Title insurance is important when buying a home since it involves researching the public record to determine you’ll have all the ownership rights once you close. The title insurance is in place in case a mistake was made in the title search and a person comes forward with a legitimate claim of ownership to your [...]

Lender paid mortgage insurance is paid upfront by the lender so no monthly amount is needed. However, as with many things in the mortgage business, that is not the whole truth. You may have been told some loans do not have mortgage insurance as long as you pay a higher rate. That is only part [...]

MBIA Inc just posted an unexpected Q2 gain today becoming the second bond insurer who used a 1 year old accounting rule to it’s full advantage. Analysts were expecting a loss of $1.37 a share but after the accounting shenanigans MBIA posted a gain of $7.41 a share. I wrote how Ambac earlier in the [...]

Triad Guaranty (Nasdaq: TGIC), a private mortgage insurer, lost $198.8 million in the second quarter. TGIC has lost a total of $348.8 million in 2008. This drastic lost is even more shocking when you compare it to the fact TGIC posted a gain of $12 Million just a year ago. That’s the problem with mortgage [...]

Financial Title owned by parent company, Mercury Companies Inc. are ceasing operations in California. The Financial Title closings come after another title subsidiary, Alliance Title, closed all California offices in May. According to Jim hailbun, President of United Title of Texas who said in the San Jose Business Journal, “Mercury is closing all of its [...]

United Title owned by Colorado parent company, Mercury Companies Inc. are in trouble again. This time it will mean closing of some Texas offices after a big batch of California closings a few months back. If we remember back in May, Mercury Companies closed title offices in California under the name Alliance Title putting 2,000 [...]

Mortgage Insurance giants are in danger of collapse as claims surge. Mortgage insurance companies stock losses are the possible trigger to another stock market crash. Mortgage Insurance Company Demise Discussed New York Governor and former consumer champion, Eliot Spitzer discuss the demise of the big mortgage and bond insurance companies on Jim Cramer’s Mad Money [...]

Private mortgage insurance or PMI protects lenders from loss on mortgages with less than 20% equity in the event of foreclosure. And you pay for it! Don’t confuse hazard or homeowner’s insurance with private mortgage insurance. Homeowner’s insurance protects you from a loss like a fire. They are insuring the actual structure. PMI protects the [...]

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 [...]