Title insurance is a protection against loss that can occur from problems associated with title to your property. Title insurance is used by homebuyers and lenders for protection against back taxes, hidden liens, judgments, fraud and other possible legal/financial problems that can happen when purchasing or refinancing property.

If you need a mortgage, lenders require you to purchase title insurance for an amount equal to the loan. It lasts until the loan is repaid. As the owner of the property, you are also protected under an Owner's Policy.

 To protect probably the biggest financial investment you will ever make. With title insurance, you have a protection contract that will reimburse you for any loss in the event that any lien or claim is placed against your property.

Misinterpretations of Deeds 

Undisclosed or missing heirs; Mistakes in recording legal documents 

Forged deed, releases or wills or expired power of attorney;

Fraud or Liens for unpaid land, inheritance, judgments, earnings or taxes

False imitation of the true owner of the property

Deeds by persons supposedly single, but in fact married or minors

The cost varies, depending mainly on property value and your mortgage loan amount. Use our calculator for a quick quote.

A title search is a thorough evaluation of the public records that pertain to the property. All documents that influence the subject property are reviewed for accurateness, completeness and appropriate implementation. Correspondingly, all the owners on record during the search period are indexed to determine their ownership interests, marital status and legal ability to enter into a contract to buy/sell property.

Once your offer on a home or other real property has been accepted by the seller, your transaction is then placed into "escrow."

"Escrow" is a term that describes the neutral third-party handling of funds, documents and tasks specific to the closing (or settlement, as it is also known), as outlined on the real estate purchase agreement of sales contract. The purpose of escrow is to facilitate the transaction by managing the disbursement of funds and documents. 

Key Players

In accordance with local custom, the buyer or seller involved in the transaction will select the escrow provider. This provider could be an escrow company, title officer or title/escrow attorney, depending upon many considerations, including the geographical location of the transaction.

Roles

The escrow provider may have a duty to arrange and/or track the requirements and contingencies outlined within the purchase contract. These might include home inspections, the purchase of homeowners insurance, the completion of negotiated repairs, and financing requirements. 

Process

Once all transaction contingencies are met, including the execution of all documents necessary to complete the transaction, the escrow company will disburse funds to the seller and other parties, all in accordance with the purchase agreement.

Cost

The cost of escrow services is covered by the buyer or seller as determined by local custom, market conditions or contractual agreements made within the purchase agreement. 

"Closing"

Once all the tasks described within the sales purchase agreement have been completed and the approriate funds are disbursed, the transaction is complete and the escrow closes. 

A VA loan is perhaps the most best and most flexible lending option available today. Rather than issue loans, the VA instead pledges to repay about a quarter of every loan it guarantees in the unlikely event the borrower defaults. That guarantee gives VA-approved lenders greater protection when lending to military borrowers, and usually leads to highly competitive rates and terms for qualified veterans.

The most significant benefit of a VA loan is the borrower’s ability to purchase with no money down. Apart from the government’s UDSA’s Rural Development home loan and Fannie Mae’s Home Path, it’s all but impossible to find a lending option today that provides borrowers with 100 percent financing.

VA loans also come with less stringent underwriting standards and requirements than conventional loans. In fact, about 80 percent of VA borrowers could not have qualified for a conventional loan.

VA loans are a special loan program that is specifically for veterans. The loans themselves are issued by approved lenders and guaranteed by the federal government. The VA Streamline Refinance is the most common loan type within the VA loan umbrella, and is officially known as an Interest Rate Reduction Refinance Loan (IRRRL).

The bottom line is that veterans with qualifying credit and income can purchase a home with no money down, which makes buying a home extremely attractive for those who have served in the military. In addition, VA loans also offer feature flexible requirements, no private mortgage insurance (PMI), and very competitive interest rates.

In order to qualify for a VA Loan, a veteran must have served 181 days during peacetime, 90 days during war time, or 6 years in the Reserves or National Guard. You may also qualify as the spouse of a service member who was killed in the line of duty. Generally speaking, almost all active duty and/or honorably discharged service members are eligible for a VA purchase or streamline refinance loan.

