Danny Gerald

It is amazing how hard life can be in general. We wake up early in the morning and get the kids up for school, make them lunch, and get them ready for the bus. Then we try to stay quiet so our 3 year old son will sleep in a little bit longer. Then when he wakes up, its take him to go "potty", change his diaper, turn on Spongebob, prepare some orange juice and some frozen mini pancakes while setting up the spongebob table and chair set. Then its time to let the cats out of their room and time to take the dog out to potty again since it woke you up at 4:00 am by punching you in the face with her paw. OK now its time to tell your son to stop drinking and to eat his pancakes, wait a minute, "kitty, get off the table". Now your son wants to change out of his spongebob pajamas and into his spongebob shirt, pants, and flip flops. Alright, "now its time for dad to work","but dad, do you want to play with me outside?" So now you go outside with your son because you know one day he is not gonna be a little boy anymore and will probably one day not want to talk to me at all. "Wait a minute Austin, your moms calling me on the phone" Now your wife wants to know if you want to go to her work and make us all some lunch so that we can eat together. Now its time to bring Austin inside, go to the kitchen and make some sandwiches, drinks, and snacks to stick in a Walmart bag, take Austin to go potty again, take the dog to go potty, put the dog in the truck, go get Austin and the lunch and put them in the truck, and now it;s time to drive to her work so that she has something for lunch. Now we are at her jb, so it's time to take Austin, the bag of food, and the dog in. Eat lunch for 30 minutes, give her a kiss good bye and tell her you love her and get back in the truck to go home. Take Austin, the leftover food and the dog out of the truck and take into the house. Put the food up, take the dog out to potty, tell Austin to go potty and put Austin to bed for a nap. By this point it's 12:15pm and I'm thinking about taking a nap except I still have to clean up all the dog toys,Austins toys, run the dishwasher, take clothes from the washer and put into the dryer, put clothes in the washer, make the bed. Now I have to wait until Austin gets up to run the vacuum. 45 minutes has gone by and Austin is waking up, got to go potty, dog has to go potty, oh no, I've got to change Austins diaper. My wife just called and said she would be home in an hour. It's time to start preparing dinner, still have to run the vacuum, and the yard needs cut and trimmed. Go vacuum, start dinner, wife comes home, eat dinner, clean up dinner, go start the lawn mower and cut the yard for an hour. Take dog out to go potty again, give Austin a bath and brush teeth, put him in bed and say prayers. Now it's time to take a shower myself. At this point it's 9pm and I'm tired. Now it's time to work as a real estate agent. Thank god Monday is over!

How many homeowners in the United States have some form of a home equity loan? Millions. How many of these individuals do you think have used this loan to increase the size of their home, build an outdoor structure, or to completely remodel the entire property? Millions.

I have a friend that does. He had taken out a home equity line of credit so that he could add on to his home 1640 sq. ft. Originally, the house was only 1200 sq. ft. and that was not completely fitting all 5 members of his family. Over the course of a year, they have added on 3 bedrooms, 2 full bathrooms, a front room, a covered wrap around porch, had all new windows, siding, 2 new heating and cooling systems installed, and roofing put on the new and existing part of the house. Yet, he recieved a letter from the bank saying that he was not able to draw from their heloc any longer because the property no longer appraises for what it needs to. They said that they had an individual perform a drive-by BPO and with this BROKER PRICE OPINION the home was valued much lower than it was before he got the loan to begin with. Now, I understand that this is a way for the banks to try to prevent facing anymore short sales or foreclosures, but on the other hand, he had a closing at their bank, paid the fees for obtaining this loan for this amount, has never been late on any payment, and has a credit score of 787. I could understand this process a little bit more if they had individuals that were behind on a payment or two and were facing the short sale or foreclosure process. The other part of this that truly bothers me is that this broker, hired by the bank, performs a drive -by BPO that is inaccurate. It seems to me that if the banks wanted a real appraisal to take place, that my friend could've easily been called to have this set up. The appraisor could come inside, and thoroughly give an accurate opinion(appraisal), but the banks will say they don't have time for this and would cost them more to have this service performed. The moral of this story is they would rather cut you off of your loan, and if you think your home's value is higher, then you have to hire your own appraisor, another out of pocket expense, to get the heloc back.

I am a real estate agent and I know for a fact that homes of half the size are getting loans here in Greenfield, Indiana for the same amount as they have on theirs. So this is a warning to everyone considering doing business with the banking system, watch out, they might want to recall entire loans next, or are they?

I had my house on the market with a local real estate agent before I had even considered it as a career. This was my first home and was very proud it. One day, my agent told me that we had a showing scheduled for 4pm, but I told her that I would be getting home about that time to let my puppy out after a long day inside while I was at work. Well, I got home at regular time and rushed trying to let the puppy out, and trying to staighten things up before my agent and the young lady arrived. Sure enough, no sooner did I take the puppy outside here comes my agent with the young lady and her family. I said hello to everyone and stayed outside to let everyone feel comfortable about looking around. As the showing concluded, my agent said to come on in even though the young lady and her family was still inside. I walked inside with the puppy by my side and right away the puppy started to jump on everyone as any excited puppy would do, so I leaned down to pick the little puppy up, and just then looked up to actually see the young lady for the first time close up. WOW, this was the most beautiful woman that I had ever set my eyes on before. It was just like one of those fairy tale stories that you hear about as a kid, only better, it was happening to me. Once the young lady and her family left, it was just my agentand I, I asked her what her name was and if she could tell me anything more about her. She told me that she was a couple years older than me, was a firefighter, and was looking for her first home. A day went by before I heard anything about the showing and the amazing woman that came to see it. I recieved the call from my agent saying that we had an offer, and the beautiful woman wanted to know if I would be able to come with the house! Needless to say, I did sale the house to that amazingly, beautiful woman that eventually became my wife and we are still in that house in Greenfield still today. We have 3 kids and have tripled the size of the home we met in to be able to fit everyone including the pets. It was because of that little house in Greenfield Indiana that everything that I have ever wanted in life came true, and I am so furtunate that God has truly blessed my, I meant our house!