Ralph Gorgoglione

Interest rates dropped once again this week, so that is terrific news. The main reason was the unfortunate unemployment numbers.

The Labor Department reported today that there were 20,000 jobs lost in January, which was worse than expectations.

These rates are typical for the PURCHASE borrower with excellent credit and a sizable down payment, exclusive of FHA for the down payment. Take a look at FHA 5/1 ARM rates below, as those rates are at 3.5% for all loans up to $729,750-this is amazing! This can be a very attractive alternative for FHA buyers.

Conventional Loans:

30 Year Fixed Conforming---$417,000 and Below: 4.75% with 1 Point

30 Year Fixed High Balance Conforming---$417,001 to $729,750: 4.875% with 1 Point

30 Year Fixed Jumbo---$729,751 to $1,000,000: 5.75% with 1 Point

5/1 ARM Jumbo---5.0% with 1 Point-amazing for Jumbo product

FHA Loans:

FHA 30 Year Fixed---$417,000 and Below: 4.875% with 1 Point

FHA 5/1 ARM---$417,000 and Below: 3.5% with 1 Point

FHA 30 Year Fixed High Balance---$417,001 to $729,750: 5.0% with 1 Point

FHA 5/1 ARM High Balance---$417,001 to $729,750: 3.5% with 1 Point

My Mom is 83 years old and looks fantastic for her age. She's very active with her senior groups, her church, still drives herself around, and goes on regular walks.

Over the past few weeks she has not been feeling well. She's complaining that she gets a little dizzy, or that her sense of balance is a little off to the point where she can't walk right. She can walk OK. it's just that she feels a little off balance.

The doctor thought that it may be an inner ear infection, and put her on antibiotics for a couple of weeks, but that did not cure the problem.

Now he found that she had swollen membranes in her nose and has given her some special nasal spray and a different course of antibiotics just yesterday to see if that was the problem.

I'm thinking perhaps it is something in her house that is in the air, or allergens.

I was wondering if perhaps any of you out there have known if you've had family members or friends with the same symptoms.

I'm a little concerned about it.

Let me know.

Thanks.

Although I don't pray or meditate one tenth as much as I should, when I do it's usually when I first wake up and still lying in bed.

There are some days where I get a little depressed. It usually has nothing to do with business.

I have escrows closing and working with lots of clients, so that is pretty good right now.

Just feeling a little down today because it sometimes gets to me when I see so much atrocity in other countries and even in our own country.

I feel like I have a nice home, a decent car (I love my Prius), and a nice life.

But it's like I can't enjoy it 100% when I see people dying around me from lack of proper health care, dictatorships in other countries, political groups who are oppressing people, unspeakable natural disasters where tens of thousands of people have died and continue to die because they do not have the social structure or infrastructure to keep them alive.

It really depresses me and makes me think "this shouldn't be this way". There's enough wealth in this world so that people should not go without.

Sometimes it just sickens me where I see one individual who owns billions and has multiple mansions that you can land a plane in, and at the same time I see a mother in another country who has to watch her child die in front of her eyes because there's not enough food, shelter or medical care.

It actually makes me feel so guilty that it depresses me. I give money all the time to reputable organizations, and even a part of me feels like I should give half my life savings. But I know that if I did, that still wouldn't help, and it would put me in a position where I would be unstable.

And I look at our country and see that the cost of building one tank or one fighter plane could probalby feed an entire region for a few years, and once again a voice inside me says "what's wrong here?"

I see people taking political party sides and all this bantering, and I see so much corporate greed in this country and companies STILL giving billions in bonuses while so many millions of people are struggling.

I think "What have I done wrong here? How have I voted the wrong way so that we're in this situation? Why is it that we have such an imbalance between rich and poor in this country? What are we not doing in this country so that we cannot help those in other countries who live day to day just to stay alive?

What do you do? How do you approach life so that you're OK each day knowing we're doing the best we can?

I'm sure that most of you will agree that 2009 was a VERY rough year.

