Ken "Yes You Can" Cook

Fifty years ago this past August I was born in the same hospital where decades later my children would be born and I would say good-bye to both of my parents. I remember when there was no Interstate highway, only six government high schools and the fire department was all volunteer. That was before my fellow Cobb County residents Ty Pennington, Travis Tritt or Julie (Julia) Roberts were born.

The seat of Cobb County is Marietta. I was, in fact born in Marietta and that is where I currently live. As a side note I live in the home my parents bought the year after I graduated high school. So let's just say I am a little familiar with the history of my town and I would love for you to know a little about it, too, but not the histroy so much as the today.

Earlier I mentioned this is the home of a few famous people and Travis still lives in the area but a bit to the west. My town, Marietta, and more specifically East Marietta (East Cobb) is quite afluent. Many of the local sports stars and other celebrities have made this area their home. With established neighborhoods and some of the highest performing high schools in the nation such as prestigious Walton High School right here in my neighborhood, East Cobb is a highly desirable location to live and raise a family.

Our culture is highly diverse with people from every thinkable background making their home here. We have a large Asian population, big middle eastern population and many other nationalilities in the area. This leads to, of course, a vast selection of restaurants with food and atmosphere from around the world.

Today the population of Marietta, Georgia is about 68,000 and with the exception of income our demographics are very similar to those of Beverly Hills, California. Housing prices and values, on the other hand, are lower mearning you can get much more for much less. The average home value has declined over the last five months from $288,320 to $269,915 but there is also good news for sellers as inventory has also decreased steadily from over 2,300 one year ago to less than 1,850 today. This is considered a nine month inventory even though one year ago the average number of days on market was 113 and today that number is 200.

Finding work, professional, career or other, is not difficult in Marietta. In fact our unemployment rate today is estimated at only 2.4% with a median household income of $112,572. Big employers include the government (31,000 jobs), Lockheed Martin, Bosch, IBM, GE, Coca-Cola, and others. There are 238,000 jobs in Marietta. Cobb County population is reported at an estimated 660,000.

Marietta and Cobb County are home to the F22 war plane, the Atlanta Country Club where the PGA Classic was held for many years, and Six Flags over Georgia (more recently called Six Flags Under Water!) Come on over and let me show you Lost Mountain, the Big Chicken and some really good food and fun!

If you are planning on moving to the Atlanta area and are looking for a somewhat conservative but youngish area call me. I can tell you things your agent can't and I can also welcome you here as a life long resident and even tell you enough local secrets to get you started! Anyone is welcome to Cobb County - after all we have Alton Brown (Iron Chef/Good Eats) and John Patrick (T2000 from Terminator/CSI New York). Oh, and I grew up with Randall Bently, Sr., father of Randall Bentley, Jr., who stars in Heroes.

My name is Ken Cook, Jr., and I am a well experienced small business man and mortgage lender. Call me at 678-439-8683 it's not an answering machine it's a ring everywhere. Don't leave a message, just say your name, nothing else, you only get 4 seconds :)

Some data may have come from:
http://zipskinny.com
http://city-data.com
http://altoresearch.com
http://wikipedia.org
http://jobs.aol.com

As many of you have noticed, several emailed or called, I have not been very active from the mortgage standpoint for the last several weeks. Those of you who have known me for a while have known me as the outspoken, painfully honest lender from Novation Mortgage in Atlanta, Georgia.

After almost 9 years of holding the license, being the broker then the lender, then the broker, Novation Mortgage is closing our doors. Today, September 30, 2009, is our last day accepting loan applications. We have no regrets and outlasted all of our "direct competition" for what that's worth. We saw years where thousands of applications came in to our offices and we closed almost $1 Billion in home mortgages in Georgia alone.

