Michael J. Maher, MBA, STAR POWER STAR, CyberStar, Hall of Fame

1794: To deliver his wife's baby, Jesse Bennet, M.D., performs the first caesarean operation.

1892: On New Years Day, Ellis Island open. Over time, more than 20,000 immigrants are processed through the site into the United States.

1916: Thirty-five pro golfers from the Professional Golfer's Association of America (PGA) develop the idea for a national championship.

1936: "Billboard" magazine publishes it inaugural music hit-parade list.

1943: The pentagon, headquarters for the Department of Defense and one of the world's largest office buildings, is completed.

1946: In Philadelphia, the first and almost 78 million baby boomers are born.

1946: Delegates from 51 countries meet in London, England, for the first United Nations General Assembly

1966: Bruce Wayne's superhero alter ego, Batman, makes his television debut.

1966: Robert Weaver is sworn in as the first U.S. Secretary of Housing and Urban Development, becoming the first black person to hold a cabinet post.

1968: Country music legend Johnny Cash performs for 2,000 inmates at Folsom Prison.

1974: President Nixon limits state highway speeds to a maximum of 55 mph to conserve energy during the Arab oil embargo.

1982: American Telephone and Telegraph (AT&T) disbands its "Baby Bell" companies thus ending the corporation's monopoly on U.S. telephone service.

1982: The camcorder, a portable videocassette recorder with built-in camera, is developed.

1988: "Phantom of the Opera," now the longest-running musical in Broadway history, premieres in New York City.

Best Holiday Gift Ever? Could Re-Financing be Your Saving Grace?

Did the Federal Reserve give us the Greatest Holiday Gift Ever? Could Re-Financing Your Home be Your Saving Grace?

By Michael J. Maher, MBA

"All my friends are re-financing, should I?"
"I see re-financing everywhere. Is it just a ploy to boost the economy and help these mortgage businesses or is it legit?"
"Will rates go down to 4.5% or should I re-finance now?"
"Can you give me a call? We're looking to refinance the house. But we're more confused than ever after talking to three mortgage people."

If you see yourself asking one of these questions or saying one of these statements, rest assured you're going to get some answers and solutions in this note.

First, let me start off by saying that I am not a mortgage professional. I do not get paid when you re-finance. I have a helicopter-level view of what is going on in the market and am here to help. I coach a few mortgage professionals because building a mortgage business is similar to a real estate business. I study financial data so that I can help the people I know.

For the sake of time and sanity, I'm going to write this in bulleted list format. Some of you straight-to-the-point people will love this. If you are the steady and dependable type, please know that I still love you and your family and we can chat anytime about this, but time is of the essence with this topic. We've already seen the bottom of the rate curve⁽¹⁾ in my opinion.

IN GENERAL! You should re-finance if:
< your rate is 6% or above on a 30-year mortgage
< you are in any kind of an adjustable rate mortgage (ARM) product
< you are in any kind of interest-only product
< you are planning on staying in your home for at least two years
< you want to go from a 15-year mortgage to a 30-year mortgage to save some money
< you want to change from a 30-year to a 15-year mortgage
< you would like to consolidate some debt that is at a higher rate (credit card, other loans, etc.) into your mortgage
< you want to skip a monthly payment during the next two or three months to pay down Christmas credit card bills (when you re-fi, you typically have a 45-day period of no payment. Interest is accruing, but the extra 60 days of no house payment can be a saving grace to pay off your Christmas bills DO NOT USE THIS "WINDFALL" MONEY for a disposable commodity (car, vacation, etc.) Use it on a bill of some sort.
< if you have 20% equity in your home and this is an opportunity to knock off the private mortgage insurance (PMI)

If you are a candidate to re-finance and haven't e-mailed me yet, e-mail me at Loans@TheMaherTeam.com. If you get a bounce-message, please re-send. Please don't get frustrated if you have to re-send a couple of times. This e-mail gets full pretty quickly and a lot of people are taking advantage of this opportunity. You'll be contacted promptly.

