Good luck with the financial stuff. It's never fun even when you're the one getting the money.

Here's a little followup on the Zogby thing. He was just on the radio here so it peaked my interest. Found this little article on Zogby's site, it's a tracking poll of Z's own numbers throughout the 2000 election season.

http://www.zogby.com/features/featuredtables.dbm?ID=8

The numbers swing around quite a bit, and at this time in 2000 Gore looked to be in quite a hole. Gore bounced back to a late lead, but as we all know the vote ended up as a virtual tie.

With that kind of fluctuation in the relative Disneyland that was the year 2000 (peace, good economy), Zogby's prediction seems downright bizaare. Oh well...look at the numbers and draw your own conclusions.

Stephen,
I hope you got a freakin great rate because there are just too many mortgage people out there to put up with that hoo-haw. Good luck in closing HELOC hell.

David

I bought two houses thirty years apart. Closing the first took us less than an hour and a bank officer apologized for the delay (1972). We had put the standard 20% down, rest financed.

After the kids left, we decided that the time had come to downsize. Sold the old place, put some money in bonds, and opened a mortgage of the new place. About 20% of the purchase price: the 80% was equity.

In 2002 it took most of the afternoon in front of a snotty closing agent. I have never seen such a pile of paper before or since. And they felt they were doing us dirty peons a favor.

My sympathies on your plight. Unfortunately you are dealing with super bean counters. Don't expect intelligence: You won't find it.

Thirty years ago, mortgages were handled at the friendly local S&L. You paid a high rate, but got personal service. And stayed in a frigging motel for SIX WEEKS with wife & child while they faxed & mailed credit reports from your former location in another state to your new location.

Today, they don't give a crap about you, but they can pull up your credit report in 5 minutes and have an answer in 5 minutes. Rates are dirt cheap, because its impersonal and they've learned that your FICO score is 99% accurate in determining if you'll pay your loan or not.

In your case, they demand all the notes because you don't have much of a credit history. You guys are newly married, and have only owned a house a short while. There's nothing they can look at and see that "Yeah, these guys have a history of paying their loans with no hassle."

BTW, why are you getting a HELOC while doing a refi? Sounds like you don't know how it works. The HELOC puts a lien on your house, but when the new refi pays off the previous 1st mortgage, the heloc moves into first place. Naturally, the morgage lender insists that they be in first place, so you'll have to either close the heloc and get the lien released, or get them to subordinate (that is, sign--and record---a paper that says they agree to move back to 2nd place). All that is a huge hassle and takes time.

BTW, "end of the week" is because of "consumer protection" laws. You get a 3-day right of recission, which means that they can't give you any money until those 3 days have passed.

The real difference between thirty years ago and now---there are more banking regulations now than there were then. Simple fact. The S&L scandal not only changed how S&L's worked, they changed how banks work as well. Compliance has become a nightmare compared to what it used to be like.

My Dad was the president of a bank back when all of this was going on. In fact, he gave Bob Kerrey the loan that allowed him to start up his restaurant chain in Omaha. 100% equity with no collateral---and all on a handshake. And Bob paid the bank back, too. That was in early 70's. Try doing something like that nowadays.

I hope it works out, Stephen. Good luck.

Duel?

Freudian slip? ;-)

ah, the good old days, only whitey with 20 or 30 % in his pocket could buy a house. Would all of you prefer to go back to less paperwork and personal attention or does 4.5% rates, 3.5% down, and the ability for 75% more of the population to purchase their own home . I wont even go into what the highest percent of homeowners in history can do for our economy.
FYI- loan officers, originators, and underwriters are the largest group of unlicensed individuals with a lobby. You want things to change, talk to your local congressmen cause this will continue until the profession in regulated.

We'll all be looking forward to hearing the voice-of-god demonstration at the RMBB.

As long as I'm writing, I'd like to remind you that the name of the upcoming July holiday is "Independence Day". I guess it's time for me to fire up the annual ranting^H^H^H^H^H^H^H campaign on that subject.

Gawd! You poor man! Facing the prospect of not having a wet bar installed by the time of your July 4th bash? HORRORS!!!

Truly, there MUST be some sort of government program to help out truly needy people such as yourself.

I shudder at the deprivation you must be enduring.