I knew that it was tough for just about everybody, but tried to stay optimistic and take advantage of any and all opportunities that came along.

I was always positive about the opporutnities in the market and made sure I did not become one of those agents who are always complaining about the market.

It paid off as we still had a fairly decent year (relatively), and ended up in the #5 position for the year. We have about 72 agents in our office.

Our broker put a nice write-up in the LA Times which I thought was very cool. (And don't laugh at my hair, because I was trying to do this 70's retro thing and don't know WHAT I was thinking!!)

It was about 15 years ago that I had given up eating red meat, and it was a great improvement in my health and well-being.

Since then, I had consumed quite a bit of poultry products, mostly chicken and fish, and also egg whites.

Then, in the middle of last year, I had read up alot on the subject, and due to what actually happens to process animals for food, and what it does to your body to have all of those hormones and antibiotics that the animals are injected and fed, I decided to give up poultry.

And then just 4 months ago, I decided to not eat any dairy products either.

During this time, soy products where a huge part of my diet, and I was feeling good about that because soy is a plant.

The only thing I have kept to this point is fish. I'll typically eat salmon, halibut, mahi, tuna, etc. And up until I learn more about sources of plant protein, I'll keep that as a small part of my diet.

BUT I HAVE TO SHARE THIS WITH EVERYONE. VERY IMPORTANT.

About a year and a half ago, I started feeling kind of tired all the time, so I went to the doctor. They did all kinds of blood tests and everything was fine - except for one thing: My testosterone levels had dropped to an insanely low level, in fact a dangerously low level. And this was the reason for me feeling tired all the time.

So the doctor gave me a prescription for something that comes in a 30-day supply to bring my hormone levels up to a normal balanced level. So I said fine, I'll do that to correct the problem.

(And anti-health-care reform people please make note of this: The prescription costs $400 per month!!)

So I figured I would take it and get my levels going again, which I did. I then asked the doctor how long I have to keep taking the prescription before I can stop. And he tells me NEVER!! That I basically have to keep taking this prescription for the rest of my life and keep paying $400 a month for the rest of my life.

So I thought to myself - NO, I DON'T QUITE THINK SO!

It is at that point I started delving heavily into researching nutrition and processed foods.

I found out that certain processed soy products like certain tofu's, soy milks, soy protein powders, etc. contain genetically modified soy. And this genentically modified soy (GMO's) SCREWS UP YOUR HORMONE LEVELS!! And since I was eating so much of it, I attributed that to the source of my problem.

So I stopped eating any processed soy products. I only eat whole soy like edamame, tempeh, etc.

With all that being said, I AM NOW FEELING THE BEST I HAVE FELT IN MY ENTIRE LIFE!!

With the elimination of animal products from my diet and the focus on whole foods and whole grains, I'm in a place with my health where I never thought possible. I had just thought that as you get older, it's just someting you have to come to bear with. NOT TRUE!!

I'm an avid tennis player and I have wheels now that I haven't had since I was in my 20's. The agility and speed that I have I am completely blown away with.

Didn't mean for this to be such a long-winded blog, but I just wanted to share this with everyone.

Almost all of our health problems stem from THE WRONG FOODS WE EAT THAT HAVE BEEN TAUGHT TO US BY OUR PARENTS, AND THEIR PARENTS, AND THEIR PARENTS! We can't blame them because they were only doing what they thought was good and right.

AND DO NOT EVER PUT UP WITH ANYONE TELLING YOU THAT YOU NEED A PRESCRIPTION FOR AN INDEFINITE PERIOD. THAT IS JUST THE PHARMACEUTICAL COMPANIES INFLUENCE WANTING YOU PAYING THEM FOR THE REST OF YOUR LIFE!

Educate yourself! Read up! Take good care of yourself and eat whole foods! If it's something your great grand parents would not recognize as food, then DON'T EAT IT! If the ingredients can't be read by a 3rd grader, then DON'T EAT IT!!

With much love and care to everyone,

The Ralphster-Mobile