I’ve worked as a mortgage banker in Manhattan since before the real estate boom.

Since the credit crunch a couple of years ago, as everyone knows, things are different when it comes to getting a mortgage or refinancing.  Today we are completely and totally in a full-doc world.

Fannie Mae has stricter guidelines that have to be followed, but what people sometimes don't know is that as a bank, we mitigate our risk even more, layering on our own guidelines.