Chris Brown - Florida's #1 FHA Mortgage Broker | Syndicated Mortgage Blogger

For the third consecutive meeting, the Federal Open Market Committee left the Fed Funds Rate unchanged at 2.000 percent.

Of interest to mortgage rate shoppers, the FOMC led its press release with comments about the health of the financial and labor markets, calling them "strained" and "weakened", respectively. The relative weakness in both of these areas has contributed to low mortgage rates of late.

The FOMC also noted in its release that, although economic growth has slowed this year, the historically-low 2.000% Fed Funds Rate should foster "moderate economic growth" in the future.

In the wake of the announcement, Wall Street is rallying. Investors like what the Fed had to say and this is attracting money to the stock market at the expense of bonds.

Mortgage rates have given up all of Monday's gains, and then some.

Source
Parsing the Fed Statement
The Wall Street Journal Online
September 16, 2008
https://online.wsj.com/internal/mdc/info-fedparse0809.html

We have always said and always heard that

                                      ..................All Real Estate is Local.

Well, is it...

...............still?

I believe it is. 

I recently wrote a blog on my personal MORTGAGE CHILI BLOG entitled, All Real Estate is Local.  Well, is it?  That really expounds [is that the word?] on the idea that the world-wide web, in all its attempts to make 'local' global, has failed to overcome the simple fact that human intelligence and local knowledge has not yet been able to have been replaced.

Relationships still rule!

If we have learned anything with the current real estate and mortgage climate... good advice certainly IS NOT around every corner

Riddle me this...

              ... every business has a product. right?  A bank is a business, right?  Then why is it that they want to make their product unavailable to most people??  OK, it is a rhetorical question... i don't need someone to explain mortgage backed securities, hedge funds, securitization of secondary market bundled mortgages... I GET IT.  Phew... I almost blew a gasket there!

Think longer term though... guidelines will simply have to loosen up some in order for things to return to the 'new normal'.  Think of it in these terms.  The odds of seeing $1.50 gas is likely a pipe-dream [no pun intended].  People right now are STOKED to see it close to $3.50... the new normal.

  So maybe the 100% No-Doc Investor loan with a 580 FICO wasn't such a good idea [you didn't need to be Colombo to figure that out]

Here is the bottom line.  If the new reality is that guidelines are going to be tighter... at least for the time being and the crater that used to reflect who could qualify is now nothing short of a thimble... what do we do?

Simple:  Squeeze people into the thimble.

For years, I distanced myself from aligning with a credit repair company because my opinion was that they were either;

1. A scam
2. Going to cost my client $2500!!!

That is why it has taken almost 7 years to breakdown and look for one.  Candidly I didn't have much need for one for most of the time because if you could fog-a-mirror... you could get financing.

                                                NO MORE!

Now, as a mortgage planner [a true one as evidenced by the fact that I'm still INthe business], my responsibility is to guide my clients into a scenario in whcih they can buy a home that they can AFFORD over the long haul.

With Fannie and Freddi's introduction of risk-based pricing [more on that in another blog], it truly costs MORE... a lot more... for people with lower FICO scores.  If i don't at least offer a venue for improviong the terms of their loan through increasing their FICO score, I would consider myself guilty of MORTGAGE MALPRACTICE.

I am glad to say that I finally found the right place and have seen results that are simply, nothing short of, amazing.

Here is to moving with the market and serving clients well!

Chris "Credit Repairer...er...er" Brown

Orlando Mortgages | Orlando Credit Repair | Orlando FHA Loans

Orlando Real Estate | Florida Reverse Mortgages

Mortgage Chili Blog

Okay, we all know that the loss [unless something changes] of Ameridream and Nehemiah is going to stiffle the first-time buyer's ability to jump in the market, do we not.

  Well... maybe not so fast.  What about the IRS-Funded Down Payment Assistance?

 I am talking, obviously, about the new $7500 Tax Credit for First-time homebuyers. How do we position this so that buyers can legitimately see the benefit and be willing to re-engage.

First things first.

What is the difference between a Tax Deductiona and a Tax Credit

Tax Deduction -The benefit is relative to the tax bracket that the last dollars of your income falls in.  For example, if you had a $7500 tax deduction in a 25% bracket, the realized benefit would be $1875.00 [7500 x .25 = 1875]

Tax Credit - A dollar for dollar reduction of your tax liability.  If you owe $4000 in taxes, a $4000 tax credit, would wipe it out completely and any taxes you had paid through your withholding would be returned to you.

 The Example

Now....

1.  Assuming the tax credit is coupled with FHA financing [what isn't these days?], they will still need the 3% down at the closing table.  This can still be a gift. Imagine this ...

                        [Ring... ring... Hi, Mom?  I know you haven't heard from me since your last birthday... I hope you got my belated card.  Sorry I couldn't make it over, but Spike had diarrhea.  Listen, anyway... we were thinking about buying a house...]

2.  Lets say that Mr. and Mrs. Firsttimebuyersonsteinburg, through their withholding out of their w-2'd job, end up having $3750 as a tax liability for the year.  Well, at the time of their tax-refund, that $3750 would be returned to them as a "check from the gov't".  [Sorry for the quotes, don't get me started on that.]

3.  Now with that $3750 in hand, they can either thank Mom & Dad by gifting the money back, more creatively sending them on a weeks cruise or something, or in many cases...likely most... keep it.

The end result, however is that they still get the 100% financing... they just have to wait for the $$ to come full circle.

Just a thought

Chris the Implementer

P.S.  Want to do what YOU can to help save DPA? Visit DPA Groundswell.

Chris the Implementer

Orlando Mortgages | Orlando Credit Repair | Orlando FHA Loans

Orlando Real Estate | Florida Reverse Mortgages

Mortgage Chili Blog

Lawyers being what they are, it was just a matter of time before something like this grew legs somewhere. [Not that lawyers have legs...]

The problem is that it simply becomes a freedom of speech issue.

Finally, this seems to be getting a groundswell of support.  High profile places like Bloodhound and Wanna Network's real estate networking site have even picked it up.  Bloodhoundblog has even set up a legal defense fund for Vlad Zablotskyy.

If you are unfamiliar witht he case finding a lot of the 'smoking gun' material will be tough as much of it has been censored and removed by legal bullying.

Here are a few ways to get a drift of what is going on:

• Chilling Effect: How A Behemoth Company Can Silence A Blogger  - Vlad's own posting on the topic

• ePerks Pulls The Trigger: I am being Sued. - No longer a threat, Summons copy in this blog

• You CAN get sued for blogging - Wanna Networks input

• Don't Hang Vlad out to dry - Bloohoundblog's steppin up -  If you scroll to the bottom of the Bloodhound page, you will see even more links for the back story.

If you value your ability to blog without having to look over your shoulder, contribute!  Just $1 [more if you can.]  But a buck... if it just gets you to do SOMETHING!

Rick Grant, a Member on Wanna Network, had this to say, "if you want to protect yourself you'll go buy a copy of The Associated Press Stylebook and Libel Manual."

If you want a direct link to donate, here it is, but I would recommend reading some of the content here first.

Chris the Implementer

Orlando Mortgages | Orlando Credit Repair | Orlando FHA Loans