IN GENERAL! You should NOT re-finance if:
= you are currently in the low 5's for rate
= you are going to be moving within the next couple of years
= you are one of the lucky ones who has a mortgage (mostly investment property loans) that is based on prime
= your existing mortgage has a pre-payment penalty that the mortgage company won't waive (case-by-case basis)
= the value of your home is less than your mortgage (upside down in your house)
= you are in a hurry (the industry is in backlog, your refi is going to close in February most likely)
= (heavy sigh) you don't trust your mortgage person. I'm going to lay this out there and get some hate mail from lenders, but my loyalty is to my friends, family members, clientele, and people I know. This has been a rough year for the mortgage industry. Some unscrupulous individuals who miraculously survived to this point may see this as an opportunity to make a killing. Please call me before flipping the switch on a new loan. It can do devastating damage to your finances to be in the wrong home mortgage. We've seen the effects to the economy of bad loans.

There are exceptions to these rules.

A quick example to determine your break-even:
$200,000loan
Current rate = 6% (a great rate!)
Re-fi rate (using Wells Fargo site) = 5%
Current Monthly Payment = $1199.10 (Note: I used the Mortgage Calculator at www.MichaelJMaher.com to calculate the payments. It's fill in the blank, easy, and automatic).
Refi Monthly Payment = $1073.64
Monthly Savings (rounded) = $125 Excellent!
Est. fees: $3000 (I can help you get less than this because of the volume of business we do)
Break-even: $3000/$125 = 24 months
* In this case, if you are planning on staying in your home for two years or greater, it is a wise decision to re-finance.
* Disclaimer: all these are estimates and your rate, fees, mortgage, and situation will differ based on your credit history, credit score, and other factors. I'm just here to help.

⁽¹⁾ I don't have a crystal ball to say the rates are never going lower, but I do know that there was a lot of downward pressure on the rates for the last two or three weeks and a lot of the mortgage companies typically "anticipate" the rates by lowering them before the public gets the news from the Fed. Mortgage-backed securities and bonds are still strong, but as money flows back to stocks pressure will push rates upwards. Also, Wednesday the national average rate was 5.06%, the lowest since 1971 and edged upward on Thursday and Friday (still solid at 5.18%). When I hear "historical low", I know that there will be tremendous mental and economic pressure to not dip below that. If we see jobs, consumer confidence, housing, and some of these other areas produce positive results we will have seen the lowest rate. I'm not an expert. I am a teacher and a helper. I do the research so I can teach and help. I've been wrong many times. I've been right more often than wrong.

So what do you do next?

If you are a candidate to re-finance and haven't e-mailed me yet, e-mail me at Loans@TheMaherTeam.com. If you get a bounce-message, please re-send. Please don't get frustrated if you have to re-send a couple of times. This e-mail gets full pretty quickly and a lot of people are taking advantage of this opportunity. We'll get back to you promptly and if that includes pointing you in the right direction for a lender, we'll do that as well. We have some we trust implicitly and they can sometimes even do reduced fees.

Finally, say a prayer for the economy. This rate reduction has been a big boost and many are taking advantage of it, but it's merely solving the symptoms. The problem is job growth and waste. As the jobs come back and the corporate world realizes how much money it wastes, the economy will rebound. And it WILL rebound. History and a lot of powerful people are on the economy's side.

I hope this article helped with your re-finance decision. You may ask why I am writing this. The first reason is because I've been asked a lot and now I have a guide to which I can refer them. The second reason is that this is a household decision and as your personal real estate consultant for life (that's my goal!), I want to help you with all things household. I want you to turn to me for help with anything around the home. When it comes to buying, selling, or investing, hopefully you will think about me. That's my goal. I'm here to help.

When I posted a similar note on Facebook.com, the response was immediate and impactful. After they contacted me and we placed them with a lender, the impact was over $10,000 in MONTHLY PAYMENTS for 56 PEOPLE! I love that! I'm helping. I'm making an impact. I did a good thing. Now is the time to have your mortgage reviewed. The average mortgage rate hit a historic low (5.06%) on Wednesday, December 17. They've creeped upwards over the last two days to 5.18%. Economic pressures indicate that it could continue to creep upwards. If it makes financial sense, please don't put it off. Please. Please e-mail me at Loans@TheMaherTeam.com

The Evolution of Santa Claus

www.biography.com

The legend of Santa Claus originates from a 4th century bishop named Saint Nicholas of Myra. Famous for his generosity to the poor in what is present day Turkey, Saint Nicholas is said to have saved three impoverished daughters from slavery by providing for their dowries. Saint Nicholas is portrayed as a bearded bishop in canonical robes, and his feast day is celebrated on the anniversary of his death, December 6.

