Welcome to beautiful Wrightsville Beach, NC!  We're glad you're here and we hope that you'll be back.  Again and again.

To that end, please be careful when you are swimming in the ocean.  We've had a spate of very strong rip currents lately and they are predicting they will be much worse by the end of the week due to Hurricane Earl. 

You can track Earl here.  It's too early to know what impact he will have on our shores, he is expected to narrowly miss us.  But we will still have to deal with some rough surf and rip currents. 

 

Should you find yourself in a rip current please heed these tips:

• Remain calm
• Don't fight against the current
• Swim out of the current in a direction following the the shoreline
• Once out of the current swim at an angle away from the rip current towards the shore

I'm not trying to scare anyone, and I'm not telling you not to swim.  Just be careful.  Pay attention to the lifeguards and their directions. 

And please, never swim alone.  Even when the waters are calm it's always best to have a buddy along.  Not only is it more fun, it's safer.

Enjoy your stay in Wrightsville Beach, NC.  And please, come back soon!

Tish Lloyd, Broker Associate

NC Real Estate Lic. 269076

Prudential Laney Real Estate

527 Causeway Drive

Wrightsville Beach, NC  28480

910.547.1446

 

 

Everything's better at the beach . . .

Here's the dark side of Facebook PLACES. It just went live on Wednesday last week -- so the Bartman decided to give it a whirl. 

I was celebrating a killer July sales month so I decided to have a dinner party and I invited some of my younger friends in their 30's. All of them iPad, iPhone, or Droid toting, digitally connected REALTOR colleagues.

We headed over to Blue Corn Cafe off Jefferson and I-25 for blue margaritas.  

The wait staff had arranged a large, long table for all of us. when 90% of our group had arrived I had announced I had checked them in on Facebook Places as they arrived to I could inform the rest of the group.

Foursquare lets you check in and tagging people with GPS like check-in programs like Foursquare and now Facebook Places isn't a bad thing, right?  Well... as I learned today (Sunday) it depends on who you talk to. Because it CAN be a huge violation of your Privacy. 

Here's what happened.

I now have more than 1,000 Friends on Facebook.  Combined with my friends and colleagues I invited to dinner on Friday, we probably shared more than 17,000 friends/contacts. 

As my friends arrived, I checked them into Facebook places without their permission. Informing the rest of the incoming gang where we were and who showed up.

When I informed the group I had added them -- 5 out of the 11 were upset.  One of my friends was completely torked.  He had told his wife a small white lie.  He told his better half that he had work to do.

She is an avid user of Facebook.  (whoops, my bad! ) 

So he imagined his wife waiting at home for him at the front door -- holding the frying pan to beat him over the head immediately upon his arrival.

Another problem didn't surface until the next day.  My post on Facebook Places showed up in more than 100 newsfeed websites.  I never meant to broadcast this to a ton of websites. What the Hell was I thinking?

Ooops. Here I am reading about my dinner party and who I checked in as the arrived at the door. Why does this have to make the news feeds? I had no clue.  Suffice it to say, I got a few upset phone calls this weekend.  Fortunately, the newsfeeds  dump stuff quickly and I personally wrote 11 of them asking them to please clear the news about my party which was now a train wreck that I wanted to forget. 

Who's responsible for this problem? Marrk Zuckerberg, CEO and jerk at large from Facebook. Apparently he just can't seem to stay out of trouble. In April, Facebook announced the LIKE button feature which violated a lot of people's security by openly allowing anyone with the skills to hack your personal calendar online and access content you might not want others to have.

 

What's WRONG with Check In Networks like Foursquare and new Facebook Places?  Plenty of you've been stalked on line by thieves.

My checking my friends into Facebook Places sends the clear message to a whole new crop of smart theft rings, I call;  DiHeads  (  Digital Housebreakers with Droids  or DHD's  ) 

One of my colleagues told me this is a real problem and he showed me a website, PleaseRobMe showed the darker side of Check in Websites.  I invite you to click and visit that site. If you use Twitter, Facebook or Foursquare -- this will scare the living daylights out of you.  And it needs to wake all of us up -- because we have to be careful with what we do online.