As a lender we had the ability to close loans we may not otherwise have been able to close and as a broker we had the options to choose from a list of the best lenders in the nation. Our faithful relationships have been one of the reason we have made it two years longer than much of our competitors but unfortunately we can no longer service our clients because of the way the banks and big lenders are relating with brokers and smaller lenders and because of rules like HVCC and MDIA. Like them or not, agree with them or not, they are deal killers and are impeding the industry.

Hold still! I have interviewed with and met with many people over the last few weeks. Late night conversations with bankers out of California have been commonplace as have lunch meetings with local managers and Vice Presidents. Finally, I feel confident I have found a good home for my clients and my real estate relationships.

Midweek the first week of October I will announce the name of the company. In the mean time you can know that, should this deal consummate, by the end of the year they will be licensed in all 50 states and a federally chartered bank. Currently they are licensed in all the states I have been working in including Georgia, North Carolina, Florida and Texas as well as 23 others. The ones I know of for sure are Arizona, Arkansas, California, District of Columbia, Florida, Georgia, Iowa, Kansas, Louisiana, Maryland, New Mexico, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Virginia, and Washington.

In the mean time you have seen me writing about online marketing and that's not something I decided to "pick up since the market slowed down". That was my background until 2000 and one of the most important reasons NovaStar and Novation we successful. I will still be using my 20+ years experience of marketing and Internet development to help my industry partners be more successful. If you are an agent, appraiser or builder and we have not worked together call me and see what I can/will do for my strategic partners.

By Wednesday I'll be announcing the name of the new company and giving you regular updates of what can be done.

A good friend who has been in the business for many years asked a simple question of me today. It had mostly to do with credit score and what can be done. The answer was black and white - no room for gray - and his response was, "took the mortgage broker 3 months to figure that out. that's how long they tied up my listing!!!"

I have always given the truth even when the response truly does sting. When you give someone the facts and they say, "I'll just go somewhere else" or "well MY lender can ...". What I want to say is, "oh shutup you nitwit idiot" (because I'm human) but instead I say, "Best to you I wish you all the luck."

I can also tell you luck doesn't close loans. Neither do loan officers who lie to you, string you on and cost you time and resources. Not to mention end up pliffing off your customers.

I know for many years loan officers have "said anything to get the deal". I know this because I have had literally hundreds of people over the years come back to me, at or near closing or after the closing has been postponed umpteen times, saying, "You were right. They can't do what they promised." Of course the worst thing of all is when they promise you one thing, end up not being able to do it and countering with what I offered originally and you still going through with the deal ... that dignifies the way they treated you so they'll lie to the next person in hopes they'll settle for that treatment.

YOU CAN WALK AWAY AT THE CLOSING TABLE and the earth will not collapse around you. I know your agent wants their commission they have earned, the seller wants their money from the house they just skipped the last mortgage payment on and you have to be out of your rental house tomorrow. Guess what? You'll pay for that "bad" loan for many years so just calmly stand up, walk out, call the local lender who has an office you can drive to and go see them. Stop rewarding these liars for bad business.

Three common lies loan officers tell today:

1. I'm as busy as I have ever been
2. No problem I can get that done
3. We can close in two weeks (on a purchase)

Of course there are times when those are the correct answers. Here is a litmus test - if two or more experienced professionals give you one answer and the loan officer at mega-bank out in some state a thousand miles away tells you "sure, we can do that - we can do things nobody else can do" be very suspicious.

I have a sale closing coming up soon. Just after I locked the FHA rate at 5.25 (no dicount) on this purchase the father emailed and said "Everhome can do it for 4.75 with no discount and no origination". I knew that was not true because that rate was long gone. I also knew it wasn't true because that was about the best par rate ever and EVERYBODY gets paid. So I called Everhome and spoke with Jeff. Jeff was very helpful and curteous and laughed and said, "Sometimes the rates they advertise are a little outdated." I said, "Outdated? When did you ever do that rate with no points and no origination?" He said, "Me personally, never."

