John Meussner's Blog

They're here!  Every year around this time the Federal Finance Housing Authority (FHFA) announces loan limits for the next calendar year.  These limits are adjusted based off of year over year home appreciation metrics usually noted by 3rd quarter results from appreciation reports. For 2022, loan...

Ah, the holiday season.  The season of lights.  The season of decorations.  Celebrations.  Religious reflections and joy.  Family time.  Real estate agents reminding others just how miserable they can be...We're in a seller's market.  A heavy seller's market, and we've been here for a while.  How...

Thankful For My Team Katerina, Erica, and Corliss.  You may not have seen these names on ActiveRain, but if you've worked with our team in the past 12 months, odds are good you're familiar with at least one of them (most likely my right hand woman, Erica).  In 2020, I decided it was time to grow ...

Ever wonder why the phone won't stop ringing after applying for a loan?  Does it seem like your mailbox gets a little more full of junk mail and refinance solicitations from lenders you've never heard of (usually showing off loan terms that seem 'too good to be true')?  If so, you've been turned ...

What Happens After Things Go Wrong? $hit happens.  There's some controversy around the creation of the phrase.  Did Professor Connie Eble bring the phrase to written form for the first time?  Was it, in fact, Forrest Gump?  While mystery surrounds the phrase, I am near certain that the original u...

Home Values Sitting Pretty Home values continue to rise!  Despite the media largely being negative on housing for years, home values continue to buck the narrative and continue to climb, building immense wealth for buyers and adding to the financial securty of home owners around the country.While...

Part Timers VS Hobbyists In Real Estate there's always been an attitude amongst many that "part time agents have no business being in the business".  This argument becomes a little louder each time we're in a market like we see today with limited inventory, an abundance of licensees, and home sal...

“There are three types of lies -- lies, damn lies, and statistics.”― Benjamin Disraeli  Much of what constitutes "news" in today's world, it seems, is in reality click-bait and ad-dollar attention seeking.  From world news and politics, to the latest sports controversy being discussed ad nauseam ...

Why Are Credit Scores Different? If you’ve shopped around for any kind of loan, one of the things you likely noticed is that the credit score a lender pulls seems to be different, sometimes by quite a wide margin, from what you see when tracking your own credit scores.  What gives?  It comes down...

The Infinite (Mortgage) Game This month's ActiveRain Challenge was to write a book report.  As an English Literature major who spent 4 years of college doing that, I'm a bit rusty, but couldn't pass up the opportunity for "easy" points.  It so happens I was in the middle of reading Simon Sinek's ...