Mortgage Lenders

First Time Home Buyer Tax Credit Loan Program with Low Interest Rate FHA Mortgage and Low Down Payment. Government Assistance to purchase Lender Foreclosed Homes. Go To http://RealEstateMarketingThisWeek.com

Part 4 (Excerpt)

FHA financing why you should work with a broker: 4% appreciation over the last 17 years

You mentioned earlier that property values are up 71% long term, even though we had this 50% drop. Youre talking about the average 4% appreciation per year since 1992.

Right, I did some calculations I was working on a book last year and one of these days I may get around to publishing it. Its called Real Estates Future and what we were looking at was a statistical model to be able to pick the top and the bottom of all the real estate markets. I hadnt looked at the thing for about a year until I was working with Michael the other day and I started pulling it out and going lets run the model and see where we are in regards to the market, and one of the things I looked at is the last time we saw the bottom of the market was when I was selling houses for the RTC and that was in 1992, the median home price was $76,000. Median home price now is $130,000. That means from 1992 until now it went up 71%, thats after we just saw a 50% decline. So it is up 4% per year on average, and where else are you going to get a return like that? Even if you put 3.5% down on a house you are getting a heck of a lot more than a 4% return. If you look at the internal rate of return it is significantly greater.

Right and dont buy a house because you are looking at a rate of return. If you are a first time home buyer and you can qualify for this program, if you have been living in an apartment for the last three years and you just want to have a better place for yourself and your family to live, I know right now there are a lot of fabulous houses out there for $130,000. I saw one the other day that was listed at $100,000 that I know was probably at least $250,000 a couple of years ago. Yes, four bedroom-three bath houses, we are currently working on several cases at $150,000 or below, in good parts of Maricopa county.

I ran some numbers before as well just looking at the number of homes that sold in Maricopa County in January and in that month 45% of all the houses that were sold, sold for less than $130,000. And when I had the example earlier about the median family could buy a $280,000 that was 85% of the market. 85% of all the houses that were sold in Maricopa County could be purchased by a family of four with a median income.

And you know with the loan limits the way they are with FHA with 3.5% down you can go all the way up to $358,000 and still only put 3.5% down. Pretty much anyone can get in and I would probably say that 90-95% of all the houses sold were within the FHA loan limit. That means you can still get in with 3.5% down, you dont have to have perfect a credit report, you cant have a lot of bumps on it but it doesnt have to be perfect, you dont have to have a huge FICO score.

Do they even look at FICO scores? Its complicated, the Federal Housing Administration does not have a minimum FICO score requirement, however all of the mortgage banks have overlays, so in other words nobody uses just the FHA guidelines, they have their own parameters on top of the FHA requirements. One of the main reasons why you would want to go to a broker instead of directly to your bank is they may or may not have enough overlays that will work in your favor. As a broker we have all of the major mortgage banks and we know the guidelines, so we can make anyone fit into a house that can get approved.

Right and thats always the nice thing about working with a broker because you have, lets say you have 20 banks that you are signed up with and you are FHA with all of them, so you have 20 different sets of guidelines that you can fit the borrower into. If a home buyer went to a bank and they had to do an appraisal and a credit check and all that and then they denied you, you would have to go to a different bank and they would have to do all that same stuff all over again. When you are working with a broker they do it one time and then shop it to 20 different lenders.

Yes, and I have to point something out more importantly, if you go directly to your bank and you do get declined after you have spent the money on all these different things the process is much more difficult because you have to start all over again and the reason you were declined has to be explained as well and it becomes a much more lengthy process. Where as when working with a broker you dont have to do that. We take the hit for you and we move you into the right lender of your choice…

Duration : 0:6:3

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Tax Credit for First Time Home Buyer and FHA Mortgage to Purchase Bank Foreclosures at Discount Prices. Down Payment Assistance for Home Owners thru Federal Program. Go To http://RealEstateMarketingThisWeek.com

Part 6 (Excerpt)

Foreclosures may be the best purchase option for first time home owners; Interest rates at all time lows

In the last couple of months, 40% of all the total sales in Maricopa County were foreclosures. 40% of the total market was foreclosures and thats not including short sales, and so normally someone is doing a short sale because their bank is not willing to work with them to do the loan modification. So we could be taking 50% maybe 60% of the supply off the market and as soon as we do that we are going to start to see the bottom of this market.

