Hiring The Wrong Agent Is A Disastrous IdeaDisclaimer:  the chain of events depicted here are via the perspective of a client, along with the coinciding dismal communication from their agent (so I never got any of the story from the buyer's agent because they were m...

Opting OutWhen talking with a client about doing a mortgage preapproval one of the first things we do in today's world is help the client "opt out" of spam to avoid getting their phones and inboxes blown up when their credit is run.For those that don't know, a "trigger lead" occurs when a hard cr...

I'm a snarky son of a....wonderful woman, my mother is a Saint.   But I can be snarky, difficult, stubborn, and sometimes mean (when I'm mean, it almost always comes from a place of humor that misses the mark).  But, when I go down that path, I try to consider what I'm adding to the world.To that...