All You Ever Need to Know About How Mortgages Work

Last Sunday, one of my all-time favorite bloggers passed away at the age of 47 from ovarian cancer. God I hate that disease.

Doris “Tanta” Dungey was an amazing writer on the fabulous finance and economics blog, Calculated Risk. If you don’t read CR, start. It holds a wealth of information.

Tanta had a way of explaining complex (and let’s face it, stupefyingly boring) topics in a way that made them easy to understand by normal people like you and me. She was able to take her 20 years of experience as a mortgage banker and lay down some text (LOTS of text) that covered the entirety of what, how and why mortgages work. She was also wicked funny and a genuinely gifted and nice person.

One of Tanta’s best (of many) posts came in a series that would ultimately be labeled, The Compleat UberNerd. It was a brilliant succession of posts about all things mortgages. From mortgage servicing to Mortgage Backed Securities, REOs and Foreclosures to mortgage insurance and credit scores, if you read through all these posts you will find yourself with a better understanding of mortgage financing than probably 95% of the population—which likely includes your mortgage lender.

I’ve been meaning to link to these posts for a long time. Tanta left us way, way too early. But her legacy lives on through her writing and instruction.

For your education, here are the UberNerd posts. Rest in Peace Tanta.

The UberNerd Collection:

Mortgage Servicing

Negative Amortization

FICOs and AUS (Credit scores and Automated Underwriting Systems)

Private Mortgage Insurance I

Private Mortgage Insurance II

Foreclosure and REO

MBS I (Mortgage-backed securities)

MBS II

MBS III

Delinquency and Default

Reverse Mortgages

Leverage, Ratings, and Forced Unwind

Mortgage Origination Channels

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The Perfect Loan Officer Blogger

Project Lifeline: Major Lenders Delaying Foreclosure

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