Archive for the ‘Economy’ Category
As featured on ABC7 Chicago.
As the mortgage market and economy continues to be weak, there is an increase in the number of mortgage fraud cases reported, and a 48% jump in foreclosures last month, alone.
Illinois Attorney General, Lisa Madigan, just filed a lawsuit against Countrywide, the nation’s largest mortgage lender, for issuing and marketing risky and expensive loans. We have some tips on how to avoid getting into this situation and what to do if you find yourself a victim of mortgage fraud.
HOW DID WE GET TO THIS POINT?
- Lenders qualifying people who didn’t have the income to buy the home, but encouraging them to inflate their income on their application.
- ARMs became popular as “affordability products”– get borrowers in at a low rate but soon after, bump up the rate by several percentage points-resulting in increased foreclosure rates. Borrowers fooled by low teaser rate.
- At Countrywide and other mortgage companies, Madigan is claiming, the lender often didn’t tell borrowers the loan’s true costs, risk and affordability factors. Told borrowers, simply, “there are no closing costs.” This was misleading to the borrower.
- Loan officer’s compensation at many of these places was tied to the volume of loans sold–the goal being to sell as many mortgages as possible within a short period of time. The belief is that employers encouraged employees to sell risky mortgages to unsuspecting victims.
SPOTTING MORTGAGE FRAUD
- Lender encourages you to provide false info about your income, assets or employment. You may sense that the lender just wants you to buy that home that you love, but can’t afford.
- Mortgage broker/lender encourages you to work with his or her appraiser, inflating the home’s value.
- Interest rate is 2-10% higher than market rates.
- True closing costs are hidden, but lender tells you that you won’t be able to get a mortgage elsewhere.
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If you are shopping for a mortgage now, you have probably discovered that getting a mortgage just isn’t as easy as you thought it might be.
TRENDS IN THE MORTGAGE MARKET:
- Both the 15-(5.42%) and 30-(5.88%)-year fixed rates have gone down by about ½% point in 1 year.
- The mortgage crisis began in 2007, as people failed to pay their loans. This quarter, alone, 900,000 homes are going through the foreclosure process, and home values are the lowest they have been since 2001.
- Loss of jobs—in March, alone, the economy lost 80,000 jobs.
- If you had an ARM (Adjustable Rate Mortgage), you paid a low introductory rate, but rates have soared after 2-3 years, making it harder to pay your mortgage. EX: If you have a $200,000 mortgage and your introductory ARM was at 4% at closing, it might be 7.5% now, after the adjustment period. This costs you almost $400 more per month. Continue reading »
As you prepare for the tax and moving season, you probably aren’t thinking about writing off things around your house, but it pays to go through the clutter—especially this month. But before taking these write-offs, there are some things you need to know or else you can forget about saving tax dollars.
WRITING OFF FURNITURE DONATIONS—BEWARE OF ASSEMBLING!
If, in the past year, in the process of moving, clearing out the clutter or trading up, you have donated any furniture to a charity organization, you are entitled to the value of the furniture for a write off. For 2007, make sure you have a copy of the receipt and declare it. BEWARE: Some charities refuse to accept any goods that have been assembled. Make sure to leave unopened furniture in the box! Ex: Salvation Army won’t take IKEA furniture because of legal issues arising over assembly and the fragility of the piece. Assembled furniture, believe it or not, poses a legal risk.
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The underemployed: making the most of your job search. Join me live on VoiceAmerica.com while I talk with ABC’s Good Morning America’s Tory Johnson about the best strategies you need.
Tory Johnson is an award-winning workplace guru, national network television contributor, popular speaker and New York Times bestselling author. She is the CEO of Women For Hire, now celebrating its 10th year producing high caliber recruiting events attended by more than 25,000 women annually. Tory is also the workplace contributor on ABC’s Good Morning America.
Dubbed the “workplace fairy godmother” by Glamour magazine, Tory speaks frequently about career advancement nationwide. Her new book, Fired to Hired, follows her 2008 New York Times bestseller, Will Work From Home.
My featured guests were: Paul LaMonica, Editor-at-Large with CNN/Money.com, Tom Nardone from the US. Bureau of Labor Statistics in Washington, DC and Jennifer Angel, resident astrologer with Star Magazine and the New York Daily News.
Important to note is that even though the unemployment numbers went up last month they didn’t go up by very much over the previous month (.1%). Best industries for jobs are in education and health care.
