Every year FHA helps thousands of first-time homebuyers just like you move into the house of their dreams. A home is an investment, it can save you money and it's a place to live and raise children. It's a plan for the future and an investment in your community. That's why we at FHA want all Americans to have an opportunity to enjoy the benefits of owning a home.

Knowledge opens doors. This is literally true when it comes to buying a home. To become a first-time homebuyer, you need to know where and how to begin the home buying process. The following questions and answers will give you basic knowledge. and the tools necessary to navigate the entire process - from deciding whether you're ready to buy, all the way to that final proud step, getting the keys to your new home!

Are you ready to buy a home?

You can find out by asking yourself some questions:

• Do I have a steady source of verifiable income? Have I been employed on a regular basis for the last 2-3 years? Is my current income reliable?
• Do I have a good record of paying my bills?
• Do I have few outstanding long-term debts, like car payments?
• Do I have money for a down payment?
• Do I have the ability to pay a mortgage every month, plus additional costs?

If you can answer "yes" to these questions, you are probably ready to buy your own home.

Isn't buying a home really hard? Don't you need a lot of money down and perfect credit?

It's not nearly as hard as you might think. FHA understands that many first-time homebuyers may have had some financial problems in the past and don't have a lot of money saved. That doesn't mean you can't buy a home. Because FHA insures your mortgage, lenders are more willing to give loans with lower qualifying requirements, making it easier for you to qualify (or get approval). Even if you have had credit problems such as bankruptcy, it is easier for you to qualify for an FHA loan than a conventional loan. FHA has a low 3% down payment requirement, and that money can come from a family member, employer or charitable organization. Many other conventional loans don't allow this.

How can I find out what my credit rating is?

Simple. Call me Sean Murphy @ Sunny Mortgage Group. My number is 228.861.5081. I'll provide you with a full copy of your credit report with all three bureaus and scores. The service is free, and I can give you a road map to home ownership.

VA HOME LOAN PROGRAM

Call Sean Murphy @ Sunny Mortgage Group for expert assistance with VA home loans (228) 861-5081. I can provide you with a free tri-merge credit report, and get you pre-approved in as little as 24 hours. I specialize in little to no money down financing using MS Home Corp bond, and down payment assistance. With a VA loan you can go as much as 100% including financing the VA funding fee (no mortgage insurance). Please read on:

VA's Home Loan Program is for veterans and active duty military personnel (referred to as veterans throughout the rest of the document) and certain members of the reserves and National Guard. VA's program provides an excellent product and benefit for those individuals who have served or are serving to protect our families and our nation, as well as giving them a form of financing that will allow real estate professionals to sell more homes.

For those who are unfamiliar with the program, there are several advantages to using VA's Home Loan Program. The VA allows a veteran who qualifies income and credit-wise to purchase a primary residence without putting money down towards the sales price, as long as the sales price does not exceed the appraised value. Veterans do, however, need money towards closing costs and the earnest money deposit, which the seller generally requires when a sales contract is signed. Closing costs may be paid by the seller, which is an item to consider when the sales price is being negotiated.

Other benefits of using VA's program (other than the 100% financing of the sales price) include:

• Loans are assumable, provided the person assuming the loan is qualified.
• Veterans' closing costs are limited by VA.
• Additional assistance is offered by VA should veterans have problems making their home loan payments in the future.
• Prepayment of the loan without a penalty.

Here are some quick facts you may find useful concerning purchase transactions:

• VA does not have a maximum loan amount. However, lenders do sell loans on the secondary mortgage market, so they will generally limit loans to $417,000 ($625,500 in Hawaii, Guam, Alaska and U.S. Virgin Islands) with no down payment. With a down payment, loans may exceed these amounts.
• The veteran does have to qualify income and credit wise.
• The veteran does have to occupy the home as their primary residence.
• The veteran does not have to be a first time home buyer and may reuse his/her benefit.
• The lender, not VA, sets the interest rate and discount points, so they may vary from lender to lender.
• There is no private mortgage insurance, but VA does charge an up front VA funding fee, which may be financed. The exception to this is that if a veteran is in receipt of VA service connect disability payments each month, he or she does not have to pay a VA funding fee.
• The seller can pay for closing costs. There is a requirement that seller concessions do not exceed 4%, but only certain items are considered as part of the concession; i.e., payment of pre-paids, VA funding fee, payoff of credit balances or judgments on behalf of the veteran, funds for temporary buydowns (not discount points).
• The veteran is not allowed to pay for the wood destroying insect (termite) report; it is generally paid by the seller.
• VA does not approve the majority of loans. The majority of transactions are handled directly by the lender with little VA intervention.

