With Coronavirus Now Is the Time To Refinance!

As many of you may know, we were literally at Ground Zero 10, 12 years ago when the last economic crisis, the Great Recession, the foreclosure crisis, and, you know, I hate to say it but we’re feeling that this is somewhat of a combination of what happened after 9/11, as well as what happened after the great economic recession, and you could throw in maybe a little bit of what happened during the Spanish flu in 1918, 1919, of course, talking about the corona economic crisis, otherwise known as the pandemic of people really being so worked up right now that they’re afraid to go out and do anything. Of course, the stock market has been roiled, the bond market has been roiled, and soon, lots of businesses are gonna start laying people off. And a lot of people are saying this is going to be the new normal for quite some time, and so I want to give you some advice on what to do about your home ownership.

Probably the best thing that you could do right now is take advantage of the low interest rates. Assuming you’re still employed and you still have income, you ought to do it now than later. If you do it later, you may not be able to meet the standards of being able to refi because you won’t have the steady income that you have now. Whether you’re an Uber driver or a part of the gig economy, your gig income’s gonna go down. Whether you’re a full time employee, you may end up becoming a part-time employee, or you may end up becoming laid off completely, or your company may, in fact, if it’s a small business, may reorganize and they may go into bankruptcy.

Best thing to do right now is take advantage of the lowest interest rates in the history of the United States. And don’t do it tomorrow, don’t do it when you think interest rates are gonna fall further, do it while you are still employed. Do it right now. Find a good mortgage broker. Call our firm. We will it give you two or three great references, and, of course, then use our title company, Weston Title, to do the closing, and, of course, use our law firm as a way to try and navigate these new waters. But to reiterate, you need to refinance now and not later.

If you do wait, you will probably be calling us because we unfortunately do expect that there will be a massive increase in foreclosures again when people start getting laid off. And it’s not going to be a question of if, it is now just a question of when. And if you don’t believe me, all you have to do is look at what’s happening to the stock market, look what’s happening to some of the small airlines in Europe, look what’s happening to Italy, look what’s happening in China, in parts of China, and you will know that this wave is coming here too. And I’m not referring to the fact that we will all get sick and die. I am talking about the fact that the fact that we’re worried about that is going to create a massive decrease in economic activity in the United States and around the world that’s going to lead to a recession that’s ultimately going to lead to you possibly being laid off.

So you ask yourself, why refinance? And the answer is because you can lower your interest rate substantially, then you ought to be able to survive without having to utilize the resources of our firm to defend you in a foreclosure. So this is the best medicine that you can take right now is to refinance your mortgage. We’re talking about interest rates as low as possibly 2% in some cases. And if you go into other parts of the world, there’s now negative interest, meaning that there’s…you pay almost nothing for a mortgage. The problem is so few people will qualify. And so my suggestion is you get the loan while you qualify and do it now.

From the trenches,

Roy Oppenheim