Bellingham Mortgage Blog

Commercial Lending Conference

This week I’m at a commercial lending conference for brokers at the Lake Lanier Islands Resort just north of Atlanta, Georgia.  It has been, and should continue to be a great event.  There are dozens of banks and other lenders here to provide training on commercial lending as well as their specific products and niches.

In addition, I am here with my business partner to launch our new leasing and equipment finance company, CRC Leasing.  With over 200 commercial brokers here, we have already attracted alot of interest. 

Mortgage Rate Trends - Washington

The last time I posted rate trends, they were at the lowest point in 2008.  Shortly after, the went way up.  The good news is, they have fallen back some, mostly in the last week.

Jumbo Mortgage Loans

I have been closing several Jumbo Mortgage Loans lately, which is interesting, because the mortgage industry is expecting some big changes to Jumbo financing this month. 

Currently, a Jumbo Mortgage in Washington State is simply any mortgage that is greater than $417,000.  It is expected that this limit, set by HUD, will increase in the middle of March.

This is expected to have two major outcomes:

• Lenders will be able to more easily sell off their loans that the have been “stuck with” since the subprime mess, thereby increasing thier working capital, and allowing them to make more new loans.
• Homeowners will get better rates on larger loans.  Of course there is also talk that lenders will put “rate premiums” in place for loans larger than $417,000, but we’ll have to wait and see on that one.

It is uncertain what the new loan limits will be, but I’ve heard speculation that it will be around $550,000 in Washington State.

I’ll post more as new information is released.