Are you thinking about purchasing a house that costs more than $400,000? Unless you are planning to make a significant cash down payment on your new home, it is likely that you will need to apply for a jumbo loan. A jumbo loan is simply a home loan for property in the continental United States that exceeds $417,000, whether the funds are used to purchase a new home or to refinance an existing mortgage. For residents of Alaska, Hawaii, Guam, and the U.S. Virgin Islands, mortgages are not considered to be jumbo loans until they exceed $625,000.
Jumbo loans are simply mortgage loans made for amounts that exceed the limit for conforming home loans, as determined by Freddie Mae and Fannie Mac, government sponsored entities that are the two largest players in the secondary home loan market in the United States. For this reason, jumbo loans are sometimes referred to as nonconforming loans. Jumbo loans exceed the Federal Housing Administration's (FHA) underwriting limits. This means that lenders who extend jumbo loans (1) cannot sell the notes to either of the two largest secondary market lenders in the United States are (2) not eligible for default protection from the FHA.
Not all lenders offer jumbo loans. If you are planning to apply for a jumbo loan, it is important to disclose your intent to your loan officer right away. Otherwise, you could find yourself wasting a significant amount of your time and that of the mortgage professional with which you are working if the lender he or she works for doesn't process nonconforming home loans.
Costs and Risks of Jumbo Loans
Because jumbo loans are considered to be among the most risky types of mortgage loans, they are more expensive to get and to process than conforming mortgages. Lenders who write jumbo loans are assuming greater risk than with traditional loans, so they typically charge higher interest rates for these types of mortgages than they do for conventional home loans.
Lenders also incur higher underwriting expenses for jumbo loans than with smaller mortgages, and these costs are passed on to the borrower. Part of the reason that the cost of jumbo loan underwriting is so expensive is related to the fact that these loans are not eligible for FHA underwriting.
Additionally, organizations that underwrite jumbo loans are risking losing a large amount of money in the event of a borrower default. It can be very difficult for guarantors to recover their losses by selling foreclosure homes in this price range. There is a limited market for homes in the luxury price range, meaning that there is a very real chance that a foreclosure home won't sell, or will have to be sacrificed for much less than the outstanding balance of the loan.
Because the consequences of jumbo loan foreclosure are so serious, getting approved for this type of loan can be difficult. It is not uncommon for lenders who do participate in the jumbo loan market to utilize very strict guidelines for approving loans in this category. Creditworthiness criteria are often more stringent for jumbo loans than for smaller, conforming loans that are eligible for FHA backing and can be sold in the secondary market relatively easily. Additionally, many jumbo loans require a minimum down payment of twenty percent.
Impact of the 2007 Mortgage Meltdown on the Jumbo Loan Market
The current state of the mortgage industry makes jumbo loans less appealing than ever to investors in the mortgage industry. One of the biggest concerns regarding the current status of jumbo loans is the fact that it may be even more difficult than usual for lenders to resell these types of loans to mortgage investors. With so many major players reeling from the mortgage meltdown of 2007, the additional risk factors associated with jumbo loans are making many private finance and investment firms hesitant to invest in the nonconforming loan market.
Jumbo Loan Status Implications for Home Buyers
In many parts of the country, the number of homeowners seeking jumbo loans is very limited. Throughout most of the United States, the median home price is less than $250,000, which means that only those shopping at the highest end of the housing market are likely to be candidates for jumbo loans.
However, in many large metropolitan areas, average home prices are significantly higher than the jumbo loan limit. In parts of New York, California, Connecticut, Massachusetts, and many other states with high costs of living, it is virtually impossible to find even a small home for less than the lower limit for jumbo loan programs.
In such areas, even buyers in the lower ends of the housing market face the challenges of jumbo loan financing if they want to become homeowners. Not only do they have to deal with the highest housing prices in the country, they must also pay a premium on mortgage funding even when selecting moderate dwellings.
This paper explores the challenges associated with assessing video quality. Assessing video quality ultimately depends on the customer's reaction on their new TV. Many factors affect the video before it gets to the TV: compression, image processing, scaling, decoding, transmission, etc. To isolate their video algorithm, companies perform verification using: subjective and objective video assessment techniques. While it would be far cheaper, to perform only objective test, nothing beats the human eye. Thus, Objective video quality measurements and Subjective video quality assessment are complementary rather than interchangeable. Subjective assessment is appropriate for research related purposes; objective measurements are required for equipment specifications and day-to-day system performance measurement and monitoring.
Problem Statement When dealing with equipment to process TV & video transmissions, every design depends on accurate, repeatable measurements. A complex relationship between objective parameter measurements and subjective video quality exists. The goal is to achieve an objective metric; that is an automated measurement. All of the equipment must be tested from video processors, compression units, transmission gear, set-top boxes, and displays. The evaluation of the video quality and ultimately, the customer's reaction to the picture shown on their new HDTV drives the business.
