Bay Area Mortgage Blog

Gilbonomics lesson of the day: The words you USE are the difference between WIN and LOSE. Welcome to the world of cheap Bay Area houses, rock bottom interest rates, and BIDDING WARS. Your stock as a real estate agent is going to shoot through the roof if you know how to WIN BIDDING WARS. Last ye...

"Lenders Exploit a Loophole in Fees". After reading this article in my Sunday paper I was compelled to think this: There is no loophole. But there is a poophole. The guy who wrote the article. His point was this: The new good faith estimate is being "sidestepped" by lenders. How? Well, according ...

A weary home buyer showed up in the mortgage office last night, on the eve of her loan funding. She was confused, embarrassed, and bewildered. She had signed docs the day before, and handed over a cashiers check. But the bank stubbornly refused to fund the loan. Why? The borrower could not "paper...

We will remember 2009 as the year everyone was CRABBY and CUSTOMER SERVICE sucked. This was the year that  businesses behaved badly. But here's the good news: In 2010, this has left the window of opportunity WIDE OPEN for anyone who wants to steal business from competitors. Here's why: In the so ...

The year was 2005 and the owner of my mortgage company strolled into my office with that "LOOK" on his face. Clearly, I was in trouble. He was there to scold have a serious talk with me. It seems my sin was doing too many equity lines. I was asked to allocate more of my time to doing first mortga...

Actually, I find it ironic. All those rants from real estate agents about preapproval letters. You told me you thought they were about as worthless as a wet cocktail napkin. That caused me to upgrade my own preapprovals to be AIRTIGHT. But now the tables have turned. Now I feel your pain. Why? Be...

I was wondering what would happen if used car salesmen were called Wheeltors, and real estate agents were called "used house salesmen"? Do you think that Wheeltors would stand around at the car dealership wondering why people would lump them in the same sleazy category as some "used house salesm...

Homeowners come to terms with the harsh reality of declining values.  I believe we will see movement in the move-up market. Enough time has passed that the reality has set in. Those "waiting it out" for a higher price will decide to sell and move on.  The return of jumbo money. Behind the scenes...

San Francisco is known for many things, neither of which have a thing to do with RAIN or CAMPING. We haven't seen any wilderness suitable for camping since the Gold Rush transformed this place. Unlike Seattle, we get only a little drizzle of rain in the winter (never enough). Buy if you put RAIN ...

When did we start to feel entitled? In the Depression of the 1930's, the jobless father of 4 asked the farmer if he could work on the farm for a day in exchange for food to feed his family. In the Depression of 2010 do we just take the food from the farmer because, after all, you and your family ...