I just got off the phone with a long time business associate and lender friend of mine, Tammy Colangelo. I was shocked out how much lending guidelines have changed (read "tightened") in the last 6 months. She said it is difficult to even quote rates, because she needs to know your credit score before she can. She has been in the business 20 years and she said she feels like (and I am paraphrasing) she is new, because all of the guidelines are new.

This should be a topic for one of my future newsletter. But for now I will highlight just a few key points.

1) It seems like we lost about 90% of the loan programs that were being offered in the last several years.
2) It even seems like the lending industry has taken it TOO far, because it seems like we have also lost about 50% of the loan programs that were offered compared to 5-10 years ago before the lending mess got started with bad loans.
3) Improving your credit is the best think you can do. Submit a loan application right away, because the rate that you will pay will be dependent upon your FICO score. If you can improve your score, it will pay off big time. This is because most loans now have tiered interest rates that are dependent upon your credit score.