So right now again I think it is a fantastic time to get out there, with government intervention, its a great time to get out there and buy a house. Most people who are out there looking at homes today they have already met with a realtor or they have met with their mortgage planner or both and they are ready to get out there and go. One of the things that is still happening out there is it is still a hot buyers market. The buyer can still go buy a home that fits their needs, their families needs, that they can grow with and the seller in most cases is willing to pretty much do whatever they can as long as they get somewhere close to what they need to yield on the property.

They are willing to pay all of your closing costs in almost every case and if there are some repairs that need to be done then they are willing to do those again in almost every case. It has to be of course within reason and it also has to be repairs that need to be done. For instance, if you want granite countertops because you dont like the Formica, the lender is not going to pay for that. But if there are no countertops then the lender in most cases will do that. It has to be a primary residence. They are not going to do this for investors.

We have had a lot of cases moving past this month. You can get the lowest interest rates weve seen in years and get the seller to pay most of your closing costs, but you do need to get in and get preapproved, not prequalified preapproved, for a loan so you have that check with you when you go out to make an offer. If you are approved we can close that loan in a hurry and you will not have any problems.

One thing especially here in Arizona there are so many people who are upside down in their homes right now. You have the same issues in Florida and California everybody knows the states where they have been really hard hit. It is really difficult for a seller who is $100,000 upside down in their home to put their house on the market and get it sold and be able to give a good deal to a first time home buyer, so thats why I think in this market right now the foreclosures are some of the best deals out there. You have a motivated seller, you have a vacant house and in some cases you even have financing available from the seller of the property. Being a Fannie Mae, FHA or VA who can provide financing, so the foreclosures right now are definitely the hot spot in the market. What we were saying a couple of minutes ago was that theres a potential that coming six months from now these foreclosures could be gone. And that is great for everybody

Yes it is great for everybody and now is the time to get in there and snap them up and I have heard anecdotal stories, just recently my brother picked up a couple of REOs and he is paying somewhere between $30,000 and $50,000 for these properties, two of them were tri-plexes. And I know someone just the other day bought a home for $45,000. It was a three year old house, they had to clean the carpet and moved the tenant in the next day and that was actually someone who worked in your office Michael. Pretty easy to cash flow on a $45,000 house. Its really easy to cash flow on a $45,000 house and the rent on that was probably about $1200. So I dont know, what are they making $500, $600, $700 a month?

But what I am saying is thats the kind of prices you can get. Now I am not saying go buy the $45,000 house, because I dont know what the neighborhood was like. He said it was brand new, but maybe you have to buy the $150,000 house. But the biggest thing is make sure you get pre-qualified first. Dont start looking at foreclosure properties or any other property until you go to Velocity Financial and get yourself pre-qualified…

Duration : 0:5:48

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First Time Home Buyer Mortgage Program with $8000 Tax Credit, Low Down Payment and Fixed Interest Rates on Government FHA Loans. Financing Assistance at Cheap Rates. Go To http://RealEstateMarketingThisWeek.com

Part 3 (Excerpt)

$8,000 tax credit the government is paying you to buy a home with a very low down payment

We have back in the studio today Mr. Dan Havey. Dan and I have worked together in the mortgage industry for about 14 years and we are happy to have him back. He has seen a lot of changes in the market and thanks again for being here.

Michael, here is a question I wanted to ask you, there is so much misconception in the marketplace today as far as what is still available for financing. I think a lot of people have this idea that it is impossible to finance a loan or get a mortgage or that you have to be able to put 20% down or have a 720 FICO score. Can you let people know whats really going on out there?

