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- Purdue grad and broker since 2005, Liz has lived in both the City and Suburbs. She know the best places for first-time buyers.
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Wells Fargo
By Larry Hotz, All Denver Real Estate
Wells Fargo is Colorado’s largest home loan lender. So, it is significant that they just this month upgraded Denver and the metropolitan area real estate market from “distressed “to “stable”. That means that borrowers will be able to borrow more money when they purchase a home than they have been able to do in the past and terms will be the most favorable the bank has to offer.
Now, there is one major exception to that change. Well County has not been upgraded. The bank did not give any reasons so we are left to speculate as to why that happened. But, based on an arrest today in Mexico, fraud may have been a contributor to home foreclosures there.
Wells Fargo is a very well reputed lender. Sometimes, they have been seen to be inflexible on their terms because Denver had been a leader in foreclosures. Fortunately, the number of foreclosures has improved in the last year. However, Weld County is still very high in its foreclosure rate and values of the homes there have plummeted compared to the relatively stable values in much of the Denver metropolitan area.
I suspect that part of the reason may be that Weld County had a very high foreclosure rate because many of the loans made there were to victims who did not speak good English and may not have understood the terms they signed when they took out new loans.
Why do I say that? Just today federal authorities were able to extradite Mark John Strodtman, 51, from Playa Del Carmen, Mexico. He is charged with racketeering, theft and forgery in connection with mortgage loans in Weld County. Over 20 homeowners there have accused him of tricking them into taking out home loans they didn’t understand.
Weld County has a significant number of Hispanic immigrants who migrated there to take advantage of employment opportunities. I suspect, but there is no demographic information available, that many of these foreclosure loans were made to people who didn’t understand the terms they were agreeing to. No doubt, many Spanish speaking immigrants bought homes and took out new loans in the last decade. That certainly was the case in California. There some California counties have reported that as many as 40% of all home foreclosures were due to illegal immigrants obtaining home loans they couldn’t afford. I really need to stress that I have no information that would support that same pattern in Weld County except for this anecdote. A Spanish speaking loan originator has been charged with fraud, extradited from Mexico and will face an arraignment in Los Angeles tomorrow.
Wells Fargo Home Mortgage has long been very competitive in rates and loan to value ratios. A recently we have been frustrated by the fact that they require larger down payments and don’t always offer the best terms available in the market. It’s the reason why we shopped the entire market for our clients. Lender rates and terms change often.
“This is very significant for our customers and our Realtors”, Scott Palmer recently noted in a sales meeting at The Kentwood Company in Greenwood Village. “This is an upgrade of two entire categories. It means that we will be able to offer the most favorable terms and rates available. Wells Fargo is pledged to provide our Realtors and customers with the best rates, terms and service we can.”
The Kenwood Company has a non-exclusive, contractural relationship with Wells Fargo Mortgage. Our clients have access to two excellent rate in terms there. Jumbo loans are especially attractive that Wells Fargo when clients use their access to Wells Fargo Private Mortgage. The current rate there is only 6.5% for Jumbo loans above a $417,000. That is at least a full percent below the rest of the market in Denver.
As I mentioned before, it still remains important to shop loans throughout the market. Rates and terms change so often that it’s impossible to know the exact best deal until we shop and are prepared to lock a rate. Shopping for loans is a service that any good full-service Realtor should provide. I’m happy to say that’s a service that we provided for over 30 years.
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