It’s Friday, so that can only mean one thing… WTMNWU…  better known as the Weekly Transparent Mortgage News Wrap-Up.  Lately, the news and the blogosphere have been abuzz about transparent mortgage services. Since this is the first, of many weekly reports, I’ve included a a couple of older blog posts. From this point forward all posts included in the WTMNWU will be no more than a week old.

• What Should Mortgage Finance Look Like? (Arnold Kling)
  

  We believe their sheer complexity is the core problem and that only increased transparency will unleash the market mechanisms needed to clean them up.

  …It is striking that no one in the regulatory community seems to think in such terms. Instead, the aim of financial reform seems to be to get us back to the financial system of 2005, but with better oversight.

• Zillow Adds Mortgage Cost Comparison Feature
  

  “Truly shopping for a loan and comparing terms and costs on an apples-to-apples basis is excruciatingly difficult for the average consumer to do. This is why so many consumers find themselves in loans they don’t understand,” said Lloyd Frink, Zillow president.

  Great… if it can be done.  At the heart of Zillow is their home evaluation.  But many real estate agents have noted it to be very inaccurate. I just did a zestimate on my home and it was $200K off the correct value.  Unfortunately the value zestimate reported was $200K less than what it should be.  How do I know? I had my home officially appraised by a licensed appraiser just a few days ago.

• New Disclosure Rules Coming for Mortgage Lenders
  

  Starting on July 30, mortgage lenders have new disclosure rules to be concerned about. Mortgage lenders will have to be more transparent about the total costs of a home mortgage loan, providing consumers with more information to make better-informed decisions.

  As with everything else in real estate, another disclosure will always help… NOT. I just put an offer in on a rental property. It’s been a few years since I put an offer on a property, and sure enough there were about 5 more disclosures I had to sign. I think real estate and mortgage contracts are growing by 2-3 pages every year.

• Transparent Brokerage Fees Are An Elephant Slayer (Yes, this is over a month old, but since this is the first WTMNWU, we thought we would add it)
  

  Transparency in mortgage brokerage is a concept that is well underway. Mortgage brokers have always been required to disclose both borrower-paid and lender-paid compensation, on the good-faith-estimate and HUD-1 settlement statement, but rarely used disclosure as a selling feature to customers.

• New Facebook Fan Page for The Transparent Mortgage NetworkWe have started a fan page for the transparent mortgage movement. Instead of waiting for Washington to reform our system in a few years (if ever), let’s inform the consumer that there are transparent services out there NOW. It’s not revolutionary, it’s actually quite simple.
  Please join the fan page and help support our movement, everyone will benefit!