Well you know a lot of things have gone away. There are a lot of those old loan programs that were fancy ways to sell money and finance real property and a lot of thats gone. The reality of it is, if a person has a minimal amount of money down, there is absolutely financing through the Federal Housing Administration with 3.5% down. You can buy up to about $358,000 with only 3.5% down. Now with Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, we actually do have a few investors that will allow us to only put 5% down with those and that loan amount maximum is $417,000. So there is still plenty of financing for primary residences.

Now in regard to looking at investment properties believe it or not there are actually still some stated income loans out there, but the stated income loan is for a non owner occupied property, the interest rates are very high and you know what, if you can put 20 to 25% down and prove your income you are better off using conventional financing, it is absolutely still available.

Now if you are a first time home buyer living in an apartment and you are getting kind of tired of it, you are looking at low interest rates, you are looking at the property values have come down over 50%, FHA is generally going to be the direction that person is going to want to go, right?

Absolutely and you know Dan with the $8000 first time home buyer tax credit you know that is a check that the government sends you for up to 10% of the sales price of the home up to $80,000. Its capped at 10%, you are not going to get more than $8,000 back and you may get less if you buy for less than $80,000, but whats really interesting about this is you can, if you have already filed your 2008 tax return, you can file a 1040X and get that credit sooner. You dont have to wait until April 15th of 2010 to get your tax credit. You put the money down today, close on the mortgage, move in, file your 1040x, there is a form that is called the 5405 but thats not all that important, and you can have that money back in your pocket right away.

So I know that was part of the plan that came out today and just to make it a little bit clearer for peoplelets just take an example. Lets say you buy yourself a $150,000 house and you buy it as an FHA, it doesnt really matter how much money down or how you buy the house but if you buy a $150,000 house, you are going to get an automatic $8,000 tax credit that you can take off of the taxes that you owe the government. So lets take an example where you are a W-2d employee and you pretty much break even at the end of the year, you dont owe the government any money and they dont owe you any money the government will actually write you a check for $8,000 for that tax credit and if you buy it this year you can amend your tax return for 2008 and get a check from the government for $8,000.

And thats not including the other tax write offs that you get for writing off the taxes on the house writing off the interest on the house, so again with a $150,000 house with 6% interest roughly you are going to be looking at another $10,000 worth of write offs on top of that. Now that is a write off not a tax credit, like the other one so you are going to save whatever your tax rate is. So lets say your tax rate is 30%, that is another $3,000 in taxes saved. So if you buy a house this year you are going to put an extra $11,000 in your pocket.

So if you buy a $150,000 house and you have to put 3.5% down, Thats what? Lets just say roughly $5,000, you just made $6,000 and you get to own a house. ($11,000 tax savings minus $5,000 down payment) And your mortgage payment is more than likely less than or equal to what you are paying for rent and you own it.

Exactly and you get the benefits of having your own house…

Duration : 0:6:14

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First Time Home Buyer Tax Credit of $8000 thru Federal Loan Program and FHA Mortgage with Low Interest Rates and Fees. Low Down Payment to Purchase Bank Foreclosures. Go To http://RealEstateMarketingThisWeek.com

Part 1 (Excerpt)

Interest rates hit bottom, first time home buyers should buy before the prices go back up

We have a special guest back in the studio today. Dan Havey has been a great promoter for Velocity Financial . Dan and I have been working together for about 14 years now. Dan has brought with him some really, really interesting facts and figures for people who are wondering whats happening, wondering if we are at the bottom of the market, wondering how much further we are going to have to go. We are going to talk about lots of different things like that. Hes got some really good information, in my opinion some good stuff, some good solid data to make some good decisions about whether or not you should or should not buy right now.

So, Today was the official day that President Obamas Plan was rolled out. It was designed to help some 8 to 9 million homeowners, responsibly homeowners they called them, people who purchased homes at the peak of the real estate market with 20% or more down. The plan is just so darned convoluted, it is very complicated, people are calling wondering whats real, whats not real, whats going to happen. The bottom line is about 19% of all the homes were financed utilizing Fanny Mae or Freddie Mac financing. People, who have Fanny Mae or Freddie Mac loans, these conventional type loans, that put 20% down, that used full documentation, which means tax returns to qualify for the loan, those are the only people that are actually going to be helped with this program, and there are so many little caveats to it. I believe its not going to help nearly the number of people as intended. Its very unfortunate that its just not going to be as popular as we thought.

