John Meussner's Blog

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 ...

Let A Pro Handle It This is a post about referrals.  I'm licensed in 20 states, and my team has an additional 3 (Idaho, Hawaii, and Washington).  Because of that, we see a lot of referrals from folks that don't cover as wide a range of states.  We get a lot of referrals from other loan officers t...

Should I Cosign A Loan When considering qualifying for a loan, one topic that often comes up is getting a cosigner.  For an applicant, a cosigner can mean qualifying for more money, compensating for difficult credit situations, and strengthening a loan file.  Some perks of having a cosigner inclu...

Just One Year In Our team loan partner, Erica, just received her "1 year anniversary" certificate - one year in the mortgage business, one year on our team, one year of the craziest market we've ever seen.  For those who have worked with our team, you know 2020 was a struggle - my processor was p...