I used Everhome because I have the data to back it up in case somebody wants to challenge me on it. Not to throw Everhome under the bus because it is almost everyone who advertises (adverlieses) rates. If you see a rate or service advertised online you can almost certainly not believe it. Supposedly the FTC is taking care of that but I haven't heard anything lately. There are other names, too, who have promised the sky and couldn't even deliver a crack in the sidewalk.

BUT YOU DO IT TO YOURSELF - I know, I take the phone calls:

Me: "Thank you for calling Novation Mortgage, Georgia's FHA Loan Experts. This is Ken how may I help you?"
You: "I just want to see what your rates are today."
Me: "Fantastic, are you looking to purchase or refinance?"
You: "Uhm refinance. So what are your rates?"
Me: "Is this a home you are living in or an investment home?"
You: "Uhm it's the home I live in. What are your rates?"
Me: "That's great are you looking to take cash out or just rate and term?"
You: "For Pete's sake, dude! Just tell me your rates!!!"

What you just did was tell me nothing more than a lie was going to help you at all. What if you wanted cash out? Waht if you're looking for an FHA streamline? What if you want to go to a 15 year loan instead of a 30 or vice-versa?

RATES ARE SUBJECT to many variables. You need to be shopping for much MUCH more than the rate. So when you're really serious about service and cost that beats anyone you can name you're ready to deal with a mortgage professional and get the quality service you deserve. Or you can keep dealing with order taking operators at some mega-bank three states away. I digress.

So how are you to know?

Find someone you can trust in your LOCAL area.

Find someone who can give you CUSTOMER references (not just agent references).

Find someone who has a LENDER's LICENSE PERSONALLY (not crucial but helps).

No, it's not a joke. I came up with this idea and my friends Jason Crouch ("heck ya, let's do it") and Jeremy Blanton ("I'm all over it") kind of kicked me into gear with it when they jumped on board so quickly.

Times are tough and there is no denying it. Sure we can have "positive thoughts" and "draw in good energy" and one way of doing that is by joining Jason, Jeremy and myself along with thousands of others to put this into motion.

Instead of completely rewriting the hundreds of words already written please take just a moment and read the Social Media House website. Here are some excerpts ...

(Updated) I WILL SHAVE MY HEAD! If we raise $10,000 by Sunday, June 21 I will shave my head on YouTube! (If we raise $15,000 I will shave my face, too). If we raise $25,000 I will do it wearing an orange diaper with the Twitter bird drawn on my very white chest!

Here is what we are doing - we are going to restore this home to good living conditions. Once the renovation is complete we are going to advertise for people to recommend a family or individual who they believe deserves the opportunity to live rent and utility free for a maximum of one year in the home. We, the Social Media Community are going to prove to the world that we believe in giving. We believe in “paying it forward”.

Not only will we provide the home rent free but, provided donations are high enough, we will also pay generously toward the utilities. Since there are no or very limited management fees all contributions after the rehab will go directly to covering the costs of the home.

The home is already in my possession, rehab has already begun and we three are already itching to do the next one. Essentially we'll be helping someone or a family of someones to have a respite from the damage they have endured in this collapsing economy.

Who Will Live There?

Someone one of you recommends perhaps. You may have a family member or friend who has been devastated financially because of circumstances which blindsided them. They may have recently experienced a personal tragedy or be in greater need for some reason truly outside of their control.

The selection process is quite simple and I will detail it in another post. Submissions will be screened and you will be allowed to vote for the final candidates. For this first project we will accept applicants from local community and faith organizations. Selection will be blind meaning you won’t know anything about the people except why they are in a hardship. Since it is NOT a charitable organization there are a lot of hoops we will not have to jump through until it becomes a charitable organization but for complete fairness sake you will only see a few paragraphs about the people excluding names, ages, etc.

Who Will Not Live There?

Drug abusers, people abusers and anyone who is in their situation because of abuse of the system, self or others.

When Does This Happen?