The other thing that people were hoping for, and we have heard this a lot that they are waiting for mortgage rates to get down to 4%, it is not going to happen. If you are out there ready to refinance but holding out waiting for rates to get back down to 4% you need to get off the fence and get something done now. The trend is upward, mortgage rates are going to go up, yes the Fed is buying mortgage backed securities so that should help a little bit. The reality of it is 4% is just not going to happen in this lifetime, so if you are in the middle of the process find something that works good for you and make it happen.

The other thing we are going to talk a lot about today is when rates do go down, which there very well may be a little dip in the next couple of weeks everyone tries to rush in and take advantage of that rate and thats not really what you should do. What you should do is get in with your lender and get the information to them now so they can start working on your loan, put your case together and have everything ready to go so if the rates do drop you will be ready to execute immediately. Interest rates are really good and we are going to spend a lot of time talking about interest rates and how to buy a home, first time home buyer programs and things like that today. But I just had to mention that I get this question all the time when can I lock in 4 and a half or 4%? Well there you go thats my prognostication I am certain that I am right but we will just have to see as time goes on…

Duration : 0:5:32

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First Time Home Buyers use FHA Mortgage and Seller Paid Closing Costs to Buy Real Estate Now. Best Market Conditions for Foreclosures and Short Sales in Decades. Go To http://RealEstateMarketingThisWeek.com

Part 4 (Excerpt)

80% of homes can be purchased with FHA Financing

You also talked about this graph you put together, it talks about the month of November was a 25% increase over the previous year. Obviously prices have gone down and it looks like it then has gone back up, and so once we finish selling off this inventory there is a good chance that were going to be finding or hitting the bottom.

I think just in that region of $150,000 to $200,000 region that prices have really stabilized at this point, they may go down a little bit more, but I think for the most part, because that is where the financing is right now, with the FHA and the conforming loan limits, anybody in that price range can still get a loan. If youre looking to buy something over $400,000 youre going to have a lot more trouble just because the financing is not available.

Well the financing is a lot more difficult over the $417.000 loan amount number. Luckily Velocity Financial still has some of the interim small jumbo financing available, still with decent rates and the larger jumbos there is still financing available but nothing like this median home price of $275,000 and below. Well and I think what that goes back to, specifically with the FHAs, because, what percentage of the closing costs can be contributed by a seller on an FHA loan? Its pretty high right?

FHA financing, the Federal Housing Administration has had a standing rule for quite some time that the seller can contribute up to 6% of the sales price towards the closing costs. Realistically on a $250,000 purchase price youre not going to need 6% towards closing costs, so you would want to use that money to lower the price or buy down the interest rate, or any number of different things. So in a situation like that you could have the seller come in, pay all of your closing costs for you, you can keep that money in the bank, you could use it to fix up the house, you can do whatever, and all you would be responsible for is a small down payment.

Thats correct, 3% of the sale price down, you can have the seller pay the property taxes up to a year in advance, the home owners insurance, the home owners association fees, they are called prepaid or escrows. They can pay all of that. What is the loan limit right now for FHA? Currently the FHA loan limit is $346,250, its kind of an odd number, that does go away at the end of this month, December. However if youre lucky enough to have a home picked out in that price range, you want to try to get it done by the end of the year, so long as were able to get it underwritten in house, our firm will still be able to close on that with a higher loan limit after the first of the year.

The new limits probably going to be your next question, so as of January 1 in Maricopa County its $271,000. Even at 271, with the scenario I was talking about before, in Maricopa County, 70-80% of the home sales still would have fit within that 271 limit. Yes, one thing that I do want to point out is that when the Housing and Recovery Act of 2008 expires that huge loan limit of 346 expires, that was the deal, they are going to try to get it extended but we cant plan on that necessarily, but only 10% of the properties in Maricopa County fit into that 271 to 346 range.