Previous Options For years, traditional techniques that looked at color, brightness, contrast, etc. were effective. However, the advent of compressed digital video transmission has complicated the process of evaluating video sequences, with respect to perceived picture quality. During compression, a certain amount of the original content is knowingly discarded. Visible impairments such as "blockiness" and Gaussian noise are by-products. Traditional measurement techniques that look at color, brightness, contrast, etc. are no longer effective.
Objective Measurement Status After analyzing the subjective results, considerable work has been done to come up with a quantifiable, repeatable measurement which is not dependent on the video sequence. To date, objective measurements have not proven to estimate the user's opinion. To introduce and qualify new algorithms, Video Quality Experts Group (VQEG) was formed in 1997, and generally acts in cooperation with ITU. VQEG has conducted two phases of testing; in the first phase ten algorithms were tested, and the conclusion reached was that all of them were statistically equivalent. A second phase of testing, conducted several years later, involved a smaller set of algorithms, more controlled video sequences, and a better defined test environment. The result of the second phases warranted the recent ITU-T Recommendation J.144.
Three basic types of objective video assessment metrics exist: * Full Reference - A method that conducts a comparison of video source to resultant. * Reduced Reference - A method that conducts a comparison of a reduced video source to a full result. * No Reference - A method when there is no reference.
The three methods have different applications, and they provide different degrees of measurement accuracy, expressed in terms of correlation with subjective assessment results.
The work to date has centered on full reference algorithms. Full reference algorithms perform a detailed comparison of the input and output video sequence. This is a computationally intensive process, which involves per-pixel processing, and temporal, spatial alignment of the input and output streams. Full reference algorithms can achieve good levels of correlation with subjective test data. Having the reference video sequence available is only possible for certain applications: for example in lab testing, pre-deployment test or troubleshooting.
One of the earliest full reference algorithms is PSNR (Peak Signal to Noise Ratio), which is literally a measurement of the mean error between input and output as a ratio of the peak signal level, expressed in dB. A typical "good" PSNR is around 30dB and it is generally accepted that PSNR values of less than 18dB are unacceptable. PSNR is the most widely used technique for image and video quality measurement.
A wide range of full reference algorithms have been developed, including MPQM (Moving Pictures Quality Metric - 1996) full reference algorithm from EPFL in Switzerland, the US Government NTIA ITS lab's VQM (Video Quality Metric - 1999), and CVQE (Continuous Video Quality Evaluation - 2004) which is more suited for low bit rate video. ITU-T J.144 does not actually specify a single algorithm but "provides guidelines on the selection of appropriate" techniques. J.144 does contain descriptions and test results for four full reference algorithms. The VQM algorithm from the US Government's NTIA ITS lab achieved slightly better performance than the other algorithms listed.
Video Clarity Solution The ClearView Video Analysis system simplifies the work flow, by combining the video server and capture device into one unit. By doing this, the original source and processed video sequences can be displayed - side-by-side, mirrored, or seamless split - on the same display. Further the operator can play any video sequence in any order, at any speed, for any duration with zoom, pan, jog, and shuttle capabilities.
ClearView applies various objective metrics to the video sequences, generates graphs, and calculates an objective score. While development of more advanced algorithms is ongoing, we have built a hybrid system, which offers subjective viewing modes; while calculating objective measurements. ClearView can easily be programmed to display video sequences for the expert viewers; while recording the objective metric scores along with the MOS. While the MOS cannot be repeated, the objective metric can be easily and readily.
Benefits * Repeatable tests, quantitative results, and a streamlined setup. * Capable of analyzing 2, 1080P video sequences in real-time * ClearView does not alter the original video sequences - video sequences are processed completely uncompressed. * Multiple viewing modes are presented on 1 display - no need to calibrate 2 separate Television displays to compare video sequences. * Objective Metrics are included as add-ons as the technology advances.
Implementation ClearView takes advantage of the high-reliability of today's off-the-shelf computer platforms. This ensures that products are made with the latest and greatest hardware available, while at the same time avoiding the high cost of custom designs. ClearView is packages in a 4U, 20" deep Industrial Chassis.
Summary The ClearView Video Analysis System provides broadcasters, video researchers, compression developers with the unique ability to capture, play-out, and interactively analyze 100% uncompressed digital video.
Both Grant Eckert & Bill Reckwerdt are contributors for EditorialToday. The above articles have been edited for relevancy and timeliness. All write-ups, reviews, tips and guides published by EditorialToday.com and its partners or affiliates are for informational purposes only. They should not be used for any legal or any other type of advice. We do not endorse any author, contributor, writer or article posted by our team.
Grant Eckert has sinced written about articles on various topics from Home Security, Depression Cure and Mortgage. About Author: Grant Eckert is a freelance writer who writes about topics pertaining to the mortgage industry such as . Grant Eckert's top article generates over 90500 views. to your Favourites.
Bill Reckwerdt has sinced written about articles on various topics from Computers and The Internet, Satellite and Mortgage. Bill Reckwerdt, Vice President Marketing & Business DevelopmentBill's extensive career spans 20 years in the digital video and medical imaging industries. He brings to Video Clarity expertise in compression, digital transmission, and video servers.To cont. Bill Reckwerdt's top article generates over 1300 views. to your Favourites.