Because thieves will watch you and wait for you to leave your home.  The process might take weeks or months of stalking.  But one day, you go home and you learn sometimes too late, that you need to be more careful with what you post online.

Below is the video on YouTube that shows you how to deactivate the Facebook Places and prevents people from ADDING or letting them Check you in, too.

Tsk. Tsk.  I like Facebook.

But it seems that Facebook never really thinks alot about how their new products will affect personal security.  Mark Zuckerberg (Facebook's founder/CEO) blindly spends millions of dollars in new products that can harm you.  

They screwed up in April on the privacy issues.  And now... here we go again.

Below is the YouTube Video that Facebook Places is now under your control. 

 

Bart Wilson | As seen in Business Week

I help build successful REALTORS. One agent at a time. 

Voyager International  |   Follow me on Twitter

Credit is one of THE MOST IMPORTANT ISSUES IN getting a loan today. 

Time and time again, I'm called by a client who says "I PAY MY BILLS ON TIME, BUT MY PEOPLE SAY MY CREDIT STINKS....

Maybe I'll just pay off my credit cards today.....

No, No, No, No Nooooooooooooo!!!!!!" 

Truthfully, there is more to a credit score than just making your payments on time or paying off your credit.  In fact paying off all your credit today could be a bad move.  Needless to say, I've broken this down so that the complexities of mortgage credit scoring can be understood by the consumer.  I reference this a lot when consulting clients.  With this information you can self-analyze your situation to make sure that you monitor your scores or raise your scores to where you want or need them.  In other words, this serves as a roadmap to building a good credit report.

 Here are all 5 factors in the order of importance:

 1)  Payment History has a 35% impact. Paying debt on time and in full has a positive impact, and late payments, judgments and charge-offs have a negative impact.

 2)  Outstanding Credit Balances have a 30% impact. Debt ratio of outstanding balance to available credit is important.  Keeping that below 50% is wise and below 30% even wiser. It is never a good idea to close an account; the debt ratio will go up and the number of seasoned lines will decrease. Pay outstanding debt down as close to zero as possible and evenly redistribute the remaining balance among the open lines. The increased interest incurred by moving a balance from a 0% card to a 23% card will be minimal relative to what the increased mortgage debt might be with a low credit score. Hitting the maximums of available credit can be very negative. It may be worth calling and asking the credit company to increase your available credit to lower the debt ratio, provided they can do so without a hard credit inquiry. 

 3) Credit History has a 15% impact. The length of time a particular credit line has been opened is important. A seasoned borrower is stronger. 

 4)  Type of Credit has a 10% impact. A mix of auto loans, credit cards and mortgages is positive, rather than a concentration in credit cards only. 

 5)  Inquiries have a 10% impact. Hard inquiries for credit will negatively impact the score. Auto and mortgage inquiries receive special treatment and 20 inquiries can be made in a 14-day period for auto or mortgage and will be treated as only 1 inquiry. The maximum number of inquiries that will reduce the score is 10. Any inquiries beyond that [11+] in a six -month period will have no further impact on the borrower. Each hard inquiry can cost 2-50 points on a credit score.

Make sense?  It does to me.  File this away in your back pocket.  Every time you want to save 10% on the flashing blue light special for signing up for a new card....well...you may be paying a lot more than that with all of your other credit if your scores drop. Know your facts, call me if you want to talk further on how this may affect you.

Larry Bettag - Regional Vice President, Midwest Region

Illinois FHA Specialist

630-417-7172

  

               

An Illinois Residential Mortgage Licensee

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Lowballing a short sale can cost a buyer that home. Not so much because the lender will counter the offer -- although, that's pretty much a given -- but because some other short sale buyer might snatch that house away from the lowballer.

Depending on your state laws, a seller may or may not have the right to send all short sale offers to the bank. For example, in California, we use the short sale addendum. This document, which buyers willingly sign, gives the seller the right to accept and send other offers to the bank.

One of my Sacramento short sale sellers received a lowball offer last month. I let the agent know at inception that the offer was probably too low -- I don't know why so many agents don't show the comps to their buyers. But the seller wanted to accept the offer in hopes that she would receive a better one down the road. Sure enough, she did. Within a week, we received another offer for about 10% more.

