One further economic thought:

Further to my thoughts about economic recovery, here is a thought about the housing mess. While there are many facets to the problem, and therefore several solutions will need to be addressed, I think this a good solution for a portion of the problem.

In short, there are huge numbers of people who are living in their houses, and who want to continue to live in their houses, but are experiencing a set of similar circumstances. They are under water, i.e. the home is worth less than the value of the mortgage attached to it, they are in a subprime, adjustable loan, they have the ability to prove their income, but don't have enough savings to pay the difference between their mortgage and the new value of their home, and are therefore locked into a bad mortgage situation.

Therefore I humbly submit: for deserving borrowers (they live in the house, seek to REMAIN in the house), have them qualify (prove income documentation) for a fixed rate, 40-50 year amortized loan at a rate they can afford, and modify the note, or originate a new one. Participation in the program would have to require a period of time where the borrower would be required to stay in the home after the note is modified.

This program would be sponsored by Fannie/Freddie, and would therefore be considered to be "Agency Paper." Which would allow the instruments (which now will PERFORM at a much higher rate - typical to standard A-Paper loans) to be sold on the standard secondary markets where Fannie and Freddie live, and lenders would be open to modifying or originating a lot of these types of loans. Essentially any market in the country that has had an active residential construction market over the last 7-10 years will have a multitude of these types of borrowers.

There are also undeserving borrowers in this situation. They will not, and should not, be helped out of the mess they made for themselves. They bought the house on a nasty interest-only, or negative amortization loan, with only one goal: speculation. They possibly have more than one home in this situation, or at least have a credit history that shows this type of activity. During the process of discovery, there will become apparent several nefarious activities, and they should be prosecuted as well - these include mortgage fraud (by both/either the borrower and the mortgage originator), appraisal fraud, realtor fraud, builder fraud (like mortgage kickbacks), etc.

Those people will, and should, be held 100% responsible for their actions.

What builders are doing to the market:

From The Bakersfield Californian:

Deeply discounted new homes go on sale Saturday in two northeast Bakersfield communities, an event that has inspired stakeout tactics in some would-be homeowners and a measure of concern among those who paid full price to live in the neighborhoods.

D.R. Horton Inc. is selling homes at up to a 50 percent discount in 23 Southern California developments starting this weekend. One home plan, formerly listed for $380,000, has been reduced 48 percent to $199,990, according to a company sales flier.

Industry observers said the sale is a drastic measure, and a sign of the impact large national builders have had on the local homebuilding market. ‘They do things that we’ve never seen before,’ custom homebuilder Phil Gaskill said of his national competitors. ‘They overproduce homes when the market’s hot. And then when it’s not, they slash prices to move (inventory).’”

Jon Hess is betting on securing one of those bargains. He set up camp in front of the Contessa’s Vineyard II sales office Sunday, and was still in line Friday afternoon.

‘I think it’s a good value,’ Hess said of the model home he had in mind. Still, he was realistic about what this kind of sale might say about the health of the real estate market. ‘Who knows?’ Hess said. ‘Maybe by this time a year from now it’s going to be worth half of what I paid for it.’

At least one Lavender Trails homeowner, Billy Abney was worried Friday that the sale might further depress the value of his home, which he estimates has fallen $60,000 to $70,000 since he bought in the summer of 2006.

The 2,600-square-foot home plan he bought for $371,000 is being offered for sale at $230,000 this weekend.

Mr. Abney, your home is worth $140,000 less than when you bought it a year ago, not $60,000 or $70,000.

This is a tactic used by large home builders, especially the publicly traded ones, and is probably the thing to be most cautious about when buying a home from them. This week it's this price, but if the sales office doesn't sell everything in a timely manner, look out for the discounts. Think about it - if you could buy a brand new home for $50K less, right across the street from where a guy is selling that exact same floor plan, lived in, for which he paid $50K more, which one are you going to buy, and what is the "new appraised value" for BOTH homes. It's the lower amount. If the guy who has lived there for a year bought with little or no money down, he likely now owes more than what it will appraise for. This effectively kills the neighborhood, and will cause an upward spike in foreclosures, not abate them, as the builder will tell you.

