the wasserblawg

I helped some clients sell their condo apartment yesterday. As we sat at the closing table, the topic of conversation turned to the recent pricing increases and still tighter lending standards that were recently implemented for condo purchase money mortgage loans. The loan officer, real estate agents, and buyer were all commiserating & railing against the higher cost as being pointless and painful. Then, on my return to the office, I saw an email from Kathleen Robson , a loan officer at Wintrust, that helped remind me why the lenders are still being so cautious. She described 2 recent files she had worked on: The one involved a developer apparently had been collecting money from unit owners but then suddenly left town (presumably to a country with no extradition) and no one was left to run the condo association. The other involved a developer that simply was not collecting assessments from the owners of sold units (or paying assessments on the unsold units) but may have lied on pa