Here is a link to the show.
Dr. Dan Derman, President of Northwestern Memorial Physicians Group, a primary care multi-specialty group of 65 physicians which he founded in 1993. He is the Medical Director of the Center for Partnership Medicine and Vice President of Community Service at Northwestern Memorial Hospital.
Katie Robbins, Assistant National Coordinator of Healthcare-NOW!, organizing and movement-building. She’s worked on projects with Food Not Bombs in her hometown Akron, Ohio, advocated for families through Head Start and Safer Futures Domestic Violence Network. She passionately believes that health care is a human right and works to promote policy based on single-payer financing which most closely meets the human rights standards of health.
Dr. Tom LeGrelius, Owner of Skypark Preferred Family Care in California, and a national leader and advocate of Concierge Medicine.
Click here to listen to “The Latest On National Health Care and Some Alternative Views” on The Shop Cop show on VoiceAmerica Talk Radio Network.
Since the stock market drop you may have spent the past few months thinking about the best way back into the market, and putting away money for retirement. Is now a good time? Joining me will be wealth management experts:
Stuart Lucas, author of Wealth, a global expert in wealth management. Through the University of Chicago Booth School of Business and his own firm, Wealth Strategist Network, LLC, he teaches individuals and families about wealth management, and is a fourth generation heir to the Carnation Company fortune.
Christine Benz, Director of Personal Finance. Christine Benz is director of personal finance for Morningstar. Benz is also editor of Morningstar Practical Finance, a monthly personal-finance newsletter, and writes a weekly column on Morningstar.com. She is also co-author of Morningstar® Guide to Mutual Funds: 5-Star Strategies for Success, a national bestseller published in 2003, and author of the book’s second edition, which was published in 2005.
John Chiang, Controller of the State of California, a leader in helping millions of people find unclaimed money–a story that needs to be told, with $60 billion in unclaimed money that few of us know about. Believe it or not, most of us have money owed to us from our ancestor’s estates—the money you need to be investing right now!
Click here to listen to “Jumping Back into the Market and Finding the Cash to Invest from Unclaimed Property”
Episode Title: A Non-Financial Person’s Current Economic Perspective
EPISODE DESCRIPTION:
October hit us like a storm. With the sudden stock market crash, inflation rising and fears about our future and whether or not we could whether this storm, we have been left hanging on, not knowing who to turn to or whom we could trust with our future. Most of us believe that those working with the government to fix the economy may not have the answers or even understand the full scope of the nation’s economic crisis. In this show, joining me will be astrologers and a well-known psychiatrist offering an alternative perspective about the economy, how we got into this global mess, and how we can turn the corner. Please join me for an entertaining hour.
THE GUESTS:
John Douglas is a Master Spiritual Healer, clairvoyant and telepathic, and is in contact with Master Angelic Beings. At the age of nine, John received a complete clairvoyant activation, allowing full vision of the energetic or spiritual dimension. John claims to be able to measure and identify various energetic frequencies within the body or spiritual realms. These remarkable tools have allowed John to practice extraordinary spiritual healing, or “spirit repair” , encompassing various precise techniques and processes that create positive change, healing and evolution in humans on many levels.The “secret healer” has been quietly evolving and refining with the help and love of his beloved Masters and is now considered at the cutting edge of spiritual healing evolution by many admirers. Many lives have been changed and touched by the love and devotion John expresses to people, the earth and his mission. www.spirit-repair.com.
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As Featured in the Arizona Local News
Nowadays, few home sellers – and especially those trying to avert foreclosure – have spare funds to hire a “stager,” a professional trained in the art of making a property look as beguiling as possible to prospective buyers.
Good stagers are skilled at making an ordinary property look extraordinary, often by removing excess furnishings, augmenting the remaining items and then rearranging the entire mix.
“A house that’s beautifully staged usually sells faster and for more money than a similar home in the same neighborhood that hasn’t been staged,” said Michelle Minch, a veteran in the field and an official of the Real Estate Staging Association.
But sellers in a financial pinch can gain many of the benefits of staging without the expense of hiring a professional, she said, by asking family and friends for help and bartering for their services.
For example, someone who is skilled at car mechanics could offer a free tuneup or oil change in exchange for staging help. Or you could barter baby-sitting services or gourmet dinners in exchange for assistance in upgrading your decor.
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