If you owe more than it's going to appraise for, you can't sell or refinance without having to come out of pocket for the difference. Not cool.

Jingle Mail

Apparently, this is the new catch phrase among mortgage lenders. It refers to what is starting to happen with home-owners who are now simply mailing the keys to the house to the mortgage company along with a note, saying, essentially,

"Hey, remember that note you sent asking me about my last payment? Well, you actually DID receive my LAST payment, 2 months ago. And here's the keys, too. Bye."

Funny, but not really.

The nail on the head:

'The main concern today is fiduciary adequacy and not liquidity. We have already borrowed so much (total debt is near 350% of GDP) that our ability to service existing debt is more relevant than access to additional debt. The importance of the Fed to the economy is thus limited, and our fixation with what it does, or does not do, is a distraction from dealing with the real issues."

Something I've said on this site more than once in the recent months.... The fed using monetary solutions for a fiduciary problem.


link

Michael Jackson Neverland Ranch Appears in Foreclosure Report

This has been reportedly in process for some time. But its actual appearance on the report makes it pretty concrete...

All you need to bring it out of Foreclosure is the $22,000,000 to cure the default.

Liz Taylor - here's looking at you.






click it to big it.

Small(ish) world

The US Mortgage Crunch that turned into a US Capital Market crunch that turned into the Worldwide Credit crunch serves to bring lots of things to light.

The British Bank, Northern Rock, holding lots of US Mortgage-backed securities, and a large British residential lender, has struggled like more than 150 other US lenders and banks. Smelling blood in the water, Cerberus (a group I have written about here on several occasions), and a similar company named JC Flowers, run by former Goldman Sachs exec Chris Flowers, have stepped up their bid for taking over the bank.

They intend to leave the bank open and running, leaving a "strong British presence" on the bank's board.

They believe the current credit crunch will be temporary. And when that is the case, those with ability and capital can pick through the trash to find the gems. As mentioned earlier here, Cerberus owns several lenders here in the US, as well as their recent acquisition of Ford Motor Co.

Flowers, along with two US banks, has a $50 per share bid in to buy Sallie Mae, the US Government sponsored student loan co. Their bid WAS $60 per share, but they lowered that to $50 earlier this week, stating a lack of fundamental performance on the part of the company, and general market conditions.

The Canadian luxury home market goes from hot to hotter

Canadian luxury home activity gives new meaning to global warming – this part of the world is enjoying a hot upper tier market.

The first seven months of this year have seen Canadian luxury home market sales jump in major markets from Victoria to Toronto. “The consumer appetite for luxury property has been insatiable,” says Michael Polzler, Executive Vice President and Regional Director, RE/MAX Ontario-Atlantic Canada.

“Unabated demand throughout the year has created tight market conditions in a number of blue chip neighborhoods. Limited availability of product has, in turn, placed mounting upward pressure on housing values. As a result, the million dollar home no longer holds the same cachet it once did and in larger markets such as Vancouver, Calgary, and Toronto, it’s simply a starting price.”

The table below reflects the strength of the upper tier housing market in six major Canadian cities.

Popular Local Sports Broadcaster Caught in Mortgage Fraud Scheme

Or something like that.

Channel 2 news (CBS) here in SLC reported last night that their sports reporter Dave Fox had entered a Plea in Abeyance in a mortgage fraud scheme that supposedly had him falsifying documents and statements related to the over-inflation of a home in the hoity-toity-and-at-the-same-time-very-mealy neighborhood called the River Bottoms in the Provo area.

Fox's plea is essentially a guilty plea without admitting guilt. His lawyer paints him as the victim, and the court has agreed to dismiss the charges (Failure To Occupy/Communications Fraud were the official charges - as it is in most mortgage fraud schemes) in return for Fox's testimony against the several other participants.

