Greg Rekitt with 2 pound yellow perch caught from Presque Isle Bay. Jim McCarthy with a perch taken on a jig while trolling a waterway in Wayne County. Joseph Getz of Nazareth displays a yellow perch caught while ice fishing at Mauch Chunk Lake, Carbon County. Walker Loveland Sr., Wallsville, caught this nice perch from a local pond in Lackawanna County.
DEFINITION of 'Housing Expense Ratio'. A ratio comparing housing expenses to before-tax income that is used by lenders to qualify borrowers for a mortgage. The housing expense measure includes mortgage principal, interest payments, property taxes, hazard insurance, mortgage insurance and association fees. The limit is generally 28%. It is sometimes referred to as the front ratio.
Lenders determine how much to loan partly based on the loan-to-value (LTV) ratio of a property. For example, if a borrower is taking out a loan of $90,000 and the property has a value of $100,000, the LTV ratio is 90 percent. Residential mortgages allow much higher LTVs than commercial loans do. A typical residential home loan might have a LTV ratio of 80 percent, meaning the loan can only be 80 percent of the estimated value of the home. Since commercial mortgages are generally securing much more expensive properties, lenders usually have commercial LVT limits of between 55 percent and 70 percent.