How much can the veteran afford (and other important factors)?

Please note that VA uses two methods for qualification purposes. The primary method of evaluating a veteran's income is the residual income method. Under this method, the underwriter determines that a veteran has sufficient income to cover day-to-day living expenses after paying housing expenses, taxes, and other debts such as car payments and credit card payments. VA also uses a debt-to-income ratio method like many programs. However, VA uses only one ratio which is the ratio of total debt (both housing and other debt) to income.

Important: This is provided for informational purposes only. A VA approved lender is the best resource to see how large a VA loan the veteran truly qualifies for. Sunny Mortgage group is an approved VA lender. The lender will look at income (amount and stability), credit and compensating factors involved when rendering a decision. VA also allows lenders to use certain approved automated underwriting systems.

Mississippi welcomes and supports business ventures that create new opportunities for its people. You can see it in the incentives and tax advantages offered. You can see it in the attitudes of leaders. And you can see it in the success ratios of new and expanding businesses.

Why Mississippi?

According to an independent study by a major American manufacturer, Mississippi's business climate ranked number one among 23 states in which it has manufacturing operations. Factors weighed included taxes, unemployment compensation, workers' compensation, labor, transportation, energy, health care, job growth and quality of life.

Top Reasons to do Business in Mississippi:

• Favorable Operating Costs Including Low Taxes
• Strategic Location in the South Central U.S.
• Quality Workforce and State Sponsored Training
• A Fair Legal System with the Tort Reform Act of 2004
• Progressive Financial and Tax Incentive Programs
• One Stop Environmental Permitting
• Solid Transportation and Utility Infrastructure

GOVERNOR BARBOUR SIGNS BILL APPROPRIATING $25M TO DEFRAY REINSURANCE COSTS

(JACKSON, Mississippi) –Governor Haley Barbour today signed legislation that gives the state Department of Insurance the authority to transfer $25 million to the Mississippi Windstorm Underwriting Association to defray the cost of reinsurance and lower the risk for insurance companies writing policies in Mississippi.

“This bill follows through on the commitment made in legislation last year to help lower wind insurance costs while the insurance market stabilizes,” Governor Barbour said in signing House Bill 1640. “This infusion of money, coupled with many other steps being taken, is another strong indication of confidence that we will rebuild the Gulf Coast bigger and better than ever.”

In 2007, Governor Barbour signed legislation creating the Mississippi Windstorm Underwriting Association Reinsurance Assistance Fund. Monies in the special fund may be used by the Department of Insurance with approval from the Legislature.

$200 MILLION SET ASIDE FOR CRITICAL RECOVERY PROJECTS IN HANCOCK COUNTY

‘Ground Zero’ projects eligible to apply for CDBG funding

(BAY ST. LOUIS, Mississippi) – Governor Haley Barbour today was joined by U.S. Senator Roger Wicker and U.S. Rep. Gene Taylor to announce that $200 million in federal funds has been set aside for major recovery projects in Hancock County, “ground zero” for the destructive force of Hurricane Katrina.

The funds, which would be made available under the Community Development Block Grant program, would help rebuild the Hancock County Jail, finance extensive renovation of downtown Bay St. Louis, and four-lane parts of Highway 603. Other projects, such as the Valena C. Jones Facility/Boys and Girls Club, Waveland Little League Fields, Bay St. Louis Arts and Cultural Center, and the Pearlington Library and Gym, will also be eligible to apply, along with water/sewer projects, community centers, and rebuilding work at volunteer fire and rescue facilities around the county.

Governor Barbour said an action plan will be filed seeking the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development’s approval for the funding, a necessary step in the process. He said he expects HUD to approve the plan.

“Hancock County sustained a significant loss of housing and infrastructure as well as losing nearly all its public facilities, so it is rightly known as ‘ground zero’ for Hurricane Katrina. By designating this money we’re ensuring that even our hardest hit areas, like Waveland and Bay St. Louis, get the resources necessary to rebuild bigger and better than ever,” Governor Barbour said.

“I’d like to thank Senator Thad Cochran and Congressman Taylor for their aggressive efforts to secure federal funding for our coastal region and Senator Wicker for his positive work, first in the House of Representatives and now in the U.S. Senate, where he has called on Congress to increase its efforts to assist rebuilding the Mississippi Gulf Coast,” Governor Barbour said.

