Bay Area Finance: Week 2, September 2009
This week’s story of absurdity begins with a battle with a prominent lender over whether the Up Front Mortgage Insurance Premium (UFMIP) in an FHA purchase may or may not be paid through the “seller credit”— an amount allowed to be up to 6% of the purchase price given back to the buyer to be used towards non-recurring closing costs. Our prominent lender’s underwriter said that the seller credit could not be used to pay this insurance premium. But since we had done it before, we argued that it must be allowed by FHA’s insurance guidelines, and that we would find the guideline supporting our point. For me personally, it took me over an hour of searching www.hud.gov, and ultimately after calling in to them to employ some assistance I was finally able to obtain the answer. “It’s in handbook 4155.1”, the HUD person said, after we clicked through a series of pages on the hud.gov website to reach a spot where I could enter that code. “How would I find this information on my own?”, I asked. She replied that their system is different, that she didn’t use the hud.gov site and wouldn’t know how, other than by calling in, I would have been able to obtain that code to type-in to find the answer. Well, after typing in the code, it points you toward a 341-page document. The answer that confirms that it’s okay to use a seller credit to pay the UFMIP is on page 37— coded 4155.1 2.A.3.b. So, THAT’S all it takes to obtain a credible answer from HUD when we need to make our counter-argument against an underwriter’s mistake. “Does it really have to be this crazy?,” I asked her.
See here for the 341-page 4155.1 HUD document that secured our argument, page 37 specifically.
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Weekend Wanderer’s Events
…finding the treasures in your town and beyond.
Two for This Weekend:
San Francisco Symphony Free Concert: Friday at noon, in Justin Herman Plaza across from the Ferry Building you can check out the San Francisco Symphony tuning up and laying it down outdoors for the peeps— for free. Seems like a great spot to enjoy your lunch if you work downtown in the financial district, or if you’re just looking for a fun spot to go Friday. Take the ferry, take BART, or drive across the newly repaired Bay Bridge. Check it out here for more info.
Brews on the Bay in San Francisco: On the historic SS Jeremiah O’Brien, which is a World War II Liberty Ship in pristine condition, this Saturday and Sunday afternoon you can board the ship and sample great beers brewed up by seven of the Bay Area’s artisan breweries. 40 separate hand-crafted beers will be available, as well as live music and food benefitting the historic ship. Looks like a great chance to try some local concoctions for a great cause. See here for more info.
Help Your Fellow Living Beings:
Project Open Hand in San Francisco: in 1985, a retiree-grandmother in San Francisco saw a friend die of AIDS and came to recognize how there were no social services providing meals to people who were too weak from the disease to manage feeding themselves. She worked out some time to use the kitchen of a local church and began her foundation serving seven clients. Now, almost 30 years later, the mission continues where serving meals is accompanied by nutrition education and grocery delivery as well. It’s a great cause to help out if you can. Check them out here if it moves you.
Two Weekends from Now:
Pete Seeger in San Francisco: This super-classic performer is bringing his brand of sing-along activism to the Nob Hill Masonic Auditorium in San Francisco next Friday night, September 18th. Songs such as Turn! Turn! Turn!, Where have all the flowers gone?, This Land Is Your Land, and more will have you joining his world-wide choir. He’s in his nineties now, folks, and still strumming the tunes for us all. See here for more info.
Pic of the Week… from my own camera. 
A Big Sur Gem from Last Weekend