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Benefits of using your VA Home Loan
 NMLS #70358
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Article Archives for Seattle Washington VA Home Loans - Since 2006 (Page 2)Wasington & Idaho VA Home Loans Gives $1,000 Towards SOWFMarch 25th, 2011Creekside Mortgage is donating $1,000 to Special Operations Warrior Foundation. We have been working with them over the last year, and give $100 for every VA purchase in the state of Washington & Idaho. This money provides full scholarships for children of fallen Veterans. Thank you to everyone for helping make this happen. Kerry N. Greenwald NMLS # 70269 Sr. VA Loan Specialist 360.571.LOAN (5626) April 1st 2011 Industry ChangesMarch 13th, 2011The Changes in the mortgage industry on April 1, 2011 are going to be overwhelming. It is going to be the good, the bad, and the ugly. But overall, I do see the positive aspects in the changes that will happen on that day. The biggest thing is that everyone is going to have to do it. Where rules and laws in the past have subjected only limited amounts of the industry, at least what can be seen so far of these changes should affect everyone in the industry. There are aspects of the April 1 Frank Dodd Act that I feel will be good in the long run. A lot of people argue with the Safe Harbor Act portion, which states that it is our duty and our job to put the individual in the loan or the best option for them. There are a lot of people who say that hindsight is 20/20 when you look after the fact, for example, If certain individuals who took out a 7-year ARM and then decided to stay in the house longer than seven years, which they had not originally intended when they first moved, their situation appears worse than if they had sold as originally planned…or if they did a 30-year FHA loan when possibly they should have done a different type of loan to fit their needs. In my industry, what I see in the bill is positive. Everyday I come across people who are Veterans, that in some cases have service-connected disability benefits, and they are pushed in or roped into a loan that does not fit their needs. From my perspective, that should never happen again. If you do have your VA eligibility, and in some cases have disability through the VA, there is no reason and hopefully no time in the future that anyone will ever do a non-VA loan for you. So some parts of the bill I can see as benefits. Most of the changes, however, will be in accounting and pay structures. The intent of this bill was to have the consumer have less in cost, but I don’t think that will be successful. For example, right now, a year plus into the effects of the changes in RESPA that were instituted back in January 1, 2010, you can see that the individual borrower is actually paying more in cost than what they were prior to that event due to bank logistics and the individual companies involved that have to offset their expense to facilitate the law. I feel the same thing is going to happen on April 1. While the intent of the law is to lower the cost to the consumer and enable them to make more free choices, actually, in the end, it’s going to make it more expensive for them because businesses pass that expense on to the consumer. That is the one negative that will come out of this bill. Overcharging is still going to exist. It is not going to go away. It is going to be a shell game on how banks or how brokerages or how mortgage bankers will pay the individual loan officers. That’s just my opinion on what the law is going to effect, and I look forward to that date to find out exactly what is going to happen. Kerry N. GreenwaldNMLS # 70269Sr. VA Loan SpecialistCreekside Mortgage Inc.360.571.LOAN (5626)www.VALoanWA.comwww.OregonVALoan.comSeattle Area Stay’s Strong on Employment Numbers 2011March 2nd, 2011Unemployment numbers are in for King and Kitsap Counties. Both of them are right around 8.4% and 8.2%. These are positive signs, being one of the best employed areas in the State of Washington. It has proven lately that in the stabilization of values of houses, unemployment directly correlates to the overall value of supply and demand. The more people who have more jobs, obviously, the more capability of buying houses. In King and Kitsap Counties, the home loan applications are at a two-and-a-half year high, so this is a positive sign that going into 2011 and 2012, in my opinion, the housing market should show signs of improvement, or at worst a stabilization in values. The area has seen a huge decrease in values, but since we can cycle through the majority of foreclosures in the area, we will strongly hit recovery based on employment. Ideally we would like to get unemployment around 5% or 6%. That would show high strength in overall value of houses in King and Kitsap counties.
NMLS # 70269 Sr. VA Loan Specialist 360.571.LOAN (5626)
Pacific Northwest 2011 end of decline for homesNovember 16th, 2010Going into 2011, I would like to take a snapshot of the real estate market in the Pacific Northwest. We were one of the last in the country to start showing a decline in home values, and we will probably be one of the last to come out of this decline. It looks like nationally, we have hit bottom. Some estimates were that in 2009 and 2010 we would fall back to 2000 numbers. We are now getting close to those figures. 2011 will most likely be the end of the decline. We probably won’t necessarily go up in value anywhere in the near future. As soon as unemployment corrects itself and the economy starts to move somewhat, I feel housing prices will rise after that. My estimate is that we’re in a seven year cycle and we’re about four years into it. We probably have three years before things start to take off again, with a lot depending on how inflation will affect the housing market due to the bubble popping. Will inflation push prices up? No one really knows. There is no time in history that we can reflect on as an example or parallel to what we just went through, so it is tough to say. In my opinion, in the NW, home price recovery will primarily be driven off a correction in the unemployment rate. When we see Unemployment in the 6% or 7% ranges, I think the housing market will soon follow those numbers. Sr. VA Loan Specialist 360-571-LOAN 5626
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