Now. Right now. We must have the home ready for the back to school season in the even you select a family with school children. Target date for selecting the occupants is August 1 which is approaching rapidly! Meanwhile the renovation must be completed. I have already started but there is much more work to be done. We already have volunteers standing by to get it done.

Partners and Friends

We are working together with the Georgia Coalition to End Homelessness and the many institutions they serve. We will also accept applications from local faith based organizations as well as individuals. The most important criteria is that we find applicants who are not and have not been abusers of the system. Help us raise $25,000 on Twitter, Facebook and others as you see fit. All we need is 1000 people to give $25 each and the house will be finished and ready for people of greater need. Feel free to give as little or as much as you can.

For underwriting this project you will receive the following:

• Donations of $10 will receive a text link back to your URL from the Social Media House web pages.
  
• Donations of $25 will receive a 200x200 graphical link.
  
• Donations of $50 will receive an editable entry with graphics and text.
  
• Donations of $100 will receive an editable page and a mention on Social Media Edge Radio.
  
• Donations of $250 will receive an editable page and a 5 minute guest appearance on Social Media Edge Radio.
  
• Donations of $500 will receive a 25 megabyte blog account for 12 months, an editable page on the Social Media House web pages, and a 5 minute guest appearance on Social Media Edge Radio.
  
• Contributors who donate more than $1000 each will be promoted during the 2 hours plus of video including selection of the first recipient of the 12 months free living grant.
  
• If you want to name the project a contribution of $25,000 will get that done (the Your Name Project). Call for details, we’re flexible. You also get everything mentioned above
  
• If you want to name the home for 3 years (the Your Name House) a contribution of $50,000 and it’s yours to name plus you get everything mentioned above: hosting, radio show, project name and exclusive Major Sponsor credits on the video.

Video post production is being handled by Robert Lewis of The NBA Channel.

We have hashed and re-hashed what the First Time Home Buyer's Tax Credit (FTHBTC) is and is not. Some are still confused and I am not even about to breech that subject of whether or not it can be used as a down payment. If you look good in orange feel free to try that out yourself. What I do want to tell you is, as of this date, an indisputable fact:

If a buyer does not close on their first home before December 1, 2009 they will not be eligible for the Federal First Time Home Buyer's Tax Credit of up to $8000.

Mark These Words

In November of 2009 (this year) my phone, fax, email, copy machine, and front door will all get a work out of people having to close before the end of the month. Many of these people will miss the deadline because underwriting will get jammed, loan officers will be backed up and probably appraisers, title companies, closing attorneys, etc., will also likely be over loaded.

If You Are A Buyer

#1 - Before you even pick up the phone to call an agent call your local FHA lender. Local ... let me repeat that LOCAL. Nobody will be able to answer your questions more accurately and anticipate any bumps you may experience and you can drive to their office look them in the eyes if need be. Your agent may know some basics about prequalifying you but they do not know what the underwriting engines may say once your information has been input into the automated system.

#2 - Start making offers as soon as possible. I know everyone wants to close in 14 days but in today's economy and real estate market that is pretty much unreasonable. We have had purchases close in 28 days and we have also had them go over up to as long as 45 days mostly due to valuation issues. That's another thing you have to consider if the appraisal comes back lower than your offer you'll at least have to go back to the negotiation table with the sellers which could add another 2 weeks to the process.

If You Are An Agent

Most of us do not like to be "pushy" but your First Time Buyers are going to need to be helped along if they want to take advantage of this offer. Whatever you do, do NOT let your offers go over into November. I can all but guarantee you will miss the deadline. Beyond that you better not be calling any loan officer on November 15th pressuring them because I can guarantee they will be swamped trying to get all the late comers closed on time.

A Closing Word

Someone reading this post will be involved in a transaction with an FTHB who will not close in time and will not get their FTHBTC. Someone will want to blame it on the lender even though they waited until the last minute to submit. Between you and I you better have your full package including an executed and legible copy of the sales agreement to the lender before November 1, 2009.

Don't say you were not warned.