“Oh, We Had It Rough” 0
There is a comedy sketch that has been done by several British comics called Four Yorkshiremen. <iframe title=”YouTube video player” width=”480″ height=”390″ src=”http://www.youtube.com/embed/Xe1a1wHxTyo” frameborder=”0″ allowfullscreen></iframe>The version I like the best is done by 4 of the members of Monty Python. The gist of the sketch starts out with 4 well dressed gentlemen sitting in what appears to be an exclusive club, sipping some expensive french wine. They go on to remember their childhood “30 years ago” and how tough it was and proceed to try to outdo each other in their descriptions of how difficult they had it until it gets into the ridiculous. “We got evicted from our hole in the ground, we had to live in a lake”. “We had 150 of us living in a shoe box in the middle of the road”. “I used to have to get up half an hour before I went to bed and go work at the mill for 29 hours a day”. The punch line…well I’m not going to tell you the punch line. Google Four Yorkshiremen and watch it.
The reason I bring this up is to ask the question, how will we look back on our lives. It’s a little bit of human nature to want to build ourselves and our accomplishments up in our minds and that seems to work better when we look at where we came from and how we overcame a lot of adversity. So we make that adversity even worse then it really was so that our accomplishments seem better then they really are. It makes us feel good. However, I submit that as funny as this sketch is, if we have a good attitude and outlook on life, then we don’t need to exaggerate the good or the bad. Life was not more difficult or easier in years past and it is not any better or worse now. Circumstances can be better or worse but not the basic tenants of life remain the same. Life is what you make of it. You can’t always control what happens to you but you can control how you react to it…for what it’s worth.
Then and Now:
Speaking of tough times, Cherry Creek has always been temperamental. In the 1860′s the native people tried to tell the new arrivals that the buildings they built next to the creek bed (sometimes in the creek bed) were going to washed away when it floods. This advice was ignored until one day in 1864 when the little trickle became a torrent and did wash away several buildings including the office of the Rocky Mountain News. It has flooded several times since then but one of the worst was when the Castlewood Canyon Dam (just upstream from Franktown) broke in 1933. The resulting rush of water downstream ripped several bridges out but this one across Wynkoop Street survived. Click on each picture for a larger version.
Can I use a Co-signor? also Then and Now 0
Getting a mortgage loan through the system to closing is getting harder and harder it seems. Almost every day we get some kind of communication from our underwriters or from our investors (the companies we sell our loans to and who service the loan) that there is a new guideline that decreases the risk to a Lender but makes it harder for the borrowers on the fringes to get approved. Don’t get me wrong, plenty of people are getting loans done and buying houses but it is tougher for those that are trying to get out of the bad-credit pit. But there is some good news. Some times I have a buyer that can prove part or most of their income but just not all of it. For example, a tradesman may get paid for their regular time but if the work is seasonal and they get unemployment or if they do “side jobs” but it is inconsistent, we can’t count some of their income even though common sense tells you that this source of income is legitimate.
So if that happens and that person wants to buy a house and I go over their income history and I can only use part of their income but they want to buy a house using the income that they feel is the “real” amount. Easy answer, get a Co-Mortgagor to Co-sign. OK, maybe not so easy, but it is possible. An FHA loan allows you to use a Co-Mortgagor to Co-sign. A Co-Mortgagor is someone that is just as responsible for the house payment as the buyer even though they won’t living in the house. and their credit is just as damaged if the payments are not made. We will base the Debt-to-Income ratio on both the buyer and the co-signor. Two key things have to be in place first. The buyer has to have established credit history which is generally defined as having at least 3 open account (including at least one revolving debt {credit card}) that are all at least 12 months old. If that is in place then someone with whom you have a long term relationship can be that co-signor. As long as the co-signor has the income to offset both your debt and their own debt, we don’t have to worry about your lack of document-able income. This can be used on VA loans as well but the co-signor has to be a veteran as well with VA eligibility for a home loan. Keep this in mind and, as always, contact me with any questions.
Then and Now:
There is not as much about this location that is the same now as it was in 1905. As you can see in this photo on the left, the building on the right is the one ting that has remaines the same. Trollies dominated the streets back then. Now the tracks have been covered by pavement and cars, bikes, and the occasional long board dominate the streets today.
You can click on the image to see a larger version. Take care.
No Credit…Almost as bad as bad credit. 0
“Oh come on Mark how can that be? I pay all my bills on time with cash.” “If I can’t pay cash for it, then I don’t need to buy it.”. I’m not saying that paying cash is a bad thing. Far from it. I think that it is a very responsible way to live. We have grown up with credit being way to easy to obtain and use. I have had too many people say that credit card offers fell in their laps in college and so they used the cards. Now they are in way too deep and can’t qualify for a mortgage. So then many feel like they never want to get in that position again so they close all their accounts and live on cash. Or others have heard about the problems with easy credit and they just decide that they never want to have any credit cards, they buy cars with cash, gas with cash, well you get the picture.
So now they want to buy a house. I take down their information on a loan application, pull their credit report and they don’t have any or very little (we call this a “thin credit” file). They have no credit scores or they have really low scores. This is because they have no credit history. In order for us to know that you are a good risk to pay your mortgage we need to have some evidence that you have been responsible with debts in the past. So we like to see a minimum of 3 credit accounts with at least 12 months of clean history. That can be a car loan, student loans, credit cards, etc. Even if you get one or two small credit limit ($300 or $400) credit cards and use them only once or twice
a month for little purchases and then pay them down every month. Good credit history is not dependant on the amount of credit you have available to you, just the use of the credit that is available to you. Now it is possible to qualify for a loan with a thin credit file but we have to get letters from other companies that you pay every month like rent, car insurance, utility companies, cell phone bills, etc. To do that, we need to get letters from 3 companies stating that you have paid your bills on time every month for the last 12 months. This is not easy and many times companies don’t srite those kind of letters anymore.
So don’t be afraid of credit, jus be smart about it.
Then and Now:
Cherry Creek has not always been a beautiful greenway with bike paths and lots of vegetation. In the late 1800′s it had lots of trash dumped in it and flooded on a regular basis. Both of these pictures were taken from the Lincoln St bridge. You can click on the the photo for a larger version.