The seller accepted that offer in back-up position and directed me to send that higher offer to the bank. The ethical thing to do was to cancel the existing escrow. Besides, if we didn't cancel the first escrow, we couldn't put the second buyer's earnest money deposit into that escrow. I called the first agent with the lowball offer. Her options were she could wait to see which offer the bank would take or her buyer could cancel the short sale. Her buyer wisely chose to cancel.

In an effort to deflect getting bumped out, I see some buyer's agents write into their purchase offers that the seller will only accept back-up offers. I swear. If The Three Stooges sold short sales, this is something Curly would do. I can see him twirling his forefinger at the contract and tapping that sentence, Nyuk, Nyuk, Nyuk, with a goofy grin on his face. What this does is it allows the seller to accept a back-up offer and bump out the first offer. At any point in a short sale a seller can tell the bank to stop processing and start over.

People can get so wrapped up in Sacramento short sales that they forget the seller still owns the home. The seller calls the shots. Of course, if the seller has hired an experienced short sale agent, that agent is unlikely to advise the seller to start over upon receipt of a higher offer. But it doesn't mean it couldn't happen.

Photo: Big Stock Photo

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Elizabeth Weintraub is an author, home buying columnist for The New York Times-owned About.com, a Land Park resident, and a Land Park real estate agent who specializes in older, classic homes in Land Park, Curtis Park, Midtown and East Sacramento. Weintraub is also a Sacramento Short Sale agent who lists and successfully sells short sales throughout Sacramento. Call Elizabeth Weintraub at 916.233.6759. Put 35 years of real estate experience to work for you. DRE License # 00697006.

The Short Sale Savior, by Elizabeth Weintraub, available through bookstores everywhere and at Amazon.com.

Photo: Unless otherwise noted in this blog, the photo is copyrighted by Big Stock Photo and used with permission.

The views expressed herein are Weintraub's personal views and do not reflect the views of Lyon Real Estate.

 

 

Shop till you drop - this might not be wise advice when shopping for a mortgage

 

I wanted to bring up this topic because it still happens more than it should. I know we all want the best deals, but anyone can make general promises on the phone or on paper.

Shopping for a mortgage is not easy and it's not like shopping for a car. A car is a car, but ones service could be better.  And one could argue that most mortgage companies should have the same interest rates and mortgage programs. But there are way to many unknowns upfront that can change interest rates. In my opinion, those that don't want to ask all of the appropriate questions upfront and educate you about the different types of programs, generally just want to get you in the door and then worry about everything later.  Yes people, this still happens, even after several changes in the last year that try and protect the consumer when applying for a mortgage.

 

 

 

 

I read this comment from a realtor -  "I tell my clients to shop loans and make sure the lenders provide the information about costs and fees associated with the loan.  I think that is a service to my buyers."

I am sorry, but this kind of statement is like pointing a gun at your head that holds 6 bullets, yet 3 bullets are loaded. Your chances of being shot are 50%. Just like when shopping with to many lenders, that it could increase your odds of not getting the right information or misleading information and rates/fees.

 

 

 

 

Here are two quick stories -

1.  I had a realtor that decided to give me a chance, yet she told me that she had 2 very good loan officers that she recommends all of the time because they were excellent and that they closed her deals. After speaking to this borrower, who already spoke to the other 2 loan officers, I realized that this borrower was never explained on how adjustable rates worked.  Yet he was sold on an adjustable rate, because the rate itself was very attractive.  The funny thing was that I was about 1/4 percent cheaper in interest rate and $1,000 cheaper in points on the fixed rate. But on the 5 yr arm, this lender was beating me out by 3/8 of a percent. He chose the loan officer with the lower rate, even though he thanked me for educating him on adjustable rates, going over his goals (which neither loan officer did), and just for the fact that I taught him about refinancing in the future. See, he was under the impression with FHA loans that if he refinanced 4 years later, as long as he had 20% or more equity, that he wouldn't have monthly mortgage insurance. This is 100% false on FHA loans. But see, I went into great details, knowing what he was trying to accomplish in the future, and because we went over his goals. Yet this was never talkied about by the other two loan officers.