Fox wasn't on the news broadcast last night. I wonder how long, if ever, it will take for KUTV to put him back on the air.

Court documents help tell the story, which goes far beyond Fox. The documents show that Fox and Atkin intentionally, knowingly or recklessly devised a scheme to defraud another. Court documents show the two men falsified home loan documents to make money on a quick resale. Joe Christensen, director of the State Insurance Fraud Division, said, "This is the first level of a multi-level investment that involves millions of dollars and fraud and more than a dozen people."

Investigators say it's a big case involving at least a dozen people who allegedly conspired to inflate the value of real estate they bought, sold and borrowed money on.

What's even more interesting to me are the comments that accompany the news story as posted over at rival station (and LDS Church-owned) KSL (NBC).

read the story and check the comments

And coming shortly to this spot: a post about "chair porn" and a post on Jaco Pastorius, bass player who changed the face of modern jazz forever, who died 20 years ago last Friday. Sadly.

The FED lowered rates, why didn't my mortgage payment go down?

So, the FED lowered two rates yesterday, and the S&P 500 index is up about 3.5% over the two days... so this is a good thing right?

Ask yourself this question - "what does that mean to me?"

If you answered with some form of "now the rate on my variable-rate mortgage will go down...", you should realize that your variable rate mortgage is tied to an INDEX, not the FED rate. more than 90% of variable rate loans are tied to the LIBOR, which is short for London Interbank Offered Rate.

As the LIBOR goes, so goes the rate on your mortgage.

Have you been watching the news on the LIBOR lately? I didn't think so.

Here's a snap-shot:

The British Bankers' Association said the overnight LIBOR -- the interest rate banks charge each other -- remained steady at 6.47% on Monday. The rate, however, remained significantly higher than the 5.87% rate seen on Thursday and Friday. Three-month and twelve-month LIBOR rates set fractionally lower than on Monday, the association said.

From 5.87% to 6.47% is more than a half-point move in the WRONG direction. Overnight. The London folks were sitting on the sidelines watching the Great American Credit Fiasco, thanking their lucky stars that they hadn't been sucked into it, then they realized they HAD been sucked into it when it was noted how many British and European institutional lenders and banking organizations were SHAREHOLDERS in the very same American funds that were now showing themselves to be nothing more than junk bonds.

When they discovered that, the LIBOR went from 5.87% to 6.47%.

And if you have a one-month LIBOR loan (the rate is calculated every month), your rate moved .6%. Overnight.

I bet that was fun.

And in the category of "It's not the rate, it's the program", here's something else...

The FED lowers the rate to try to bring some capital back into the markets, which, if you have been watching the markets in the last two days, you know it HAS, but here's The Thing:

No institutional bank/buyer (who has money available) is going to put its money back into the bond market until the big lenders can prove that they are making responsible loans that will perform and not end up in foreclosure. It's that simple. And as long as those institutions AREN'T buying loans in the secondary market, the lender who made the loan has to keep it, tying up money that could be freed up and loaned out again. This KILLS any lender that isn't THE MOST CONSERVATIVE LENDER ON THE PLANET.

For example, yesterday, Countrywide said they are OUT of any kind of loan business that is not Super Prime, in an effort to convince the market that they are making responsible loans now, please buy them. This is the same Countrywide who, in the last three weeks has borrowed more than 20 BILLION dollars in an effort to stay afloat and make loans.

Until the banks begin to trust lenders again, it doesn't matter what the rates are.

Compared to 12 months ago, there are about 25% of the loan programs available now that were available then. Some may say that's a good thing - we'll see how many lenders exit the business. I can tell you that banking industry layoffs are putting a drag on the economy. Couple that with looming foreclosures, BKs, which will surely follow, and we might be looking at a perfect storm.

My advice for people in the markets: I hope you were holding significant gold futures. Seriously.