Now I know the answer to this but you dont happen to be qualified to do FHA loans are you? Yes Velocity Financial is FHA approved, were one of less than 15% of the lending institutions in Arizona that can do FHA financing, not only for purchases but for refinancing as well. Which I think is some of the stuff we want to talk about as well because some of the old rules for refinancing simply dont apply anymore.

Brett did you have anything to add? Yes, two things stood out to me in that discussion and one of the things was the bigger picture concept in my mind thats the way it works. Its how I am wired, I start with that then I narrow my way down to the specific scenario given a clients circumstance.

What that big picture represented to me and one of the things that you pointed out with your charting Dan and the work that you have done, is the year over year home sales is shrinking the inventory that exists in Maricopa County, and when that inventory shrinks, we all know that new homes and building had pretty much dried up, so allowing that inventory to shrink is a very positive thing in terms of stabilizing, or placing a bottom, or putting the housing market back on a path of growth long-term, and so that was one of the things that stood out to me.

Duration : 0:6:32

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Amidst the Real Estate & Mortgage Meltdown; Foreclosure Fraud & Scams; Real Estates Future is Great. First Time Home Buyers, FHA Loans & Seller Paid Closing Costs. Go To http://RealEstateMarketingThisWeek.com

Part 1 (Excerpt)

Forget the doom and gloom, First Time Home Buyers can buy with FHA

Thanks to my very great friend Brett Fallon for taking the time to be here in studio today. Brett is one of America’s finest financial advisors. And of course the infamous Dan Havey. Now we all love Dan Havey because he was instrumental in getting me into the mortgage industry about 14 years ago. Most importantly, Dan was instrumental in helping us put together the loan modification hotline and he is the author of Real Estates Future.

So today we have a few things we want discussed in regard to the economy, what’s happened, were wrapping up the year. You may have heard about this in the media, of course the media’s job is to scare you. Well our job is to tell you the truth. So Brett you have some data and some information that you wanted to share

Some of the things you hear in the media, you cant escape, its pretty much doom and gloom, sky is falling, this is the next Great Depression. It’s over for all of us and we should all just pack up and go. That kind of stuff is pervasive out there and creates fear and a lot of anxiety amongst people who are either investors, people who are looking to buy a house, looking to refinance a mortgage.

People dont realize there are certain tools that exist that we will talk about during the course of the show today. They should understand that some of the things that we discussed prior to today’s broadcasts were interest rates. Interest rates are at historic lows. Money is cheaper right now than it has ever been. We know the Fed recently reduced the Fed Funds Rate and that is the rate that banks are lending money to one another at.

Right now that rate is zero. Historically, that’s never happened in the United States before. The Fed’s idea is to help to unfreeze this credit market and we keep hearing all this talk about how credit markets are still frozen, that the global recession is deepening, there is evidence to the contrary of that. Some of the moves that the FED is making are working. We’re starting to see, and you and I were talking recently about some clients that were helping in terms of refinancing existing mortgages. Well, if the credit markets are frozen how come we got those loans complete?

Well, that’s a good point, and you got a call I think it was last Monday or maybe the Monday before, someone called you and asked if there was any money to refinance. What can I do? Well the reality of it is there is plenty of money out there for refinances, in some cases there’s issues with property values. That’s why there are different options for those types of people

Well from a buyer’s perspective, todays property valuation is a good thing, if I’m a buyer. Thats a good point too. People are interested in buying and the huge opportunity today. This is an unprecedented opportunity in my opinion, both in terms of the dollar and the real estate market. And for those who understand those dynamics and are willing to entertain the deal, they will be handsomely rewarded. There is no doubt about it.

And as we spoke on the last show, home prices in November for Maricopa County show that the median home price is down as low as $160,000 already. And it reminds me a lot about when I got into the industry, way back in 1989 and the type of financing we had then was FHA and Fannie Mae. And were back to that again now. We’ve got sanity back into the market and home prices have come down. But right now, it’s a perfect time, especially for first-time homebuyers or a move up buyer who can buy under the Fannie Mae limit of $417,000. If you can get into that range, and as we spoke before that 78% of the homes in Maricopa County that sold last month sold for under $250,000. I think that right now is the time just to get out there and find a house to move your family and children into with an FHA loan.

