Mortgage Industry News and Events

The Opportunity Have you been shopping for a home, but feel like you are priced out of the market? It may not be too late for you to buy. With the right property and a little imagination, you can now finance the purchase and the renovation expenses together [...]

This post is for you home shoppers and/or investors who found a great house that needs some work, but you don’t have the cash for both the needed repairs and for the down payment up front. It’s also for you if you found a great fixer-upper opportunity, but you can’t [...]

This is for you non-traditional borrowers. If you’re a real estate developer, house flipper, general contractor or otherwise have special financing needs, you should develop a relationship with a direct lender for those projects that traditional lenders just don’t get. If you’re having trouble getting financed through the [...]

Buying a home in Hawaii is expensive. But not buying is even more expensive. Why? Because when you own a home, over a long period of time your mortgage payments are generally more than offset by two factors: 1.) Appreciating home values 2.) Steadily increasing rents 20 years ago, [...]

Don’t wait til your credit score is perfect. There’s an old proverb that goes “the best is the mortal enemy of the good enough.” This means that waiting for conditions to be absolutely perfect can be costlier and more counterproductive than acting boldly in the moment when conditions are [...]

Real estate is a time-tested long-term wealth generator. Few other investments offer the same qualities in combination as real estate does: • Current rental income/cash flow • Potential for price appreciation • Tangible value • Built-in hedge against inflation • Ready availability of leverage • Tax deductions for depreciation [...]

For many years, buying a home has been difficult for small business owners, contractors, and the self-employed. If you own a small business or you're one of the millions of self-employed and gig economy workers in Hawaii and the mainland U.S., take heart: we know you’re out there—and [...]

For most families, their home is the single biggest financial asset. That’s especially true here in Hawaii, where the average home value now exceeds $800,000. That means that unless you insure it properly, a disaster that affects your home could be a financial catastrophe from which you and your family [...]

As Island residents know, extended family living arrangements are routine here. Hawaii’s deep traditions of ohana and the high cost of housing here combine to make it very common for multiple generations of families to live on the same plot and under the same roof. Many kama'aina have [...]

Your debt-to-income ratio is a measure of how big your monthly debt service obligations are as a percentage of your income. It’s one of the most important things lenders consider when assessing your application for a mortgage: The higher your monthly debt payments and the lower your income, the [...]