Obama Got it Wrong

On Monday morning, presidential candidate Barack Obama published an editorial calling on lawmakers to corral the "predatory mortgage brokers" who got all these people into trouble by closing bad loans for them."

If you ask most people, they will tell the same general story.

Here's one or two bullet-point things people (including Obama) need to understand before they start using their platform to spread fear:

Mortgage brokers are solicited by lenders. Lenders create and publish loan programs, and employ sales executives to go out and sell those programs to brokers. That's not to say all brokers are blameless, though.

Part of the process lenders use in establishing loan programs, and loan interest rates, is the potential appetite for closed loan files using a particular program. That means the lender (with the exception of a VERY few) intends to sell the loans in a pool of similar loan profiles. This is called "sale into the capital markets". The loans are then packaged into VERY large securities instruments, called MBS's, or "Mortgage Backed Securities", and shares in them are traded every day on Wall Street's bond market. The ups and downs of the bond market are what determine the prevailing interest rates on a day to day basis.

Mortgage brokers are the low man on the totem pole. Loans are never closed in the name of the broker (as the lender), but rather, the loan documents show the LENDER as the mortgagee. It was their loan program, they underwrote the file, collected specific items from the borrower, evaluated the collateral, and agreed finally to lend the money to the borrower.

Further, in MOST cases, the borrower signed a veritable RAFT of paperwork outlining every jot and tittle of the loan terms.

So there's the background information that will hopefully help make my next comment make sense to you.

Here's what Obama SHOULD have said:

There shouldn't be ANY government bailout of anyone in this case. Rather, lawmakers should be going to the lenders (the mortgagees) on these bad loans, and to the original capital market buyer/investor of the loan package, and put into place the following policy:

Foreclosure is not an option for most of the homeowners in certain loan programs, and under certain conditions. Instead, dear lender, you will identify any and all files that have fraud in them at all, and you will take the necessary steps to cure that fraud - if it was the buyer who perpetrated the fraud to take advantage of the system, they will have no recourse. Credit reporting changes will be made to be more stringent and punitive to these buyers, if there is a provable case for such.

(We will need a system whereby buyers can be classified and qualified.)

However, if it is shown that a good borrower has been stuck in a loan that is too punitive in its terms, you will have to modify the note attached to that loan, and you WILL put into place workout terms that are generally acceptable. You will carry these notes for these buyers and you will not foreclose.

Lenders who profited GREATLY from the origination and sale of that security should be forced to now rescue buyers in their program, because it is obvious there were contagious flaws in the program.

There should also be standards within the mortgage lending industry that outline what kinds of terms are allowable, and what are not. For example, a purchase transaction should not be allowed to be originated on any variable interest rate loan without a certain minimum credit score, without putting verified money down. There are lots of examples of what should be allowed and what should not.

And guess what - the MARKET is moving in this direction already. The problem is not that there are not loans to be had out there. It is that those who used to buy loan pools in the secondary market are not buying ANY pools, almost no matter what the profile of the pool. That leaves the lender without the necessary capital to pay off the old mortgage and originate a new one. Secondary buyers are even shying away from Commercial mortgage paper, not just residential.

So, the FED, in the last two weeks, did two things - first they bumped cash into that secondary marketplace, providing needed liquid capital, then they lowered their internal interest rate - the one used to lend short term money to banks. The FED has also set the table of expectations now for the third and final action they may take: the lowering of the interest rate you and I care about.

The expectation is certainly there at this point for the FED to lower that rate at their Sept 18th meeting. The volatility in the stock market over the last two days has to do with this expectation.

We shall see. I don't think interest rates are the problem, and some would even note that the foreclosure rate is not that big a problem either. The problem is enticing the secondary big-money buyers that the pools they may potentially buy will offer sufficient return through timely payments made by homeowners. They are scared kitties right now.