The FHA Streamline Refinance is a special mortgage product, reserved for homeowners whose existing mortgages are FHA-insured.

There is no income verification, no employment verification, and no credit history required. All that the FHA requires is that you've paid at least 6 payments on your current mortgage; that those payments have been made on-time; and that your mortgage has a "purpose".

With limited verifications, the FHA Streamline Refinance approval process moves quickly.

But, for all of its waived verifications, the FHA Streamline Refinance program's defining characteristic is that it does not require a home appraisal. Instead, the FHA assigns your original home purchase price as your home's current value, regardless of for what your home would appraise today.

In this way, similar to HARP 2.0, the FHA Streamline Refinance allows for mortgages with unlimited loan-to-value. No matter how far underwater you are on your home, the FHA will refinance you without cost or penalty.

Even better is that FHA Streamline Refinance mortgage rates are as low as "regular" FHA mortgage rates and, right now, FHA mortgage rates are approaching 3 percent.

A jumbo (mortgage) is a loan in an amount above conventional conforming loan limits. This standard is set by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, and sets the limit on the maximum value of any individual mortgage they will purchase from a lender. Fannie Mae (FNMA) and Freddie Mac (FHLMC) are large agencies that purchase the majority of U.S. residential mortgages from banks and other lenders, which allows them to free up liquidity to lend more mortgages. When Freddie and Fannie Mae limits don't cover the full loan amount, the loan is referred to as a "jumbo mortgage". The average interest rates on jumbo mortgages are typically higher than for conforming mortgages.

Freddie Mac's weekly Primary Mortgage Market Survey works by asking 125 banks nationwide their respective mortgage rates for the 30-year fixed rate mortgage, the 15-year fixed rate mortgage, and the 5-year adjustable rate mortgage, plus any discount points that may be required to get said rate.

Freddie Mac's mortgage rate survey is highly-cited. It's the one most frequently used by journalists, Wall Street, and by economists. It's also an input for other housing metrics including the Home Affordability Index, among others.

When people speak in general terms about mortgage rates, they're citing Freddie Mac. To the average mortgage rate shopper, however, the Freddie Mac mortgage rate is a little less valuable. This is because it's rare for an actual home buyer, or an actual refinancing household to get access to the "Freddie Mac" rate.

There are three reasons for this:

Published rates are an average from all of Freddie Mac's surveyed banks. If a week's rate is 3.55%. Conforming mortgage rates, though, are priced in 1/8ths, exclusively. There's no such thing as a 3.55% mortgage rate, really. The closest rate would be 3.625%.

Mortgage rates vary by region and. In a given week, for example, Southeast Region borrowers may be paying the most. Therefore homeowners in Florida and Georgia, as examples, pay higher mortgage rates and higher loan fees than homeowners in Western Region states such as Arizona and California.

Freddie Mac assumes that all mortgage applicants pay discount points. Few do.

The term "cash-in refinance" describes a type of refinance for which the homeowner brings both money to closing, and those monies are meant to specifically reduce the home's existing principal balance.

For example, cash-in refinances have been popular in high-cost areas such as Loudoun County, Virginia; and Sherman Oaks, California where the conforming loan limit was formerly $729,750. Today, however, the jumbo conforming loan limit is just $625,500. This means that homeowners with conforming mortgages above $625,500 who wish to refinance into today's conforming mortgage rates must lower their respective loan balances to no more than $625,500 at the time of closing.

However, HARP, the federal Home Affordable Refinance Program, provides homeowners whose homes have lost equity, access to the day's low mortgage rates.

A short sale is a property sold through an agreement with their mortgage bank to accept less than what is owed on the home. By accepting this offer, banks are able to avoid a lengthy and costly foreclosure process. Short sales are complex transactions, and while the bank has the final say on sale price, the existing mortgage owner still has say in the process. An experienced real estate attorney is key in successively negotiating this process.

