First Ohio Home Finance

I promised to update you on the recent Save Our Homes statewide summit held last week, and it was definitely an eye-opening event. The takeaway was the need to tell all Ohioans:

IF YOU ARE BEHIND ON YOUR HOUSE PAYMENTS, THE WORST CHOICE YOU CAN MAKE IS TO DO NOTHING

The experts say, If you do nothing, there is nearly a 100% chance you will lose your home. Meanwhile homeowners who take basic steps like opening your mail and reaching out for help gives almost an 80% chance of staying in their home.

“We are going to have to keep at it,” said Cordray to the crowd of county officials, industry insiders, and non-profit workers. “People ask me all the time – and I don’t have the answer for them – how long is this going to keep on?”

Maybe you think foreclosure could never happen to you but are finding yourself more and more delinquent on property taxes, utility payments, or other debt service. Especially if you have an adjustable or balloon mortgage - now is the time to learn what options and assistance there is.

A number of cutting-edge programs have been rolled out in Ohio – far ahead of the rest of the nation. Ohio Treasurer Richard Cordray is showing a great deal of leadership in this effort, along with Chief Justice Thomas A. Moyer. Other states and the federal government are actively inquiring into Ohio’s efforts after recognizing them as among the most proactive and responsible.

One front of this endeavor to stop foreclosures is a Foreclosure Mediation Program. This option requires the lender and the borrower to sit down and discuss measures to avoid foreclosure. Some reach agreements like cutting the house payment for X months if the homeowner keeps the property in good condition. This allows the borrower time to find other housing, while reducing the cost of maintenance and repair for the lender.

There are other groups simply advocating on behalf of distressed homeowners. The ESOP group in Cleveland shared about successful protests of bank branches to gain the attention of the lender and stop a sheriff sale. While the manpower for such an event is enormous, the success rate is also high.

Loan servicers are softening as more and more homes burden banks not equipped to own so many foreclosed homes.Other resources include grants and loans to catch up on your mortgage, personal finance counseling, 7 Steps to Smart Homeownership seminars, public television call nights, and financial literacy education.

Remember, only you can prevent foreclosures!

(HT to Alex Stenback)
We all know that most online mortgage aggregators are champions of selling and re-selling and re-selling any information you put online. They also have been linked in urban legend to unscrupulous lenders with varying degrees of bait-n-switch tactics.

A recent incident with LendingTree - which takes a short loan application and farms it out to national lenders - highlights the real problem with throwing your personally identifiable information online. Yes, even with recent innovations in “secure” protocols like SSL.

Apparently, LendingTree had employees who were re-selling borrower information to non-affiliated mortgage brokers (and maybe others).

“several former employees” may have shared confidential passwords with “a handful” of lenders that were not approved by the company. The lenders then used those passwords to access customer information files that contained mortgage request data such as name, address, e-mail address, phone number, Social Security number, income and employment information. The files did not contain credit card information, LendingTree said…. The company said it does not believe the disclosure led to identity theft or fraudulent financial activity, but recommended customers check their credit reports for suspicious activity.”

Needless to say, this underscores the benefit of dealing with a local or regional direct lender like First Ohio Home Finance. Nothing beats being able to look in the loan officer’s eye and personally seeing where they conduct business.

Don’t trust your information or your mortgage to just anyone - the result could be more than you bargained for!

I have to say April is one of my favorite months of the year. It contains one of my favorite family birthdays. And you gotta enjoy sunshiny blue skies, breezy days and crisp nights, flowering bulbs and trees, watching the kids hunt for Easter eggs - even the occasional shower.

It’s also tax day. But April means more than this for Ohioans.

This collection of fabulous spring days has been designated as Financial Literacy Month in Ohio, which makes it a great time to re-focus on getting your finances in order. I don’t mean to encourage the kind of stress that comes from worrying about bills, fighting with your spouse, or trying to figure out how you are going to pay for college years in the future.

There are some great ways to get a clear picture of your financial health. And then take simple and clear steps toward improving the future for yourself and your family, if you have one.

A good place to start this process is at Your Money Now web site established by the Ohio Treasurer’s office. While many people are cynical about government officials actually helping the average citizen, I don’t write about this because Cordray is a ‘Public Official’. After following his career for almost a decade, I see a very smart individual who uses all available resources with a genuine interest in helping others.

With knowledge comes control – and it can be even be fun. This site does have some helpful information about avoiding fraud, tracking your cash flow, teaching your kids the basics, and managing debt. They even have a section in Espanol.

Other fun resources include personal finance blogs like here, here and here. There are even some focused on singles, marrieds, women, news, the heavily-indebted, and goals. Pick the one that meshes with you or put them all into a feed reader.

We recommend getting an annual mortgage review to make sure your loan is still the best for your ever-changing situation. And now is a great time of year to do that. If you’ve had changes recommended by your tax preparer, inherited money, changed jobs, or are even having trouble making your house payment – now is a great time to talk with a loan officer. The worst thing you can do is ignore the problem.

Here’s the Your Money Now website link. YourMoneyNowOnline.org Oh, and enjoy the fantastic spring!

I have been involved recently in a surprisingly cooperative effort to find solutions to the residential real estate slowdown. I won’t call it a bust, because it hasn’t been catastrophic in the central Ohio market. It really is becoming – and will continue to be - more difficult to find loans for buyers with a poor history of paying their bills and for marginal investors. But by and large, the market is moving on. There are a solid number of buyers in the market, and more than enough sellers.

Every week, one of the top news stories is the steady rise in home foreclosures here in Ohio. The issue is affecting our local economy and, more importantly, the lives of real people in our own neighborhoods.

State executives - including the governor, attorney general, treasurer, chief justice and others – seem to be really worried about housing in Ohio. Executives have been touring the state with news conferences and collaborative meetings. Foreclosures are quite common in some neighborhoods of Cleveland and Toledo, which unfortunately leads to theft, vandalism and general deterioration of communities.

Among the solutions being rolled out:

• Lenient property tax payment plans by county treasurers around Ohio
• A new foreclosure mediation program headed by the state Supreme Court
• Increased legislation to subsidize borrowers and regulate mortgage brokers
• Increased education from and interest in public and private educational programs
• Pressure on lenders to help homeowners – including subordinating 100+% LTV second loans, easy negotiating for short sales, even partial mortgage forgiveness when a helpful refinance is held up due to appraisal problems.

The local group I am involved is the Save Our Homes Taskforce (site currently down). A task force is really a simple name for a loose group of people working toward a specific goal. This particular group, meeting on East Broad Street, is attended by non-profit educational groups, county leaders, and some lender representatives. Many of our company’s loan officers will be attending a statewide summit on April 23rd to refresh our best practices and learn about some of the above efforts.

Some of the initiatives our task force include identifying community resources, conducting homeowner and professional seminars, exploring ways to deliver foreclosure counseling, and lender remediation. The idea is catching on across the state, thanks to Ohio Treasurer Richard Cordray.

Now some people may be cynical of these efforts by politicians to intervene in the market. While I share some of those sentiments, I appreciate the interest and leadership as long as the solutions are mindful of the free market and participation is voluntary.

Here at First Ohio Home Finance, we are spending tremendous resources to reach out to those with adjustable and subprime loans. We believe Ohioans who are not under the direct and regular advice of a financial planner should move as fast as possible into fixed and affordable mortgage payments. That means you need the advice of a professional loan officer who can advise you on the best mortgage product for your needs.

I’ll let you know how the Save Our Homes Summit at the end of this month goes.