Toward the end of the 18th century, Dutch settlers brought the legend of Saint Nicholas, known to them as Sinter Klaas, to America. Legend has it that Sinter Klaas rode a white horse and left gifts in wooden shoes. This story merged with the British character Father Christmas, who dates back at least as far as the 17th century. Sinter Klaas was eventually Americanized to "Santa Claus."

The rituals and fantasy surrounding Santa Claus became fixed in the modern American imagination with the publication of the poem "A Visit from St. Nicholas" by Clement Moore in 1823. Better known as "The Night Before Christmas," the poem established Santa´s physical appearance (plump and jolly), his mode of transportation (a sleigh pulled by eight reindeer), and his method of toy delivery (down the chimney) for generations to come.

Quick Facts

The ritual of hanging stockings by the chimney comes from the German folk god Odin. Each year at Yule, German children would fill their boots with straw and place them by the chimney for Odin's flying horse to eat. Odin would replace the straw with gifts or candy to thank them for their kindness.

Some believe Saint Nicholas distributed his inheritance by anonymously dropping bags of gold coins down the chimneys of the poor. One little girl is said to have caught her bag in a stocking she had hung by the fire to dry.

The concept of Santa´s elves came from the Dutch, who believed Sinter Klaas had a slave named Black Peter. Legend has it Black Peter put bad children into his sack and held them in church overnight while the other children played with their new toys.

German-American cartoonist Thomas Nast was the first to paint a definitive portrait of the present day Santa Claus in 1863.

Mrs. Claus was created in 1889 by Katherine Lee Bates, a poet and author of America the Beautiful. In her poem Goody Santa Claus on a Sleigh Ride, Goody is a shortened form of the word Goodwife.

In 1897, eight-year-old Virginia Hanlon wrote a letter to the New York Sun asking if Santa Claus were real. The response, written by veteran editor Francis P. Church, son of a Baptist minister, became one of the most memorable editorials in newspaper history.

In 1931, Coca-Cola hired Haddon Sundblom to illustrate Santa Claus for a massive Christmas campaign. The ads firmly establishing the all-red outfit with white trimmings, which had previously been depicted in numerous colors.

Rudolph is an invention of Robert May, who came up with the ninth reindeer with his shiny red nose while working on a catalog for Montgomery Ward in 1939. Composer Johnny Marks penned the famous Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer in 1949.

A Wonderful gift idea - Fit For Everyone

Oprah says. "The words from your heart mean more to people than anything you can buy." That's why this holiday season, try giving a gift that says something from the heart rather than just your pocket. Over the years Oprah has received many gifts, but she says the gift that means the most to her is one that cost the least. "A few years ago at my 50th Happy Birthday luncheon, my friends wrote me heartfelt notes that they then placed inside a silver box," Oprah says. The tradition was carried on at Oprah's Legends Ball, when some of the younger women - like Alicia Keys, Debbie Allen and Halle Berry - wrote letters to Oprah. The letters were turned into a book, a keepsake that became the inspiration behind this thrifty idea: Gratitude Boxes.

This holiday season, give a gift that comes from the heart with a Gratitude Box. The cost of the boxes can be as little as $6 to $36 to make, depending on how elaborate you want to get. If you'd like some gift card templates, go to www.Oprah.com and click on the link called "Oprah's favorite gifts".This holiday season, give a gift that comes from the heart with a Gratitude Box.

Bring the family and friends to experience the first and only ice rink in Johnson County!

The Ice at Park Place spotlighted in Blue Valley Neighborhood News Section of The Kansas City Star

11.05.2008

In an article entitled "An Outdoor ice will be nice in Leawood," the first and only ice rink in Johnson County makes its debut. The article discusses the inspiration behind The Ice, the sustainable elements, and activities to expect for the rest of the year.

From the article:

"Winter jingles and holiday decorations will envelope skates at the rink for the next two months. Benches will be plentiful, for excited observes and parents to relax. A couple of the nearby restaurants will sell gourmet hot chocolate and specialty coffees."

"We wanted to create a unique outdoor amenity for people in the community," said Jeffrey Alpert, co-developer of Park Place. "Ice skating turned out to be the answer. And it is nice because the rink is now the central point of Park Place."

"The ice skating rink is not only ground-breaking for Johnson County, but it is part of national news as well. The rink will be one of the first in the United States to be environmentally friendly. Normally, ice on the rink is pained white - to hide the piping underneath. The Park Place ice skating rink is using an environmentally friendly coating, which will reflect heat."

http://destinationparkplace.com/happenings/news/68