Needless to say, the heyday has passed where one could get a loan by simply possessing the ability to fog a mirror. Now you're going to have to prove yourself. Credit score isn't ALWAYS indicative of that. Many thought it was. Obviously that was flawed thinking, espoused by lenders eager to make as much money as possible. Time to pay the piper.

The Market needs to regulate itself; and the consumer needs to be accountable

This isn't going to go well if the government feels the need to meddle.


From Bankrate.com. “On April 17, the House Financial Services Committee held a hearing called, ‘Possible responses to rising mortgage foreclosures.’ Of a dozen witnesses, none were mortgage servicers, the people whose companies collect mortgage payments, deal with delinquent debtors and initiate foreclosures. The committee didn’t call any lenders, either.”

“David Berenbaum, executive VP of the National Community Reinvestment Coalition, suggested a…mandated temporary halt in foreclosures.”

“A mortgage servicer might have responded by asking who would pay the accumulated interest payments during a moratorium. The servicer, the investors who own the loan, the borrower? If it’s the latter, is that fair? Or would the taxpayers pick up the tab?”

“George Miller, executive director of the American Securitization Forum, warned that ‘policies designed to further regulate subprime lending or provide relief to borrowers’ could cause investors ‘to shun the market altogether and cut off mortgage credit for worthy subprime borrowers.’”

Fannie/Freddie to rescue the "Lending Crisis" (?)

Yahoo News yesterday reported that FannieMae and FreddieMac are stepping up and proposing to make some changes to the subprime loans they are holding.

For those who need it, a little background:

Fannie Mae, and Freddie Mac are acronyms for large corporations that are generally sponsored by the federal government to provide stability in the mortgage lending marketplace. They were originally started in the early part of the 20th century as wholly owned government agencies designed to provide affordable home loans for returning servicemen, etc.

They've since been privatized but retain a government sponsorship, in order for the government to have a modicum of control over the nation's lending practices.

Both companies are MASSIVE secondary-market purchasers of already-originated mortgage loans, competing with the other typical Wall Street buyers in that marketplace. Fannie Mae has been beset with management problems and financial reporting errors in the recent past, but they remain a huge purchaser of loans that meet certain criteria.

(Fannie Mae, just this week has entered an agreement to be purchased by, you guessed it, a private equity firm who has garnered a coalition of groups, two of whom are CITI Bank, and Chase bank. The equity fund will retain majority control, while the two banks will have a minority interest. The group says it will continue to report publicly, and seeks to retain the government sponsorship, helping it retain its power and stability in the marketplace.)

Fannie Mae owns and services a large percentage of the subprime loans in the US right now. There is a morass of foreclosure looming on the not-too-distant horizon for the borrowers in this type of loan.

Typically they are called "2/28's" which means that the loan has an amortization of 30 years, and a fixed period of only two years on the front of the loan. The remainder of the loan is adjustable, according to the lenders program at the time of closing. The amount of adjustment depends upon the "caps" that were in place at the time of closing.

Most caps are typically expressed as a three-number combination that most people fail to understand, usually 6-2-6. The first number represents the amount of increased interest rate the lender is allowed to charge upon the first opportunity, the 25th month of the loan. If you have a loan at 7% on a 2/28, and your caps are 626, that means that in the 24th month your interest rate is 7%, and in the 25th month, your rate can be legally moved to 13% under this program. The second number in the combination, (2) represents the number of adjustments per year the lender is allowed to make to your loan - i.e. every six months. The third number (6) is the lifetime cap on interest rate rise for the life of the loan. This is the "safety net". Under this program, the interest rate may NEVER go above the 7% (original rate) plus 6% (the cap number), in this case 13%.

You can imagine how distressing this type of loan would be to a person who borrowed 100% of their home's value in order to get the purchase done. They have NO equity. When the loan gets ready to adjust that first painful time, they have no ability to get a refinance done, especially if home prices are in a general state of decline - which they are right now, nationally. They are poor-credit borrowers in the first place, and have no savings, no extra income, and negative home equity from which to borrow.