Michael, you don’t have to have exactly perfect credit do you? You can have a couple of dings if need be, right? You’re exactly right, each case has its own merits, every FHA loan is underwritten individually. There are many cases where collections are okay, there needs to be a explanation. You dont have to have the 720 plus credit scores like you do for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to get the best rates…

Duration : 0:6:10

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Tax Credit for First Time Home Buyer Mortgage and Government Assistance Program to Help Home Owners Finance a Real Estate Loan with Low Down Payment and Interest Rate. Go To http://RealEstateMarketingThisWeek.com

Part 5 (Excerpt)

Inventory of foreclosed homes may be declining soon Home sales double in last year

So we are back in studio today with Dan Havey. Dan and I have known each other for many years and we have worked very close over the years in real estate. Dan and I are not necessarily 100% in agreement with where the market is today and whether we are at the bottom or not. I tend to believe that we are. Let me tell you my thinking on this.

Dan uses actual facts and figures to make his prognostications. Heres what I know, I know that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac have put a moratorium on foreclosures. What that means is that they are slowing the supply of repos. What that means is that they are putting fewer homes on the market, which means the supply has been reduced to a 9 month supply of resale homes on the market. The builders are gearing up, getting ready to start building again, but they are not building again just yet. Thats a great indicator.

Interest rates couldnt be better. They havent been better than they are now, so not only can you buy a house at the same price you would have paid for that house in 2002, but you are going to get a significantly lower interest rate then it would have been then. Effectively a house today is going to cost you less than it would in 2002, with the interest rate and the home value being what they were. Now if property values do continue to increase and the average rate of 4%, your internal rate of return on your investment will increase exponentially.

One of the things that Dan Havey did say, and I kind of think you need to pound on this a couple of more times is this, you dont buy a house for you and your family as an investment, you buy a house because you want to live there, because you want to raise your family there, because its right for you. The investment part of it will come in time on its own. For now owning a home, owning that dirt, raising your family, making your new memories, is the best thing in our opinion that you can do.

Dan, why dont you take a minute and talk about the year over year numbers that you have. Well, there is a number of things I agree with you on Michael and one of the things I was really surprised by when I started looking at the numbers the other day is that since June of 2008, so 7 or 8 months ago, since then, year over year sales actually increased and in many cases have doubled. So lets just say for a specific example if there were 5,000 sales in Maricopa County in June of 2008 that would mean that there were 2,500 a year earlier, and so anytime you see an increase in sales year over year and especially when you see this big of an increase, 100% increase year over year for most all of the last 8 months, that is a huge indicator that the market is starting to recover. Now there are other factors as Michael said, the builders are not quite building yet, but I like the fact that there is the moratorium in many cases now on the foreclosures going through, and with the Mortgage Bailout Bill that came out today part of it was $75 Billion that they were going to throw at Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, and all of the other lenders who received TARP funds to help modify loans.

One of the requirements is if the lender, Fannie, Freddie, or the servicer is working with the home owner they have to stop the foreclosure process, so hopefully what this is going to do is over the next six months its going to help out millions of people. I am not quite sure how they are going to get all of these loans done, there are an awful lot of people that need to have their loans modified, but even if they can just help some of these people to delay the foreclosure sale, help these people get their loans modified.

First off it is going to help keep people in their homes but the biggest thing from the standpoint of property values and first time home buyers is that its going to start taking some of that supply off the market there are going to be less repos out there for people to buy and because of that property values are going to begin to stabilize and quit dropping…

Duration : 0:5:43

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First Time Home Buyers use FHA Mortgage and Seller Paid Closing Costs to Buy Real Estate Now. Best Market Conditions for Foreclosures and Short Sales in Decades. Go To http://RealEstateMarketingThisWeek.com

Part 7 (Excerpt)

The old rules no longer apply and Suze Ormond should know that.

We have Dan Havey the author of Real Estates Future in the studio today.

