Would your mortgage have qualified under proposed new federal rules? There’s a good chance the answer to that question is no.

The proposed rules, which were recently unveiled by federal regulators, would make it much more difficult for lenders to offer mortgage loans to people who can’t put 20 percent down and meet strict income requirements. In reaction, a broad coalition of politicians, consumer advocacy groups, labor unions, mortgage lenders and others have joined together to oppose the more stringent lending standards.

The proposed rules would push nearly one-third of borrowers out of the market, says a bi-partisan trio of senators who’ve come out against the regulations. Nearly 40 percent of the mortgage loans made last year wouldn’t meet these standards, says data firm CoreLogic. First-time homebuyers, minorities and moderate-income families would the feel the pinch of the new restrictions the most.

The underlying intention of mortgage regulation reform is good. Everyone wants …

Once we found the right house, we thought being under contract and closing on the purchase would be a piece of cake. However, our closing date got pushed back twice—once because the seller hadn’t finished some repairs on the property, and the second time because a glitch involving my student loans had to be corrected.

Matt and I both had student loan debt when we were closing on our house. But I was still in graduate school, so my loans were not yet “in repayment” – meaning I wasn’t having to make payments on them yet. Our loan officer told us that if we I wasn’t required to begin paying for those loans back for at least a year after our closing date, then they wouldn’t be considered towards our debt-to-income ratio. That’s important because if your debt-to-income ratio is too high – in other …

….but musician Billy Joel has just cut the price on his Hamptons beach home to $16.75 million, 25 percent off what he was originally asking in 2009, according to The Wall Street Journal. With 20 percent down and a 30-year fixed jumbo mortgage carrying an excellent 5 percent interest rate, you could be in a Sagaponack, NY, state of mind with a $71,934.10 monthly payment. No word on whether that includes a piano, man.

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