Home Mortgage

If you want to understand just how toxic a home mortgage can get, consider this real-life, continuing saga: Katherine Stephens is a 94-year-old widow, now living in a nursing home in southern New Jersey. According to her nephew, William Finch, she has $38 in her bank account. Monthly Social Security checks pay only a small portion of her nursing home bills. In 1988, Stephens and her husband, Harold, signed up for what they thought was a great concept for seniors: A "reverse mortgage" that would pay them $312 a month virtually in perpetuity - until they died or moved out of their house in Brigantine, N.J., near Atlantic City.

State media keep talking about the fiscal cliff as if it will obliterate Maryland's wealth if Congress does not reach a compromise on debt talks. The truth is, cuts are far down the road if they happen, and Maryland will continue to thrive as an extension of Washington's bureaucratic complex. There is an imminent financial crisis in Maryland, however: state debt. According to the nonpartisan nonprofit State Budget Solutions, the total debt of Maryland is almost $82 billion. (www.statebudgetsolutions.org/publications/detail/state-budget-solutions-third-annual-state-debt-report-shows-total-state-debt-over-4-trillion)

Yes, we've heard that it is going to be "big, really big," but the question for those in the market for a home mortgage is whether going the Priceline.com route will be better.Priceline.com, the Internet site where "you name your own price" for such items as airline tickets and hotel rooms, has expanded its offerings to mortgages, home equity loans and refinancings. The company has joined with LendingTree, an online mortgage broker in Charlotte, N.C., to provide the means for applicants to name their own mortgage terms -- such as an interest rate -- and to have a network of lenders bid for their business.

If you're a local Bank of America borrower behind on your home mortgage, chances are you've received an invitation to come chat in Baltimore. The company is holding a foreclosure-prevention event next Thursday through Saturday -- June 28 through June 30 -- at the Baltimore Hilton for customers whose loans it services. It's one in a series of face-to-face events that Bank of America and other mortgage servicers have put on. In other cases, they've participated in events organized by groups or political leaders . The appeal of in-person?

State media keep talking about the fiscal cliff as if it will obliterate Maryland's wealth if Congress does not reach a compromise on debt talks. The truth is, cuts are far down the road if they happen, and Maryland will continue to thrive as an extension of Washington's bureaucratic complex. There is an imminent financial crisis in Maryland, however: state debt. According to the nonpartisan nonprofit State Budget Solutions, the total debt of Maryland is almost $82 billion. (www.statebudgetsolutions.org/publications/detail/state-budget-solutions-third-annual-state-debt-report-shows-total-state-debt-over-4-trillion)

Even with recent interest rate increases by the Federal Reserve, home mortgage rates remain low. Is the time right to buy a new home? Perhaps. But first, it might be a good idea to get up to speed on how mortgage loans work, especially if you are a first-time buyer. Web sites that provide insights about qualifying for a home loan and obtaining a mortgage include: Bankrate.com (www.bankrate.com/brm/news/real-estate/tips-new-home1.asp), which offers a variety of mortgage cost-saving tips.

A memorial service will be held at 2 p.m. tomorrow at Ladew Topiary Gardens, 3535 Jarrettsville Pike in Monkton, for Bolling Barton "Bo" Willse Jr., who was killed Thursday in a private plane crash near Austin, Colo. He was 24. Also killed in the crash of the Cessna 182 Skyline were his flying instructor and an unidentified passenger, Federal Aviation Administration officials said. Mr. Willse was born in Baltimore and raised in Lutherville and Monkton. He was a graduate of the Jemicy School and graduated in 2000 from Gilman School.

Piper receives award for community service Jim Piper, executive vice president of O'Conor, Piper & Flynn ERA, has received the annual Community Service Award from the Maryland Association of Realtors. Thirteen Realtors from across the state were nominated for the award, which the MAR gives based on general community service. Piper is co-chairman of the Baltimore Mentoring Partnership and director of the Baltimore Efficiency and Economy Foundation. In the past, he was president of the Baltimore County Chamber of Commerce and served on the board of directors for the Maryland Chamber of Commerce.

Depreciation rate set by mobile home's useQ: I recently purchased a single-family mobile home that I intend to use as a rental. At what rate may I depreciate the home? Does it qualify as a vehicle, or do I treat it as a piece of real estate?A: A mobile home used as a residential rental must be depreciated over the 27.5-year schedule used for real estate.The reason a mobile home used as a rental does not qualify for the seven-year depreciation schedule afforded vehicles has nothing to do with whether it is a vehicle or a piece of real estate.

In the running for the Nicest Boss in Maryland award is this guy, who just bought 200 Mega Million tickets and promised to share the winnings -- in a big, big way, with his workers. Dennis Kane of Kane Construction said he was the only winner, he'd pay the mortgages off of everyone in his company. And that was before he knew the jackpot was up to $640 million. Maybe now he workers will also get cars. Cost of tickets: $200. Value in corporate good will of making a pledge like this: Priceless.