“For Mississippians on the Gulf Coast, Katrina is more than one issue—it is every issue,” Sen. Wicker said. “Nowhere is this more true than in Hancock County. These funds will go a long way towards rebuilding basic infrastructure and helping Hancock County build back stronger than before.”

“These federal funds that are flowing through the state of Mississippi will help us in what has been a long journey to rebuild the area. We are grateful for the assistance of Governor Barbour, and for Sen. Thad Cochran’s work to secure the funds. This is one step in the recovery, but I am also aware that we still have a very long way to go,” said Rep. Taylor, whose Fourth Congressional District includes South Mississippi and the Gulf Coast.

To meet Hancock County’s unique needs, the State is making $200 million available to qualified projects in areas like Waveland, Bay St. Louis and Pearlington, which were devastated during Hurricane Katrina. Eligible projects must apply to receive part of the CDBG funding; however, their applications must be approved by federal regulators at the Department of Housing and Urban Development before receiving financial assistance.

Harrah's Plans New Mississippi Casino

Casino giant Harrah's Entertainment Inc. said Tuesday it planned to open a Margaritaville Casino & Resort in Biloxi, Miss., with songwriter Jimmy Buffett, which it said would be the largest development in Mississippi since Hurricane Katrina hit the Gulf Coast in 2005.

Work on the $704 million project is expected to begin this summer on a 46-acre site south of U.S. Highway 90 in Biloxi. The site formerly was occupied by Grand Casino and Casino Magic.

Buffett, the chief "parrothead" known for his lazy-day beach songs such as "Margaritaville" and "Cheeseburger in Paradise," said he grew up on the Gulf Coast and as a native of Pascagoula, Miss., was a survivor of storms himself.

"One of the essential elements of life along the Gulf Coast is the Creole belief that hard work and good fun go hand in hand," Buffett said in a statement. "So, with that in mind I say, 'Let's get to work and let's let the good times roll again.'"

The property will have 798 hotel rooms, a full-service spa, a pool with tropical landscaping, a casino, and retail and meeting space. The project is expected to be finished in early 2010.

Harrah's, which is being bought by private equity firms in a $17.1 billion deal, said the project would be the first phase of a development that could cost more than $1 billion.

"This project ... is vital to supporting the rebirth of Mississippi's tourism industry," Harrah's chief executive Gary Loveman said

By J.D. Biersdorfer

Mary Mahoney's Old French House reopened within three months of Katrina

Hard Rock Hotel & Casino Biloxi is one of the city's newest additions

The Beauvoir Jefferson Davis Presidential Library and Home reopens in June

(Budget Travel) -- Flip through a rack of postcards in any Biloxi, Mississippi, gift shop, and along with images of magnolia trees and sunsets, you're likely to find a few satellite shots of Hurricane Katrina looming over the Gulf Coast. "Why not?" asks a store clerk downtown. "We lived it."

The Ohr Pavilion at Ohr-O'Keefe Museum of Art was unveiled in The Hard Rock Hotel & Casino was originally set to debut the day

December. Katrina hit.

While New Orleans has caught most of the nation's attention, Biloxi has also been busy getting back on its feet. The city has been pumping state and federal reconstruction funds into tourism infrastructure and aggressively encouraging private development. It seems to be working: The Gulfport-Biloxi International Airport now has more direct flights than it did three years ago, before Katrina.

Highway 90 shoots directly to the center of town, passing miles of white-sand beaches and the cast-metal Biloxi lighthouse. The Maritime & Seafood Industry Museum was destroyed in the hurricane, but a new building near the lighthouse is under way. In the meantime, the museum's pair of 65-foot replica oyster schooners, which survived the storm, are once again offering afternoon and sunset cruises. The original ships sailed the waters off Biloxi in the early 1900s, earning the city a reputation as the shrimp and oyster capital of the world.

Shrimp is still plentiful today, especially in the gumbo served (and sold by the gallon) at Mary Mahoney's Old French House. "We got hammered by Katrina," says owner Bob Mahoney, son of the late Mary. "Our dining room was flooded with five feet of water." That didn't stop the popular restaurant (John Grisham and Denzel Washington are among its fans) from reopening within three months. The walls are again packed with antique oil paintings and vintage snapshots, and the $14 lunch special still comes with Mary's bread pudding in rum sauce.