Cash only means that you, the buyer, have the liquid assets, that is cash, to buy the property without a loan from a bank or other lender.  If you are borrowing money from anyone then you are not a true cash buyer.

You can still make an offer as a cash buyer, but if you are borrowing money from someone you will need to disclose this. In short, your good faith deposit will be at risk should the third party lender not lend to you for any reason. So be very, very careful if you state that you are a cash buyer when the funds are not your own.  Check with your Realtor to be sure that you can make a cash offer when the funds are not yours.

 HARP is the Housing Assistance and Recovery Program.  Under this program,  homeowners who are current on their payments and who owe more money than their home is worth, are able to refinance with the mortgage provider to a lower rate. In many instances income documentation is not necessary provided your credit score is descent.  

The HUD-1 Settlement Statement is a summary of financial portion of the property transaction. The title company or closing agent is required by the Department of Housing & Urban Development to use the HUD-1 settlement statement on virtually all residential real estate transactions involving a lender. The statement will list the purchase price, loan amount, closing costs for the buyer and seller, and will show all sums being charged and disbursed to the parties involved. It also clearly summarizes the total amount due from the purchaser.

Many mortgage refinances are likely to have been blown apart by Superstorm Sandy. If you were in the middle of a refinance, you will face delays. We closed, for the first time ever, for more than a day due to weather. We were off-line for ten days, and are so glad to be back!

If you applied and were approved for a refinance but Sandy hit while you were waiting to close, the lender  will want to re-inspect the house. Fannie and Freddie give lenders the option of not inspecting homes for storm damage, but in most cases lenders will hire someone to look at the house to see if there's any damage.

If the home was damaged by the storm, it has to be repaired before you can close on the refi. Lenders are allowed to make an exception allowing the loan to close if the damage isn't major, if insurance covers it and if enough money is set aside to pay for repairs.

There is an exception to the inspection policy: If you're refinancing a Fannie- or Freddie-backed loan under the Home Affordable Refinance Program, the lender doesn't have to inspect or reappraise the property if it had been inspected or appraised before the storm.

If you're employed, the lender is required to verify within 10 business days of closing that you still have a job. If you're a business owner, the lender is required to verify within 30 days of loan closing that the business is still running. But don't expect the lender to rely on pre-storm employment or business verification. Most lenders will make a verification call within a few days of the closing date.

Sandy created havoc in New Jersey, even far from the shore. Aside from the obvious issues posed by flooding from the Sandy storm surge, far from the shore problems occurred. Basements flooded when sump pumps went without power for days, roofs were damaged, and trees fell on homes, all many miles from the shore.

When you buy a home, you hire a professional to come and inspect the following major house systems to insure that they do not have any problems or deficiencies: the heating and central air conditioning, plumbing, the roof, electrical systems, attic, visible insulation, walls, windows, ceilings, floors, foundations, and the basement.

Even if expenses are tight, set aside money to hire the inspector, for he or she may catch the slightest evidence of water damage. In the future, this alone could cost you thousands of dollars to repair the damaged walls, structural beams, ceilings, and/or foundation as well as health issues from mold.

Before buying a home, make sure your inspector has examined for the following major issues: water seepage and wet basements, roof leaks, and weak water pressure. To prevent water seepage and wet basements, make sure any house foundation cracks are sealed and all surface water runs-off away from the house. If the house has small cracks in the foundation or has porous walls, heavy rains could cause severe and expensive structural damage. A furnace or hot water heater may be running, but it may have been water damaged and improperly repaired. You can’t tell by looking, but an inspector can by closer inspection.

Another issue is mold, which has become the cause of numerous insurance claims because they can be harmful to one’s health and destructive to homes. Normally molds are not indoor problems, unless mold spores land on a dark, moist spot. Molds produce allergens, irritants, and potentially toxic substances, such as mycotoxins.

In short, having a qualified home inspector has never been more important than after Sandy. Be safe, don’t gamble with your dream. Hire a home inspector, and don’t let Sandy put major problems in your path.