Emanuel Rodriguez

I came across a great deal for Atlantic City NJ at www.travelzoo.com. It was for the Tropicana hotel and it was $59 dollars for the night. With tax and all the fees it came out to $79. The good part was that the $79 included two tickets to see the comic magician Kozak and included a free bottle of wine at dinner. The offer was valid from Sunday-Thursday and so I told my wife, we took off Monday and went down.

There is no surprise that the casinos are hurting so bad that they are literally giving things away. Because of this I expected it to be a ghost town down there, but to my surprise it was pretty busy. We went to lunch in the Tropicana and it was a packed house, the casinos were filled with people and if you did not have dinner reservations at our restaurant, you had to wait until 10:30PM to eat.

I was happy to see the people out and about spending money. It is good for out economy and shows that we may be close to seeing a turnaround. We are defiantly not out of the woods, but the first thing that has to change is consumer confidence. Sunday in Atlantic City was defiantly a good sign for consumer confidence.

If you or anyone you know are in need of mortgage financing, give me a call direct at 908 868 0685, Check out My Newsletter, or email me at erodriguez@arkmortgage.com

I have been getting a lot of calls recently from potential borrowers that either want to refinance or purchase a home that have horrible credit. If they would buying all cash, they would still need a co signer. I must say it has been more than usual and it inspired me to write about it. I have seen bad credit reports before and it is not a surprise, but what is a surprise is that with all of the government iinvolvement in the housing market, people think that there is some program out there for someone who does not pay their bills. I've heard "isn't there a program for me now that Obama is in charge," and "Obama doesn't have anything for me?" The answer is "NO."

A bank or Obama does not have any programs for people that have three times as many collections and charge offs than open accounts in good standing. If you can not pay a Verizon cell phone bill or you car, why would anyone think that you would pay a mortgage on time for 30 years?

Now of course there are situations, where FHA may allow your score to be low but only if there is a situation that was totally out of your control. For example, your husband died and you had to get a job and now you have a job and are paying your bills on time and you qualify based on your income.

Please understand the effects of your credit score and what affects the score. It is now more important than ever to have your credit score ready when you need it. If you are thinking, "I do not plan on buying anything big soon, so it does not matter," you are now in the best position to help your score, because you have time. And as you will see from my report, time is a factor in figuring your credit score.

If you or anyone you know is in need of mortgage financing or has questions about their credit and credit score, call me direct at 908 868 0685 or email me at erodriguez@arkmortgage.com.

It is truly amazing to me how so many loan officers receive a failing grade from the Realtors that they work with. For every good loan officer, there seems to be two that are terrible at what they do. For one thing, all they want to do is sell sell sell, with out first learning about what they are selling. Mortgages seem to be easy to put together but in reality there are many steps that need to be performed and require much training.

Just yesterday I was speaking to a Realtor friend of mine and I asked about a friend's listing that I referred to her. The property was under contract and should have closed about a week ago. Well I called her to see how the closing went and she said "oh we never closed." I said "what?!?" She went on to explain what the problem was and it was because the seller bought the property a year and a half ago for a price that was way below market. He did some work to it and today he is selling for market value which seems inflated because he bought the property in an estate sale so cheap. Now the lender is questioning the value and requesting a separate appraisal.

I asked if the "loan officer" asked her for comps from when the seller bought the property to show that the home was purchased below market because he bought in an estate sale. I asked this because the appraiser can comment on that on the report to address the issue. My agent friend told me "He has not even called me or the buying agent, we heard this through the attorney."

Now, whether or not the lender will accept the fact that the seller bought the property below market as an estate sale and that is why there is a big price difference, I don't know. Maybe, maybe not. But what I do know is that everyone in the transaction should be communicating and working together to get the deal done. Oh by the way, the agents found out that the closing was not going to happen only two days before it was scheduled!!

This lack of communication is absolutely unacceptable.

Picture yourself, selling your house. You have had this house on the market 10 months dying to sell it. You dropped the price multiple times for a total price reduction of $80,000. You are literally staying up at night thinking about the house and why it is not selling. People have told you it's the price and so you listened. You brought the price down $80,000 which was not an easy decision but at this point you just want it sold. After the price reduction, it still sat on the market for another 6 months. Finally an offer comes in and you are under contract!! YES!!! FINALLY!! Only two days left until the scheduled closing date. You assume everything is OK because you have not received any calls leading you to believe that something is wrong. Then without notice......BAM!!! Mr. Seller, we have a problem. How would you feel? I would as a seller be very upset and rightfully so. Why is there a problem so late? Why didn't anyone tell me?

Too many times the sellers get lost in the mix. These deals are not only important to us, they are a million times more important to the sellers. I realize how important it is to the seller and because of this, every deal that I work on, I have the seller in mind. I know how they feel because I sold my primary house last year and it was nervewracking not knowing who the lender was and if the deal was going to close.

So for all you sellers out there....I'm thinking about you

If you or anyone you know are in need of professional mortgage financing, give me a call direct at 908 868 0685 or email me at erodriguez@arkmortgage.com

According to www.newjerseygasprices.com the average state price for regular unleaded gas today is $2.406. Just last month the average price was $1.985. That is a an increase of 21.2%!

Laws of supply and demand suggest that oil prices should stay at lower levels because of the global economic slowdown and the severe decrease of oil demand. But why are they still going up? My view is that speculators are at it again. Speculators buy future contracts of oil based on their expectations of supply and demand. If speculators think that the economy will pick up a year from now, they will buy oil at today's price to sell it at a future day in hopes of a higher price and of course profits. Oil traders 9 times out of 10 never take possession of the oil and sell it sometime between the time they bought it and the time that the oil must be bought. Because oil is the world's most actively traded commodity, there will always by a buyer to sell to. Speculators will never be stuck with millions of barrels of oil.

Another contributor is OPEC. OPEC is an organization that is made up of 12 countries that provide over 40% of the oil to the world. OPEC controls how much oil is produced by the 12 member countries and they say whether to produce more oil or not. If there is increased demand, they have the authority to produce more oil and relieve prices. But of course they do not and make a killing on us.

Of course, just like mortgage back securities and prices, there are many factors that contribute. However in my eyes these are the biggest factors that contribute to oil prices. Speculators and OPEC.

If you or anyone you know is in need of mortgage financing, give me a call direct at 908 868 0686 or email me at erodriguez@arkmortgage.com

Mortgage rates went up again today and it seems like there is no end in site. Today the unexpected good number in jobless claims created a bad atmosphere for bond trading. This good economic number of jobs lost signals that the economy may be turning around and you know that when that happens, inflation is likely. So if inflation is likely, then bond investors will require a higher demand because inflation will eat up at their returns.

Remember that the bond investor knows he/she is only getting a low fixed payment for 30 years. If the inflation rate is ticks up higher and higher and prices tick up an up, then investors lose purchasing power on their fixed payment.

So will we ever see 4% mortgage rates again? It does not look like it. With the increased supply in bonds available for sale, investors selling bonds to free up cash for stocks and unexpected good economic numbers, it is not good for mortgage rates going forward.

If you have a question about mortgages and/or mortgage rates, you can call me direct at 908 868 0685 or email me at erodriguez@arkmortgage.com

P.S. No that is not me in the picture.