SOME DAYS MY JOB SUCKS

Things are going pretty good, and I've adjusted to all the changes over the past year in the mortgage industry and tried to keep my Realtors and customers aware of them before they went into effect.

One change that we need to inform our government representatives about is the re-disclosure requirements. It's designed to protect borrowers, but it's causing a lot of stress instead. It's only gong to get worse come January 2010 when our good faith "ESTIMATE" has to be exact with the final closing costs. If it doesn't, we'll have to re-disclose and wait 7 days before we can close. Now keep in mind we don't know exact costs till most times a day or two before closing. It's already a bit of a pain and I've had to re-schedule 3 closings in the last week because the APR and finance charges can't very more than .125% or no more than $100.

I had a closing where many of the closing costs actually came in lower than what I estimated. The only differenc was instead of closing on 9/30 we closed on 10/9. There was 10 days of interest due at closing because of it, which was about $500. I think a borrower should be able to waive this and choose to close. There were no suprise added costs, the closing date was merely changed.

It's getting where we will need to get the loan totally approved and ready to close, then we'll have to do the closing statement, re-disclose, and close 7 days from when the closing statement is done. If you think this is rediculous, let your senators and congressional representatives know.

We are required to run a loan through FIVE fraud systems. Some of which we can't do till we have the closing statement. This can cause last-minute issues.

I know lending was out of hand and needed to be reeled in. You can try and blame the lenders, but hey - I didn't make the rules! I couldn't turn a borrower down for a loan if they qualified 2 years ago. Ask youself who made up the guidelines that allowed lenders to approve these zero down, 1 day out of bankruptcy loans? It wasn't me. We needed the changes, but I think they've gone a little too far the other way. It will ease up, but until then, we have to adjust.