The mortgage bank that I work for, Alpine Mortgage Planning, has issued a challenge to the Eugene/Springfield area to bring in a Million Dollars ($1,000,000) in First Time Home Buyer Tax Credits as part of the Stimulus package. You can check out the challenge here.

All of this means that the loan advisors teaming with their Realtor partners will be working to bring the dream of homeownership to at least 125 first time home buyers between now and November 30, 2009, the date the tax credit expires.

Check out the http://www.alpinemilliondollarstimuluschallenge.com/ website for information about upcoming seminars for new home buyers. Down Payment Assistance programs will also be addressed during the seminars, helping prospective home owners get the money together for the down payment.

If you have any questions about the seminars, or to start the process, give me a call at 541-342-7576/541-221-3455 Cell or e-mail me.

Interestingly, while doing some web surfing trying to find out who my competition is in the blog-o-sphere, I wasn't entirely pleased with who was out there. I wanted to know who else was writing about the place I call home and who was writing about lending, mortgages and loans. It is interesting what I found. Like this site, for example. Neighborhood Expert Online is a place where you can come and find someone that is actually in your Neighborhood to help you with whatever you need. Granted, the availability is kind of limited right now, but it is a fairly new site and as such, will take some time for the various neighborhoods to be represented in the various fields. Right now, I want to focus on the Eugene/Springfield Oregon Neighborhood.

Who are these guys?

As an veteran searcher, I use Google a lot to search to see who is writing what about my area and my field. By doing that, I found the this blog called roost. It is an interesting blog and has some good information about Eugene but I have no idea who writes it or where they are or if they really know about the Eugene/Springfield Market. There is no information on the home page about who the blog is done by. On my blog sites, I am very firm about who and where I am.

Now you know who this is

A different site talks about 48 hours in Eugene. Now, Nancy D. Brown is the writer of this and she is obviously a good travel writer. She also has her name and contact information on her website. I think she is a pretty good writer too and appears to really like traveling.

Excellent Local Information

Then there is this article about planting more trees in Eugene. This is obviously by and about Eugene. Again, a nice piece that has the right local information attached. This is what I like to see when I am looking for local information. Take a look at this local information that I posted on my website. Again, plenty of acknowledgement as to who and where I am on the site.

Local Expertise

Now, how about my field of expertise? When I posted about First Time Homebuyers, you know who I am and how to get in touch with me. It isn’t a website designed to gather names so that they can be sold. That is so much different that this site, that says it is information for Oregon, but is actually another of the “contact” gather sites. Fill out the form and someone will contact you. that someone has probably purchased your name and will probably be one of several that will call, none of them necessarily knowing anything about the local area.

I believe you should chose to work with someone local to your area that knows the area. Otherwise you are taking your chances with one of the “no name” contact gather sites. Personally, I prefer to work with people that know what they are doing and know my area.

Window Live Writer

Now I am sure that the experience bloggers out there already know about this or else they are very comfortable writing in HTML. However, since I think HTML is a little harder to learn than Klingon and just a bit easier than Romulan, I found this a very helpful product. It is called Windows Live Writer and you can write with it using just normal word time action and not worry about the extra HTML code that Word seems to throw into a post just for grins.

Download and Use

You can download Writer here and it is really easy to use. You can add hyperlinks like I am doing, you can ad photos and you can add maps and tables like this one. So far, I have tied Writer to my three blogs, Eugene Loan Guy, FHA Loans Oregon and No Money Down OR WA CA. The absolute nice thing about this is with the other multi user platforms, I can copy my HTML code from my blog and paste it right into the create blog form, like I am doing with this on Active Rain. Unfortunately, as you can see, it doesn't work on A/R. Must be some code stripper in A/R's program that makes it not work, but take a look at what I did on wannanetwork with the same post. Of course, I don’t even have to do that with Positive Real Estate Professionals, because it automatically picks up my new posts and transfers them right into my Blog post on PREP. That is a super benefit.

Easy Code – No Training

I can use the same HTML code and move it into my other multi user platform, MyFHAMortgageBlog and make any necessary changes once it is posted. What a great way to get around HTML and get the maximum SEO at the same time. So, if you haven’t tried Windows Live Writer and you are not proficient in HTML, I suggest you give it a try. I have used some of the editing possibilities with Writer on this post, just to show you what can be done. As you can see, you can align left, center, justify or align right. Pictures are easy too, including this sepia tone.

About the author: Fred Chamberlin is a Senior Mortgage Consultant with Alpine Mortgage Planning, Eugene OR and the author of three blogs, Eugene Loan Guy, FHA Loans Oregon and No Money Down OR WA CA. He is also a contributing member of Positive Real Estate Professionals and My FHA Mortgage Blog.

I recently posted that Secretary of HUD, Shaun Donovan, had announced that FHA was going to allow the $8,000 Tax Credit to be used as down payment, or "monetized" and got a lot of flack from the "experts" in the field that it had been withdrawn and that there was no way this was going to happen. At the time, I knew that the announcement was premature, but knowing what I believed was going on behind the scenes, was pretty certain that this actually would come about.

Today, a new "Mortgagee Letter" from HUD was published that announces the same program and gives some of the guidelines. Granted, the ability to use the money is still a bit of planning away, but this proves that the program will be in existance and that HUD really does want to see people have acces to this money for their down payment. Now, spread the word. By the time your clients find their home, have everything in place to buy it, the program will have the kinks worked out.....at least I hope it will. Unfortunately, being the government doing the job on this, they seem to have made it very strange. It appears that the buyer will still have to come up with the 3.5% down and use the tax credit for closing costs or additonal down payment. Stand by for details as all of this works out>

About the author: Fred Chamberlin is a Senior Mortgage Consultant with Alpine Mortgage Planning, Eugene OR and the author of three blogs, Eugene Loan Guy, FHA Loans Oregon and No Money Down OR WA CA. He is also a contributing member of Positive Real Estate Professionals and My FHA Mortgage Blog.

Short Sales, Foreclosures, Deed in Lieu of Foreclosure, is there a difference when talking about credit? According to my credit expert from First American Credco, the answer is no. Please take a minute to look over my post about the effects each will have on your credit and ability to purchase a home in the future. Current home owners that are contemplating a short sale should get some legal advice first.

I hope you will find information that is valuable when deciding the way to go in a bad situation. It is my opinion that Realtors can help their prospective clients by knowing these answers too. Feel free to contact me at 541-342-7576/541-221-3455 Cell with any questions, or e-mail me at eugeneloanguy@gmail.com. I can also recommend my outside blog posts anytime your need specific information about FHA Loans or USDA and VA loans.