I have a bit of mortgage refinance advice that will sound so obviously beneficial, and yet it is rarely followed. Before that, let me ask you a few questions about your last mortgage refinance.

Congress passed and the President signed into law recently the tax deductibility of mortgage insurance premiums.

Halleluiah!

This is huge! I know I make a big deal about what most of you would almost surely ignore. The King of Real Estate Minutiae and all…but this one really is a big deal.

So listen up, there are a few rules to get the most out of the new law, okay?

ELoan Mortgage bailed out on the subprime market about a year ago. Back then ELoan Mortgage was the first of many lenders to turn their backs on the subprime borrower.

As I predicted a few posts back, the bruised credit borrower would be left out in the cold the minute the big boys figured out the subprime loans they pushed so feverishly just 18 months ago are ticking time bombs ready to explode.

The Mortgage Scam Checklist is 37 tip-offs you’re being lied to, scammed, or conned. Each tactic or statement is a mortgage scam designed to separate you from your money.

I’ve often been asked the question, “How can I tell a mortgage scam when I hear one?”

Locating the yield spread premium rip-off is virtually impossible except at closing on the settlement statement known as the HUD1 Settlement Statement. Of course, by then it’s too late!

Other non settlement statement mortgage disclosures specifically the Good Faith Estimate (the mortgage application disclosure) are useless for discovering yield spread premium overcharging since most brokers either never disclose or obfuscate the disclosure as you’ll see below.

The servicing mortgage company is the company to whom you make your payments. The servicing mortgage banks prey on your erroneous belief you can save time and money refinancing with them.

Refinancing with your current servicing mortgage company gives absolutely no cost or time savings!

But they know, you don’t know that.

FHA home mortgage programs are currently under threat of extinction. The FHA home mortgage could die a needless death if reforms don’t pass Congress quickly and correctly.

Due to a number of reasons, the long-standing govenment FHA home mortgage programs are quickly becoming irrelevant. So much so, on the floor of the US Congress a few years back, their was a proposal to discontinue them altogether. Before we discuss the reasons, let’s refresh your memory on the basics of these mortgage programs.

The idea perpetuated by the no cost refinance advertisers primarily that no cost refinances even exist, is just mean. This no cost refinance fantasy will be put to rest here and now.

I estimate half of the people I have discussed mortgage refinancing with over the last year have wanted to know more about the no cost refinance loans they saw on TV or heard on the radio.

So I recently got an email from a person calling himself a Certified Public Accountant desiring to debate the efficacy of the supposed “no cost” mortgage made popular by the ubiquitous advertising propogated primarily by Lenox Financial and now Countrywide Home Loans. As you’ll see below, don’t expect any mortgage help from CPAs when it comes to seeing the financial rip-offs these loans embody.

Fannie Mae’s CEO, Daniel H. Mudd testified before the House Committee on Financial Services today and unveiled a commitment to those subprime borrowers who need new options now that their earlier mortgage decisions are proving to be disastrous.

In typical “borrow from Peter to pay Paul” fashion, this new initiative involves refinancing out of the bad, old mortgage and into a new, better mortgage.