End Result - 1 day after he applied with this lender, rates began to drop. By the end of the week, I was barely 1/8 of a percent higher in rate, yet this other loan officer never offered a lower rate since rates dropped. Yes, many loan officers/lenders can offer you good rates and such, but at what price to the borrower. And sometimes these costs could add up as future costs and not as present costs, hence why goals are important. And in my opinion, this realtor really wanted to give out 3 names just to protect herself. If you really trust one person, there is no need for 2 other names.

 

2.  A person that I have know for 3 years has said all along that I was his guy.  He trusted me and such. I have done over 5 pre-qual letters for him in the last 4 months. Well, that turned quickly and he ended up using another loan officer that his realtor pushed, because the other lender made it look like I wasn't doing my job. He told the borrower that we didn't order the appraisal as of yet and his total costs were $800 cheaper than me. I tried to explain that I always try to be on the high side. Besides, I had no lender fees, so I knew this couldn't be true.  Also, the loan officer had offered a lower rate after I told the realtor what I was giving the borrower.  But wait, the borrower was floating and I wanted to surprise my so-called friend later on with a lower rate. 

The end result? I could have given this borrower a 1/4% less in rate.  And wait, just yesterday he was told that he needs $400 more at closing tomorrow for escrows.  hhhhmmm - Who lost here?  We both did. But I just called this person and told him to fight it at closing tomorrow, because the lender didn't disclose the new update 3 days prior to closing. He was appreciative, even though he went some where else.

 

 

 

Conclusion - All the reason why shopping for mortgages with many lenders could backfire on you or just hurt you overall.  I wrote a series about this. So who do I trust?

• TRUST - Find a trusted realtor or loan officer - Who defines trust ???

• Would you rather work with a Marketing Guru or a Real Professional?

 

• What is Transparency?? Best Mortgage Rates/Online services/Real Estate Services - (Part 1 of 2)

• Transparency in Real Estate/Mortgages - Interview your Realtor or Loan Officer - (Part 2 of 2)

 

 

Some important reading - Some changes in the last 12 months by the government, trying to protect the consumer when it comes to shopping for mortgages. But has it really helped as much?

 

• The MDIA - The Mortgage Disclosure Information Act - Effective July 30th, 2009

 

• Good Faith Estimates Explained - FHA Loan Good Faith Estimates - Understanding the whole process - Part 1 of 2

 

• Good Faith Estimates Explained - Changes for the WORST - Detailed changes - Part 2 of 2

 

 

- I wrote about this same topic on October 25th, 2006 -

• Shoppers that shop themselves right out of the market……

 

 

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For more information on FHA loans, please go to this link. The FHA Expert

For important mortgage insight to watch for, please read : Consumers need to be aware of these Red Flags!

For information about FHA myths & FHA rumors, please read : FHA Myths & Rumors

 

Copyright © 2010 by Jeff Belonger of Infinity Home Mortgage Company, Inc

Early last week, the House of Representatives passed an emergency supplemental appropriations bill.  That bill includes a provision to both reform and restart the USDA (Rural Housing Service) single-family guarantee program. 

President Obama signed the measure H.R. 4899 on July 29th making it law.  The presidential signing was expected to happen without any resistance.  This measure covers a variety of topics, including $34.7 billion in funding for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.  There are provisions for other international and domestic government programs as well.  The Gulf oil spill received $275 million in funding.

Specifically, the RHS provision gives the Agriculture Secretary the authority to increase the upfront premium on all RHS backed loans.  The maximum approved upfront premium increase can be as much as much as 3.5%.  This is up from the current upfront premium of 2%.  This increase will enable USDA to cover the cost of the new loan guarantees being issued.  The additional funding will also make program self-funding. 

The USDA secretary also has been given the option of charging a 0.5% annual premium, similar to that of FHA.  Currently, USDA does not charge an annual premium. 

It is always advisable to consult with a Certified Mortgage Planning Specialist (CMPS) when navigating today's turbulent mortgage and real estate marketplace. As a CMPS professional, I am committed, qualified and equipped to help you evaluate your options!

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Rodney Mason is a Certified Mortgage Planning Specialist located in Atlanta, GA.  He is also 203K Renovation Loan and REO Property Specialist.  He can be reached at (404) 591-2453.

           

NMLS #151088 - Licensed in AL & GA.