Michael, I was just curious, back when I got into the industry many, many years ago there used to be a rule of thumb that if you were going to refinance you had to lower your interest rate by at least two percent and I know as time went along and products changed that really became unnecessary, but I am just curious in todays mortgage market its a lot different than we were dealing with even two years ago. Is that still true that there is a 2% rule? Whats going on now?

I happened to catch Suze Orman on television and she was talking about mortgages, the caller who called in to the program, the question became I believe similar to what Dan just asked, her comment was that basically if you’re in 6% interest rate or above now is the time to re-fi. That is what she said, a blanket recommendation. I know a lot of people put a lot of credence into what she says, maybe you could speak to that, the lowest interest rates you’ve seen in your career, you have been doing this for a while.

I have, and they are. You know there was a lot of speak the last couple weeks about the Fed, the Fed funds rate by the way is the lowest it’s ever been in history. As of this week the discount rate is to the point that banks are lending money to each other at nothing, the Fed funds rate for intrabank lending is at zero, the problem is the banks don’t have any money.

To be serious about the refinancing, because its a serious topic, I think people are starting to see their mail boxes filled with lots of advertising crap about refinance. I believe that doing the refinance is no different from doing a loan modification or buying a house, you need to sit down with the human being that’s local, that you can know is a legitimate source. You’re going to give all this personal information about you, your family, your kids, your Social Security number, you want to make sure you have somebody there that you know whos legit.

In regard to the old rule of thumb 2%, nothing could be further from the truth, and I will expand, but to the point of Ms Ormond that if youre at 6% or higher, that is a blanket statement and blanket statements never work. We just did a refinance for a guy who was at 5 1/2%, and it makes sense. Every situation is different, as far as how much do I have to lower my interest rate to make it work? It depends on the type of mortgage that you get.

The only type of loan to get today in December of 2008 is a 30 year fixed. I know that one of the things that was really interesting to me, and that you and I have referred clients to one another for several years, so we share a number of clients, were familiar with those families and those households, and this is Wednesday, on Monday and Tuesday of this week I’ve had seven phone calls from clients who you’ve already done loans for, refinances for, asking if this is the time to refinance a loan that is only a couple years old.

And I know in several of those cases the answer is yes you’re actually helping families right now with that process. I am and we do. To answer the question, you need to determine what the payback term is, in other words when your refinance is done it’s a new loan, there’s the title insurance, appraisals, lots of different things may need to be done, not in every case, but in most cases there are costs associated with that. The cost has to be offset by the amount of savings. Its a breakeven analysis

Absolutely it is, the shorter the breakeven the better the loan. I am working on a case right now which is going to be done in the next couple of days where the guy lowered his interest rate by an1/8 of a percent and it made sense for him. It’s not for everybody, 2 percent or lower, 2% is significant, now you’re talking about really significant savings in terms of cash flow…

Duration : 0:6:31

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Now, The U.S. Attorney’s Office is conducting a criminal investigation over their mortgage deals.

The Wall Street Journal was first to report that the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Manhattan was looking at the investment house’s mortgage securities deals. Those deals had attracted a civil suit by the Securities and Exchange Commission.

The Journal’s source said the investigation stemmed from a criminal referral by the SEC, and came just days after 62 House lawmakers asked the Justice Department for a criminal probe.

CBS News Business Correspondent Rebecca Jarvis said it was to be expected.

“We know that often times, these types of investigations that become civil in the first place, turn into criminal investigations down the road,” said Jarvis.

A Goldman Sachs spokesman downplayed its importance and said they were not surprised by the report of an inquiry due to the recent focus on the firm. He added that they would cooperate fully with any request for information.

The standard for any criminal conviction is much higher than a civil one.

“Prosecutors must show that there was an intention to commit fraud. Not simply that this business, that Goldman Sachs, accidentally committed fraud in terms of trying to protect itself from mortgage securities and the housing crisis. So the burden of proof here is high,” said Jarvis.

The issue in all of the investigations is whether Goldman Sachs knowingly bet against its own investors on mortgage securities. Time will tell what these investigations discover.

Duration : 0:2:49

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3-25-09 and 6-24-09: House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform

Duration : 0:10:36

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