The borrower becomes stuck in a loan they can't get out of, with the possibility of it adjusting WILDLY at the 25th month.

Sucks to be them. Anecdotally, 900 Californians PER WEEK are losing their homes to foreclosure right now, due to this very problem. Per week.

So, as you can imagine, this situation has the industry on its ear, and everybody in a regulatory position is seeking ways to mitigate the massive losses. You've heard about lenders like New Century, Novastar, etc... the list is LONG, of lenders in trouble for having originated these types of loans, and now the Wall Street buyers are asking the lenders to buy them back, because they aren't performing. This is how lenders go out of business.

Congress is hurrying to weigh in the situation, and the Banking Committees of both houses are holding hearings to see if there is something they can do. (I hope they stay out of it, and wait for the industry to self-regulate, because they don't even understand what an "exotic hybrid mortgage" is... they will make a mess, mark my words...)

So before lawmakers can wade into the fray, the industry's biggest players are taking steps to make things better. Fannie is proposing to make adjustments to these loans for deserving borrowers. They are offering to fix the caps issue related to that first nasty adjustment, and they are also going to move the amortization out to 40 years, instead of 30 years. This will have the effect of lowering the borrower's PAYMENT by up to five percent per month. Not the interest rate, but the payment.

Sounds like a pretty good deal to me, and just in time, before lawmakers can make a lovely mess of things. It's always best to let a free market regulate and correct itself - after all, they still need to lend money, and the money still needs to perform, or the owner of the money goes out of business - that's the best motivator for change there is. Lawmaker posturing and puffing is useless, and will only have a detrimental effect on the situation.

new junk at Mortgage Times

junk from my brain

Check it out - random thoughts on Utah's position going into the next 2 to 3 years of real estate/interest rate traffic.

Brought to you by your favorite Mortgage guy:

new item posted over at Mortgage Times

New item over at Mortgage Times.

EVERY day, Will Hertzberg owns a little less of his three-bedroom house in Corona.

Like hundreds of thousands of other homeowners around the state, Hertzberg has a mortgage that lets him choose how much he pays each month.....

Check it out. Brought to you by your very favorite mortgage professional.

Been a little while

So, I've taken a little time away from the old site here... as if you couldn't notice. New title bar subheader though, for those keeping score at home. Besides being loaded down at work, we've also had a couple of house projects on the plate as well. The fifth wedding anniversary is heading down the road directly at us, and we're heading out of town next week to avoid the collision celebrate that without the interruptions of kids, work, house projects, etc., not necessarily in that order. Coitus Interuptus, if you know what I mean. Coitus Terminus, even.

I know, too much information.

So, to pass the time, and convince you that I haven't simply dropped off the face of the earth altogether, I offer a little post of Miscellaneaeaeaeaaaeeeee...

First, what has happened since I last posted something seriously entertaining. Some might argue that that has actually been quite a long time... but I digress.

We had the 43rd anniversary of the assassination of President Kennedy. I know that because he was killed three months after I was born. Even though I was not born here in the US, my parents were compelled by it and kept the newspaper from that day. I remember seeing it when I was old enough to understand. I have had a fascination with the Kennedy murder since then.

We had the Pearl Harbor anniversary as well. Although this was also an horrific event, I never was really as compelled by it as much as the Kennedy thing. Maybe I'm just a conspiracy nut.

We had the confirmation of Nancy Pelosi as the new majority leadership. I like her idea of the "first 100 hours" - a take on the "first 100 days" as a measuring stick for new presidents. We are starting to hear the "I" word bandied about a bit more as well. Although I don't think it's overall a great idea to impeach a president, I can't think of a more deserving defendant. Sounds to me like the Democrats are trying to convince the repubs to make the first move, which will benefit both parties, because it will give the repubs distance from the now-obvious stupidity of the current WhiteHouse, and it will insulate the dems from the venom of the registered repubs who think the president is the greatest thing since sliced bread (still).

