All Forum Posts by: Nicholas B.

In my area they usually lay the vapor barrier on the ground and insulate the walls with foam, without venting. It depends a lot on where you live. Winters are probably a lot warmer in NC than up here in PA. 

12 bucks is cheap for peace of mind, anyway.

A acquaintance of mine was renting a place years ago. Exact same complaint - mold on clothes in a closet. The landlord shrugged it off for 2 months until the mildew bled through the drywall. I know they broke lease and ended up in court, but I'm not sure what ever came of it. He should have at least checked it out...

 Great advice.

I think books are a great way to pickup some simple skills. The Ten Pound Book series was always my favorite. Good information in an easy to use format and great quality photos of everything. They're available dirt cheap (used) on amazon right now. Highly recommended for any amateur trying to learn some basics. Most of the information is still relevant.

For about $12, you could try these humidity test strips.

Thanks for the reply, Joshua. I'm sorry to hear that they won't be available.

After spending much time on the Blogs and Forum, I decided that I'd like to purchase the BP books. I was shocked that they're not available in Kindle version. 

I understand that there is a PDF version available, but Kindle is my preferred platform for organizing and consolidating my reading material. There are even 2 free BP "guides" on Kindle, but unfortunately, not the books that I'd like to purchase.

Is this something that's likely to change in the future? 

 The applicable section:

Revolving charge accounts and unsecured lines of credit are open-ended and should be treated as long-term debts and must be considered part of the borrower's recurring monthly debt obligations. These tradelines include credit cards, department store charge cards, and personal lines of credit. Equity lines of credit secured by real estate should be included in the housing expense.

If the credit report does not show a required minimum payment amount and there is no supplemental documentation to support a payment of less than 5%, the lender must use 5% of the outstanding balance as the borrower's recurring monthly debt obligation.

For DU loan casefiles, if a revolving debt is provided on the loan application without a monthly payment amount, DU will use the greater of $10 or 5% of the outstanding balance as the monthly payment when calculating the total debt-to-income ratio.

So, they establish a way of determining a minimum payment if a balance appears. Thanks for the supplement.

 I know Charlie, but you said "Most lenders will...". Can you qualify that?

 Hi Bill. First thank you for taking time out of your busy schedule to chime in. I'll answer your question in that I am in consumer lending but would prefer anonymity beyond that. I respect that many are here to build credibility and relationships. I'm not. 

I'll also clarify my position on this -I've seen credit scores damaged by people closing credit lines that they should not because of this exact type of advice.

I don't think Charlie nailed it. Blanket statements like that are not incontestable and can be misleading.  And a statement like this is likely to be interpreted as fact, not opinion:

You can check fannie mae underwriting, if a credit card has a zero balance, and that account is still open, half the high credit amount that had been used is used to compute debt ratios. High credit outstanding within a year, say $5,000.00, at application it has a zero balance, say terms of that card are 3% of balance out standing, then it would be:

$2500 x 3% = $75.00 payment computed to the debt ratio.

In taking the time to check the underwriting guidelines, I've found that there is no such wording and nobody else has produced a citation indicating truth to this concept either. An individual lender could make a decision to treat all credit cards that way, but that would also be a conscience decision to decline many otherwise well qualified applicants. There's no evidence suggesting that its the norm.

@Charlie Fitzgerald saying "Most lenders will have you freeze the lines at whatever point your dti will cover..." is just plain confusing. Freezing a credit line is a fraud prevention technique and possibly a self discipline technique. It has no application to credit limits at all, let along any relationship to Debt to Income that I can follow. Again, a specific lender may, but you're telling everybody here that this is a standard. *citation

I'll back this with data.

FHA posts their DTI guidelines here -  no mention of any revolving debt in the calculation.

Quicken Loans explains their FNMA Guidelines for DTI here - The specify "Credit card payment (from amounts owed)" and "The monthly payments figured in are also the absolute minimum payment amounts, so if you pay extra every month, that amount would not be figured into this ratio."

Bank of America explains DTI here -  no mention. They even have a handy little worksheet here.

Wells Fargo explains DTI here - again stating "Credit card payments (use the minimum payment)".

The list goes on and on. Granted, they don't publish their proprietary underwriting guidelines, but are they really going to offer consumers ways to check their qualifications just to get them in the door and then decline them based on available credit? My attorney would probably advice it would be dancing dangerously close to a deceptive advertising practice. Considering that the FTC and CFPB actually have a cooperation agreement, I'd venture that major lenders tread very cautiously in that territory.

Nothing personal, guys. It's just that people are coming here for good advice and unfortunately, sometimes bad (or in this case, probably just outdated) advice is given with great intentions. Most people probably won't read all of this anyway :)

 You may not have made it up, but somebody did...