Celebrity chef Emeril Lagasse, whose wife grew up in Gulfport, Mississippi, has a new restaurant at the Island View Casino Resort. Just about everything on the Creole-inspired menu at Emeril's Gulf Coast Fish House is from the region, including the crispy Gulf oysters and the quail stuffed with boudin. The dining room has views of Cat Island and Ship Island, but the best seats might be the ones inside the 4,000-bottle wine tower.

Across from Mary Mahoney's looms one of the city's newest additions: the Hard Rock Hotel & Casino Biloxi, which was originally set to debut the day the hurricane hit. With its metallic purple windows and towering guitar sign, the Hard Rock joins several new and rebuilt casino hotels on Beach Boulevard. Before Katrina, state law required casinos to operate offshore on barges; as a result, all 13 of Biloxi's casinos were severely damaged. The law now allows casinos to be on land (as long as they're within 800 feet of the shore), which has led to a boom in development. The 32-story Beau Rivage Resort & Casino was one of the first to reopen, with a new golf course that weaves through pecan orchards.

The city has also spiffed up a few museums post-Katrina. The Beauvoir Jefferson Davis Presidential Library and Home reopens in June, on the 200th anniversary of the Confederate president's birth. Over the past two years, the museum's antebellum mansion has been restored and furnished with period pieces. The library, Hayes Cottage (where Davis once hosted Oscar Wilde), and barracks are next on the list.

A five-minute drive east is the Ohr-O'Keefe Museum of Art, which was in the middle of a $16 million redesign by Frank Gehry when Katrina dropped a casino barge onto the building, forcing contractors to start over. In December, the museum finally completed the first phase of the project with the unveiling of the George Ohr Pavilion. The tulip-like gallery, composed of four interconnected metal pods, will display hundreds of ceramic sculptures by the late George E. Ohr, the self-proclaimed Mad Potter of Biloxi. "When Gehry toured our grounds, he fell in love with the live oaks and wanted to create a museum that 'dances with the trees,'" says museum president Larry Clark.

In another sign of progress, the Biloxi Bay Bridge -- connecting downtown Biloxi to the neighborhood of Ocean Springs -- finally reopened in October. Ocean Springs is home to several live-music bars that are once again hopping. "Every day, I see the area coming back more and more," says Ronnie Hamilton, the manager of the Julep Room Lounge. Just last month, in fact, Hamilton got his first busload of blues-seeking visitors -- as sure a sign as any that Biloxi is bouncing back.

• Hard Rock Hotel & Casino Biloxi: 777 Beach Blvd., 228/374-7625, http://www.hardrockbiloxi.com/, from $99 • Beau Rivage Resort & Casino: 875 Beach Blvd., 228/386-7111, http://www.beaurivage.com/, from $129

• Mary Mahoney's Old French House: 110 Rue Magnolia St., 228/374-0163, http://www.marymahoneys.com/, gumbo $8 • Emeril's Gulf Coast Fish House: 3300 W. Beach Blvd., 228/314-1515, http://www.emerils.com/, oysters $12

• Maritime & Seafood Industry Museum: 228/435-6320, http://www.maritimemuseum.org/, cruise $25 • Beauvoir Jefferson Davis Presidential Library and Home: 2244 Beach Blvd., 228/388-4400, http://www.beauvoir.org/, $8 • Ohr-O'Keefe Museum of Art: 1596 Glenn Swetman St., 228/374-5547, http://www.georgeohr.org/, free

• Julep Room Lounge: 1217 Washington Ave., 228/875-9928, no cover

Attention Realtors and Investors:

Madison Place Development a 112 unit condominium community that just broke ground on Riley Rd. in Ocean Springs, MS. Contact me for information. 3 bedroom 2 bath condominiums preconstruction priced starting in the $130K's (228) 861-5081

• Are you an investor and need a go zone lender that has stated, full doc, and construction to permanent loans?
• If you want some Go Zone tax information call me for the name of a local Certified Public Accountant.
• Investors looking for preconstruction go zone properties direct from the developer call me.
• Anyone interested in joining a MS Gulf Coast investment club or group?

Go Zone Developers and Investors looking for a local lender that can get mortgages for their investors call me. Construction Loans to permanent financing for investors We are proven closers. MS Licensed Mortgage Company Sunny Mortgage Group / Sean Murphy Loan Officer. (228) 861-5081. Offices in both Biloxi and Gulfport on the Sunny MS Gulf Coast!