NO MORE LIAR LOANS: Businessweek has a good rundown on changes coming to the mortgage industry as per Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. You’re not going to believe this, but apparently our banks are now going to be required by law to evaluate whether or not borrowers can repay a loan. You’d think that they would already do that, and they usually do, but a combination of a credit bubble and a very eager securitization industry (not to mention purchasers of said securities) showed that this is not always the case.
In other words, no more stated income loans, aka “liar loans”, aka NINJA loans (no income, job or assets). This is a good thing, as these loans mostly served to perpetrate fraud of one type or another.
Another change: borrowers will no longer be able to have a debt-to-income ratio above 43 percent. This is another good change: 43 percent is really, really high. It’s a lot of debt, and if you have a lot of debt you don’t need a mortgage. It might be nice to have, but you don’t need it.
BUMMER: What’s going on with the Bank of America Hawaiian Airlines card? We really liked this card as it gave you the chance to double dip along with the Bank of Hawaii version of the card and get a total of 70,000 Hawaiian Airlines miles–which could then be converted to 140,000 HHonors points. But B of A has removed the app from their site. An app is still accessible through the Hawaiian Airlines site, but a flyertalk poster who tried that app claimed to have received an error message upon submitting his app.
All of which is to say, anybody who was counting on this card may want to have a backup plan.
TWO FREE PIZZAS: Visit Papa John’s Coin Toss and if you correctly predict the coin toss, you get a free pizza. We wouldn’t be posting this without a trick and thanks to My Money Blog, here it is: you’re allowed four entries per household. So guess two heads and two tails, and you’re good to go.
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