I have posted two or three newer articles/observations over at the Mortgage Times. I've also set up a WordPress version of it, hoping to move all that over there at some point at the first of the year, when I hopefully have the time. (hopefully is perhaps the most misused word in the English language...)

Mortgage rates have dropped through the FLOOR over the last 6 weeks, and the base rate for a 30 year fixed loan right now is, get this, 5.5%. That doesn't suck right now. There's speculation that the Fed will actually DROP the base rate in January, or at least in the first part of the year. I think not though, because there is too much external, international pressure on the value of the dollar, which is more important to the fed than domestic mortgage rates. They will keep it where it is, to shore up the value of the flagging dollar in international markets, in particular, China, Japan, and the Euro countries, all of whom have a HUGE vested interest in the value of the dollar, because they all own MAJOR positions in US currency compared to the rest of the currencies in their portfolios. When the dollar value drops in market trading, those countries LOSE money (value) IMMEDIATELY, which COULD spur a dollar currency sell-off. If you think times have been bad around here over the last five years, you ain't seen NOTHIN' yet, if our major dollar-holders want to dump their dollar positions. Very. Bad. Look for interest rates at the FED level to remain the same until at LEAST May of next year.

The good news is that mortgage rates are expected to stabilize over the next year and plateau generally where they are right now, or move only slightly higher. So that helps.

Utah Jazz off to their best start in franchise history, best in the league as well. When did THAT happen? You gotta love it baby.

I am currently VERY out of love with DirecTV. To the point I am almost ready for a divorce. Unfortunately I have a significant investment in their HD TIVO boxes, etc. GAAK. Dammitohell.

Let's see, what else....

Back to house projects for a moment. I laid hardwood at home over the weekend. Basic floor went awesome, but I thought the stairs would end me. Stairs, in and of themselves: not so bad. Stairs, when you have to cut around railing parts: SUCKAGE.

When you have to cut everything in the garage during a cold snap - also suckage.

Before/after pictures coming soon.

New countertops for the kitchen should hit right after we get back from vacation, cabinets in January. We were looking around the house a day or two ago, and couldn't find ANYTHING that would have been original to the house when it was built. Very little as well that is original to 6 or 7 years ago, even.

So, I think that is all for right now - sorry no pictures, one of the very few in a long time. Sorry to you visual types. I'll get back to it soon enough. On second thought, have a small picture of the entire family, taken in August, just before ThatOneSecondOldest left for his mission to New Caledonia. Don't worry, I don't know where that is either. But I do know that it costs $94 to send 20 pounds of Jello there. Just sayin. Pretty sure it's halfway to Mars. He can use the newly-discovered water there to mix it up. MMMMmmm, Jello.

The Mortgage Times...

New Mortgage regulations are out

This post, along with the last one, here
are brought to you by your favorite mortgage moron, me. I forgot to add a laughable picture of some unfortunate, unsuspecting individual on the last post.

New Crap Over at Mortgage Times:

The Bond Report September 25th 2006

National Association of Realtors Report

Clearing Up Closing Costs

Housing Bubble: Did the Media Do Enough?

What is an "Exotic Hybrid Mortgage"?

Utah Real Estate Market Data

Kiplingers Gets It Mostly Wrong

My REAL life:

The 10 Year Bond and You: Why You Care

The Bond Report: Monday September 25, 2006

Again, brought to you by your favorite mortgage guy:

More at Mortgage Times

Mortgage Rates at a 6 Month LOW

Fed May Have to Lower Rates to Avoid Downturn

I wish I HAD To Buy a Home Here...

Sincerely,
Your Favorite Mortgage Guy

New items over at Mortgage Times

Leveraging Credit and Buying Power

Getting Multiple Loans

Mortgage Rates at 6 Month Low

Go check it out - brought to you by your favorite mortgage guy.