Boston Condo, Loft and Luxury Boston Real Estate Blog

Rich Barton, CEO of Zillow.com has launched what I have expected since inception - a mortgage platform. I have not got a chance to dig-in yet and check out the structure of how this works…but from the surface it looks similar to a LendingTree, but at a Loan Officer level instead of a corporate level.

I definitly see this to be a source to reckon with.  The mortgage industry has been waiting for a major player to come down and transform the extreme inefficiencies that current retail and wholesale lending has.  As much as we love our preferred lender, and they truely are special to us and our clients, the Zillow Marketplace may be able to scale and offer lower interest rates…we will see.  We like the Zillow guys and will test this system shortly…but anyone else who dives in and applies through the Zillow Mortgage Marketplace…please let us know how it goes.  We are very curious.

Read more on Zillow Blog 

Believe it or not this is a real picture (no photoshop here) although it would be just as funny.  I saw this reading one of our favorite mortgage blogs - BlownMortgage.  Must have been a Countrywide guy!  Thought it would be a great post for sunny Friday!

On a serious note, rate are still way down.  Contact our preferred lender Christina Longo of IndyMac Bank here in Boston for more information or visit our Boston Mortgage page.

Market has certainly picked up the last 2 weeks with tons of open house activity and rates continue to fall. I would say we are off to a nice little start in 2008!

We were off flying around this week with over 25 appointments and private tours with our clients. From full service condo buildings like 285 Columbus, D4, Northpoint, FP3 Boston to some re-sale listings over at 717 Atlantic and a short sale over at 197 Bunker Hill Street in Charlestown.

To top off all this exciting news I got a call from Christina Longo (full disclosure: my sister!) who is a Mortgage Consultant over in the Back Bay for Indy Mac Bank. and she noted that rates had dropped even more this week.

She noted the 30 year fixed and the 5/1 ARM had dropped again!

30 year fixed was 5.625%

5/1 was 5.125%

Give Christina a call or shoot her an email if your looking for a free pre-approval or rate quote before you head out to open-houses today.

Christina Longo ::::  978-886-9359 :::: clongo@imb.com

Visit our Financing Center Online

Condos for Kids? Yup, you got it right. We used to call them “Kiddie Condos.”

There are lots of reasons for “Kiddie Condos.” Some adults (parents) leverage personal tax gains, some like to buy real estate instead of pay rent for a child who is going to college or who may have just graduated, the list goes on and on, but what realy is behind a Kiddie Condo?

The answer is, it really has nothing to do with the real estate itself. The term “Kiddie Condo” or the action of buying a piece of real estate for a close family member like a child or sibling really has to do with the way it is financed with the local mortgage company.

Many mortgage companies or banks who do home loans have traditional Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac guidelines that follow certain secondary market rules. The three main purchasing types are - Primary Residences, Secondary Residences (2nd Home) & Investment Property. All three purchasing types associate with difference risk levels and there for different mortgage rates.

As you can see, a Kiddie Condo really doesnt fit any of the above purchasing types or sits somewhere in a gray area - ahhh - the key to working with a sharp and top notch mortgage banker .

The truth of the matter is some banks understand the Kiddie Condo concept and some don’t … lucky for you, our preferred lender team here at ANTH | JAMES does.

Contact Patti or Christina for any of your mortgage of home financing needs.

Good Articles on Kiddie Condos

Kiddie Condo offers Return to parents

FHA Kiddie Condo Program