Sorry folks, I don’t even know what it is other than a bad bug.

FLOAT:
I really doubt if you have that decision today, the last business day of the year. But my advice stands until Janary 3rd when we really get back to work in our industry. I will probably play the down down up lock game. The reason, we might see a slow drop, a day at a time. We shall see and I will explain it then. Larry Cragun

Check out this article by the Associated Press: Click here

I wrote two negative articles on Pay Day Loans and they hit me with 218 spams last night. Never fear Akismet is here.

The articles: 1- A Pay Day Loan Company Wants To Advertise Here: No Thanks
and 2- another perspective

I wrote last week we about refusing a pay day loan advertiser. Click here for a good article on the subject from the New York Times: The Title:

Seductively Easy, Payday Loans

Often Snowball

Terresa Boardman doesn’t like Box Elder Bugs, she doesn’t like scary bugs, but likes them undressed. Here is a butterly with so little clothes on you can see right through it. I bet she will like it.

The Glasswing Butterfly. Click here for an event better photo. A fine example of a bug undressed.

I was going to suggest this as well as one focused on Eminent Domain. Good Luck John R Yedinak Click Here and be supportive.

This Roach is coming out from the cold.

The Roaches That Came In from the

Cold

“A frog or a praying mantis, they do interesting things,” says Catherine Chalmers, and she should know. Chalmers has spent the better part of the last decade raising frogs, praying mantises, snakes, and mice in her SoHo loft. Her larger-than-life color photographs of these animals doing interesting things��eating other animals, mostly��have earned her art-world acclaim and popular praise. Her work has been exhibited throughout the United States and Europe, and collected in the monograph

Click Here for the Art News full article.

Jon Miller both phoned and made a comment on the previous Malcom and the Trigger list article: I asked if he minded if I made it a separate posting on the site - he of course just wanted a link. Jon will be doing our Bellevue Undressed blog, I highly reccomend him. His website is jonmillerteam.com

His comments are important please read this and do what you can for the consumer:

1. Jon Miller Says:
   December 22nd, 2006 at 1:21 pm eThe trigger list is the ��dirty little secret�� of the credit reporting bureaus. As a real estate agent, I started noticing that my clients were barraged with mortgage offers almost as soon as they made a mortgage loan application. This seemed to be way too coincidental. My real estate team started snooping around for information. I found out about the Trigger Report from an officer at a major lending institution.Apparently, as soon as a loan officer pulls a credit report for a mortgage, the lead is published and sold by the credit reporting bureas to multiple lending institutions who begin barraging home buyers with unrealistic rate offers. Once they hook the buyer, they frequently notify the buyer (usually days before closing) that they didn’t qualify for the rate �� even if they supposedly thought they were locked �� and are switched into a higher rate. With a predetermined closing date only days away, the home buyer has no choice but to complete the deal. In fact, after the initial shock of the higher rate, the lender sometimes comes up with a bit of a rate improvement just to appease the borrower. However, the borrower should beware �� this usually means that the lender just put them into a mortgage product with a prepayment penalty. Now, the lender has baited and switched the consumer two separate times into a horrible situation - a high rate and a prepayment penalty.The public should have no mercy on the companies that participate in this activity - lenders or credit reporting companies. This ought to be illegal!!The original loan officer should sue the credit reporting company. After all, the loan officer that originally requested the credit report did not pay a fee for the credit report - only to have his client sold as a lead to multiple other lenders. Shame on the companies that participate in this activity. It may not be illegal, but it is not ethical.

   I beleive there is STRONG potential for a class action lawsuit against the credit bureaus for this kind of activity. Borrowers should sue for the drop in their FICO scores, lenders should sue for their lost commissions, and Realtors should sue for lost commissions. This is a smoking gun that will have the same effect on the credit bureaus as silicon breast implants had in bankrupting their manufacturers.

   I do not know if it is possible, but loan officers should insist in their contracts with credit reporting companies that their clients will not be sold as a lead to third parties. Furthermore, lenders need to communicate these activities to their clients and ask them to opt out of unsolicited credit offers by calling 1-888-5OPTOUT (1-888-567-8688).

Lets have some fun, Curtis says. Click here and Duck

This is a recent true story, with names and other facts changed to keep Malcoms wife from killing him.

Malcom and family worked their agent real hard. They had to find the perfect home. It took weeks. But hey, a new listing came on the market and the agent rushed them out to see it. This was it! They knew it when they walked through the door. A full price offer was quickly tendered and was accepted. This family was on cloud 9 as families are in big days like this.

But the dream was dashed and they cannot buy for now, this home will be a gonner. A couple of weeks before they found this home, good old Malcom decided to shop for rates. He had been approved by the real estate agents experienced lender; using credit report, automated underwriting, pay stubs, bank statements - the works.

But Malcom started getting phone calls and letters from lenders. They seemed to come out of the woods. At first Malcom asked the loan officer if he could quote a lower rate, and got a “lets see what rates are when you find a house answer - this is what rates are at today.” Malcom wanted lower. So Malcom turned open the floodgates. Every lender that contacted him got a chance. This was great, look at those quotes he thought. But Malcom let so many of these lenders do a quote it ruined his credit score. Without telling anyone, even Mamma he did all of this.

It came time for approval and all went well. That is all was well until the underwriter had to allow the creation of the loan documents. She ordered a new credit report. Oh what she found. What is that saying? “How low can you go?” Malcoms score was real low. Too low. He didn’t qualify.

These lenders, how did they know Malcom was in the market? The answer, “The Trigger List.” All three major credit bureaus knew Malcom was purchasing. From them Malcom was sold as a hot lead to their most anxious to sell you a loan customers.

The loan officers that work for these guys have no reason to build a long term relationship with you. Heck the loan officers are either in training, or not skilled enough to build the kind of reputation it takes to survive the lending game. So they quoted Malcom rates they couldn’t deliver.

Everyone was pretty shattered.

Not to worry Malcom said, I have another lender that promised me a great deal. WIthout anyone, even Mamma knowing, Malcom had another lender to the drawing the documents level. I should say, the lender had Malcom on the Hook, Line, and Sinker. This lender had even sent another appraiser out to the new home. So hopes were still alive.

For one day.

This lender had quoted Malcom a no fee 30 year fixed for 5 1/2% interest. As things got to the end the rate was 8%. What happened to the 5 1/2%? Oh, I couldn’t get that loan past underwriting, you don’t qualify for that rate.

Malcom had figured out, too late, that he had been mislead on the 1% deal, but went back for that. He didn’t qualify for that either.

What was it? Stuipidity? Yes. Greed? Yes. The Trigger List? Yes.

Malcom has no home and two appraisals to pay for.

Pretty Sad. Sorry to report it. Work with a lender that works with your agent. They have too much to lose by messing you up. Don’t deal with phone lenders, they have nothing to gain by being credible, ethical, and honorable. They know you not, know not your agent, and will be gone onto something else next week.

I wonder what it is like in the Malcom apartment today. I am thinking of a lesson learned: If momma ain’t happy, no one is happy.”

Clicke Here for Advertisment of the trigger lists
LarrY Cragun