Green Loan Blog

A few years ago, when I entered the mortgage business, I realized that one of the best ways to differentiate myself was to simply act with integrity…not “ACT AS IF” I have integrity. The world of real estate finance can sometimes be very complicated and in many ways extremely confusing. Lots of people at banks, and especially at mortgage brokerages count on this. It was no less confusing for me since I entered the mortgage market at a time when subprime meant nothing to me, but it meant nearly everything to most people in the business [...]

What`s myEnergyLoan? What`s an Energy Efficient Mortgage? It’s where economy meets ecology. Massive closing cost discounts, down payment offsets and better interest rates are available with the myEnergyLoan program. myEnergyLoan is laser focused on bringing meaningful and sustainable capital to bear at a time when green building has the potential to help meet many of our critical economic, environmental and social needs. SINCE 2005, myEnergyLoan has been applying an advanced method of incorporating all available incentives into our green loan packages; nobody does this more effectively and more accurately than myEnergyLoan. Our program operates [...]

THE ENERGY EFFICIENT MORTGAGE (EEM) IS AVAILABLE AT myEnergyLoan That’s right. We can handle the EEM, which is a specific loan product designed to help borrowers qualify for energy efficient homes and energy efficient upgrades for high performance buildings. The myEnergyLoan program will help you reduce your utility bills and your operating expenses. If we determine together that your loan scenario is applicable we can even close your “true” energy efficient mortgage. The EEM is a single product that might not be the most advantageous loan product for your needs, so we developed a [...]

TODAY we are celebrating the completion of the pre-drywall construction phase at the Michelle Frost & K.C. Boyce residence in Decatur, GA. In anticipation of the event, I recalled the heroic effort that was made with the financing we arranged for the 601 Third project. First off, this is an extremely high-profile project which is going to be featured on a Discovery Communications “greenovation” program. Secondly, K.C. works with a group of folks who are pretty engaged in sustainability here in my hometown, so a recommendation from him is something we really hoped to receive, [...]

Sometimes when we refer to our company by the acronym “MEL” we sometimes hear back, “kiss my grits, MEL!” If you remeber the sitcom Alice, you will remember that line. So…I decided to have some fun with the concept of kissing grits, since doing loans is a lot like that these days – lot’s of effort and not as much fun as it once was. Sure, we kiss lots of grits, but thankfully, my clients are a ton of fun and their green building projects are really, really fun! I prefer grandma grits, especially if i`m [...]

Hold your breath, but get ready to scream with delight if you are frustrated in your search for an EEM. We are announcing a new EEM product that MAY deliver the following to our clients: Borrower`s contribution to down payment, closing costs, and/or prepaid items may be funded by rebates from gov`t agencies, utilities or manufacturers. Monthly energy savings from Energy Report and energy efficiency tax credits to which borrower is entitled may be added to income for qualifying purposes. Sales Price or Value may be increased as permitted by program requirements. THIRD PARTY [...]

Guess what? We`re the fish. Here`s the real question I have to ask today…at what per-barrel oil price does renewable energy begin to create outrage among the citizenry? Clearly, not $109. Today was the fifth straight consecutive day of record high oil prices and the day ended at $109 a barrel. Let`s look at the winners and losers… Turn on the TV…switch stations until you see President Bush and his friends…those he calls his base – according to him, these are the have`s and the have-more`s. They are the winners today, yesterday, last year and for [...]

Crisis One: INSURANCE Insurance, the undercurrent of capital markets, risk assessment and the convergent industrial complex. It is predicted that within 20 years or fewer many of our coastal regions will be uninsurable because they will be under water or projected to be under water within the lifespan of a fully-amortized 30-year mortgage…which means they will be UNINSURABLE. Insurance Represents around 10% of GDP, but touches nearly 100% of GDP. Green buildings are more valuable,. provide a lower risk gradient and should reduce insurance premiums in non-flood prone areas…at least one major insurance provide [...]

Recently, several large banks have instituted a policy whereby they are extending $1,000 closing cost credits on green residential real estate mortgages. They offer these “green loan credits” in their retail banking divisions, but not in their wholesale lending divisions where most loans are sold. Some of these banks no longer even have wholesale lending divisions because of the current mortgage market meltdown in which many banks wrote so many bad loans they had to shut down their wholesale lending operations altogether. While these small closing cost credits of $1,000 are a start, overall [...]

Ironically, my grandfather, Samuel Henry Cole of Uniontown, PA was a coal miner. His son , my father, Samuel Louis Cole, went into the military as a way out of virtual poverty and was killed – after 23 years of service – while on a classified assignment at Wadi Kenya Valley, Egypt (Coronet Mallard was the name of the operation of which he was a part) during the 1991 buildup PRIOR to the first Bush Gulf War. Today, I was forwarded a copy of an article written by one of my environmental heroes, Lester Brown, president [...]