A national survey says one out of every three home sales in August went south because of change in lending guidelines.
Catherine Reagor is right about a couple of dozen of hands going up in a meeting of about 400 so that’s far less than one in three.
That’s a tough deal where you, the buyer, are approved for a loan and right before closing you find out that the lender has changed its lending criteria or the lender has gone out of business entirely, and now you can’t close through no fault of your own.
That’s a tough deal if you’ve already moved out of your home. Perhaps you can move back but perhaps the lease is up or you’ve sold it to someone else so you have to scurry to find a place to live.
Home Buyers: Please ask your Realtor to recommend some lenders. He should have a better feel for who should still be in business 30 days from now.
Industry Partners Conference
By the way, the meeting Catherine attended was the Industry Partners Conference. It’s a phenomenally useful meeting of Realtors, lenders and escrow agents. It’s the best way to get current on the leading issues in Arizona real estate in just one day. Realtors can also get continuing education credit hours for attending.
Hey guys, we need some more men at the Industry Partners Conference! I would guess it’s at least 80% women. Sure, a third of the attendees are escrow agents who are almost all women, and most Realtors are women so that accounts for some of it, but 80+ percent of the whole conference? Come on guys! You’re missing out.
The Industry Partners Conference sells out every year. Keep a look out for it next year.
{ 2 comments… read them below or add one }
Andrew Upson 09.15.07 at 4:10 pm
We sold our Mesa home back in July and have relocated out of state. It closed on July 6. Our realtor told us that at the time he was seeing 40% of accepted offers failing to close escrow. Now, I have no idea how many of those were due to tightening lending standards and how many were a result of bad inspections, arbitrary backouts, etc. He did say some buyers, especially if they asked for lengthy closing times, would keep looking and if they found another house that they liked more, or was a better deal they’d wiggle out of the first contract.
I know my wife’s uncle tried to refinance recently as he’s trying to subdivide his property in north/central Washington State and had that fall through about a week before closing. The lender he was trying to use was his current mortgage holder and they either went bankrupt or simply stopped making any new loans (can’t remember which). He wasn’t trying to get any cash out, just provide clear title to the buyers of the lots he’d split off. In fact he’d have been free and clear once those lots sold as collectively they’d have more than paid for his remaining balance.
Marksky 09.16.07 at 8:30 am
Since late 2006 156 lenders, aso f 9/16/07 per http://ml-implode.com/ says have gone out of business. Some of these names did tons of business in Arizona and seemed stable. Not sure any lender except for the big banks like BofA, Wells & Chase can be looked upon as a souce of funds to have confidence in.