In the running for the Nicest Boss in Maryland award is this guy, who just bought 200 Mega Million tickets and promised to share the winnings -- in a big, big way, with his workers. Dennis Kane of Kane Construction said he was the only winner, he'd pay the mortgages off of everyone in his company. And that was before he knew the jackpot was up to $640 million. Maybe now he workers will also get cars. Cost of tickets: $200. Value in corporate good will of making a pledge like this: Priceless.

State regulators said Wednesday that they have ordered a large mortgage broker to stop making loans to Marylanders after federal investigators alleged the company had violated lending rules. The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development announced last week that it was no longer allowing Allied Home Mortgage Corp. to originate loans insured by the Federal Housing Administration because it said the company had played "fast and loose with FHA's standards. " The Justice Department is alleging mortgage fraud in a lawsuit against Allied.

As Congress considers "spending cuts" to address our massive annual deficits, lawmakers should acknowledge what their own nonpartisan Joint Committee on Taxation has revealed for decades: Most nondefense discretionary spending occurs through tax breaks, thanks to our federal income tax laws. Recently termed "earmarks" by President Barack Obama's bipartisan National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform, more than 100 tax breaks save households about $1 trillion annually in federal income taxes.

Proponents call it the crucial missing tool needed to get us out of the national foreclosure morass. Critics say it could be disastrous - pushing up interest rates on all future mortgages, even for people with excellent credit, and creating huge new losses for already-ailing banks. Wherever you come down on the griddle-hot issue of home mortgage "cramdowns," the reality is this: Congress is poised to pass legislation empowering bankruptcy court judges to reduce the loan balances of potentially large numbers of financially distressed owners to affordable levels, and to lower their interest rates and monthly payments.

UPPER MARLBORO -- The mortgage crisis roiling communities across the country is being acutely felt in Prince George's County, where thousands of residents -- many lured in recent years by relatively affordable real estate prices -- are in danger of losing their homes. Middle-class homebuyers flocked to the county in the early part of this decade as prices in other Washington-area suburbs surged. Now, scores of families face the threat of foreclosure, throwing one of the nation's wealthiest majority-black suburbs into what state and local officials who gathered here yesterday called an emergency.

A small number of moderate-income Howard County homebuyers should benefit from a $255,275 state Community Legacy program revolving loan fund grant announced yesterday in North Laurel. The program would provide second mortgages worth up to $30,000 each for buyers of 10 new detached, single-family homes planned in Savage on land owned by the Howard County Housing Commission. The county bought land on Mary Lane for the planned Glens at Guilford development in 2002, but it has had to wait four years under Howard's development controls to get permission to build.

PHILADELPHIA -- You've applied to refinance your home mortgage, but you're having second thoughts. Maybe interest rates have floated too high, or you've decided to move instead. You may be able to back out of the process, and get all or most of your money back.Many lenders say they will work with applicants who get cold feet to agree on what happens to any fees or other payments.lTC "We're anxious to do right by our customers, and if the market has changed significantly since they applied, then we'd proceed to negotiate," said Linda Klein, regional vice president of Countrywide Funding Corp.

Washington -- Congressional debate over banking legislation is focusing fresh attention on one of the most potent -- but little-understood -- federal consumer protections for home mortgage borrowers.The protection is the "R" word: The right of rescission or complete cancellation of a home loan financing. To lenders it is the functional equivalent of a nuclear meltdown on a loan transaction. To some borrowers it can be a lifesaver -- preventing TTC the foreclosure sale of a home at the eleventh hour.

If you want to understand just how toxic a home mortgage can get, consider this real-life, continuing saga: Katherine Stephens is a 94-year-old widow, now living in a nursing home in southern New Jersey. According to her nephew, William Finch, she has $38 in her bank account. Monthly Social Security checks pay only a small portion of her nursing home bills. In 1988, Stephens and her husband, Harold, signed up for what they thought was a great concept for seniors: A "reverse mortgage" that would pay them $312 a month virtually in perpetuity - until they died or moved out of their house in Brigantine, N.J., near Atlantic City.

A memorial service will be held at 2 p.m. tomorrow at Ladew Topiary Gardens, 3535 Jarrettsville Pike in Monkton, for Bolling Barton "Bo" Willse Jr., who was killed Thursday in a private plane crash near Austin, Colo. He was 24. Also killed in the crash of the Cessna 182 Skyline were his flying instructor and an unidentified passenger, Federal Aviation Administration officials said. Mr. Willse was born in Baltimore and raised in Lutherville and Monkton. He was a graduate of the Jemicy School and graduated in 2000 from Gilman School.