Boomer’s Blog

Today’s real estate investors have a growing bounty of free Internet-based research options and tools available online. Now we can add to the list a behemoth mortgage applications database from Homethinking.com, which debuted in 2005 with a realtor transactions database.

The company recently has expanded its original concept to dish out data on mortgage lenders. Sound boring? Look a little closer. This nifty tool helps investors see which lenders dominate any U.S. market and access details about the loans they’ve made. This information is a great research and bargaining tool.

Free Mortgage Data and Custom Charts
Homethinking.com has developed this user-friendly approach to providing the Federal Reserve’s Home Mortgage Disclosure Act (HMDA) database, to help real estate professionals and civilians alike to choose lenders and, in the process, analyze credit-crunched markets throughout the United States.

With one click on a specified state or county, the system displays instant data on the percentage of subprime loans, average loan size, loan-to-income ratio, and other statistics that can help investors determine how past lending practices may affect future market performance. The site also shows the top 10 top lenders at the at state or county levels.

Get your Data Embed
An added bonus feature for users, is the ability to embed the charts they generate on-site, into documents, Web pages or e-mail messages. These charts can help with market analysis, tracking and ultimately promote more informed decisionmaking. But the data aren’t as up-to-date as most users would like it to be.

HMDA data are released only annually, and it takes the federal government several months to release it. Although Homethinking.com provides access to the latest HMDA data, they’re currently two years old. Current information is based on 27.5 million loans and loan applications filed in 2006.

As a growing number of homeowners dangle over foreclosure’s jagged edge, many lenders have historically been slow to approve short sale deals, but there are signs that they’re changing their ways.

The short sale is a long-standing investment technique that can benefit buyers, lenders and homeowners alike. According to the National Association of Realtors (NAR), Short sales currently account for about 18 percent of overall home sales. But as the housing market continues to stall, some major lenders and loan servicers are streamlining their processes for accepting short sale deals, and this may make short sales a more viable option for investors than it has been in the recent past.

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