Northwest Indiana Mortgages - FHA and Conventional

Indiana mortgage company update

noreply@blogger.com (briefs) — Thu, 25 Jun 2009 11:11:00 +0000

Hey, I know over 1,000 readers a day come here for mortgage and real estate information, and thanks for taking the time. I am personally spending a lot of my time working with home buyers in Northwest Indiana who are looking for a purchasing homes. Yes, I still do private small business consulting and even home building ... but the greater part of my efforts are focused right now on helping people with their mortgages, purchase and refinance. Give me a call, I'd love to help you.

Northwest Indiana Mortgages

For those looking for our website, please check it out First Financial Trust Mortgage.

For home mortgage loans in Indiana we focus on FHA mortgages and first time buyers.

As always call me at 219-762-7200 or email me at Northwest Indiana Mortgage Steve

Valparaiso Mansion for sale - the rest of the story

noreply@blogger.com (briefs) — Tue, 16 Jun 2009 14:22:00 +0000

It is unfortunate that news media, newspapers included, get so little of a story these days. So many newspaper writers want to write a brilliant piece, only to get waylaid by the desire to scare or give half the story because it sounds better. Case in point:

The story today in the Post Tribune about the unbelievable home in Pepper Creek in Valparaiso Indiana that is now for sale, finally. Here's the truth that wasn't quite reported:

The home was started and mostly completed by Signature Construction as a home for the owner of the company. That company, like many others in the last two years, was beset with problems emanating from the sub-prime mortgage mess. When buyers can't get loans, or mortgage companies go out of business, homes that were pre-sold immediately become specs. Banks don't like specs.
As I've mentioned on many sites before this post, the problem is not in home builders taking risks, or being fraudulent for the most part. The problem in the last two years was Federal bank regulators coming down on banks and telling them "stop all spec construction, get out of home lending" Once this edict went down in 2007, the home building spiral was in full death dive.
The home is now finally for sale, and I will agree with the agent that in a normal market would sell for roughly $6 million. Here I will have to guess, since it now appears the home has been sold to an investor, the bank must have acquired it through foreclosure to eliminate the liens. But remember that the only reason there were liens in the first place is because the bank wouldn't pay the subs that were owed money. All too often the builder gets blamed for not paying the subs, but the subs get paid from the bank's construction loan as items are finished. In this case, following the orders of the federal government, they stopped construction and used foreclosure process to not have to ever pay those subs.

Real Estate in Recovery - Northwest Indiana

noreply@blogger.com (briefs) — Thu, 28 May 2009 12:05:00 +0000

Sorry, it has been far too long since I last posted here on our Northwest Indiana Real Estate site. The refinance boom came on us so quickly in lat 2008 that we've been just barely keeping up, and now this terrific news ... Real estate in northwest indiana is in a firm recovery mode.

If you own your home and have been thinking of selling it, perhaps wait a few more months for inventories to reduce. But if you are looking to purchase, I would highly recommend doing so now while rates are in the 5%-5 1/2% range ... they will go up as the government borrows to cover the cost of the Stimulus package.

If you are a first time buyer, email me and we'd be glad to show you the key steps to getting that first mortgage and first home. steved@fftmortgage.com

Easter and a pause in the action

noreply@blogger.com (briefs) — Sun, 12 Apr 2009 12:37:00 +0000

Happy Resurrection Sunday - Easter

Happy Resurrection Sunday - Which we call Easter

Roughly 2,000 years ago Jesus Christ raised himself from the grave, he was all the way dead don't play games with the story in your head, and he overcame that death to show that he/God is dominant over even death.

"Where o death is thy sting ..."

Although we as Christ followers believe in our own mortality and depravity in sin, and our need for a redeemer to pay the penalty of our sins, and therefore the dominant role of the cross in helping us remember the horrible death and sacrifice of Christ

The Resurrection is in many ways more important. All other sacrifices died, the lamb the goat the bird, never to be seen again.

Jesus Christ rose again ... that's a really big deal. Quite possibly the most important event in human history, in 7,000 years, the resurrection of Jesus Christ. A 100% man, who was 100% God (of course we can't understand that tension) died a horrible death and then three days later raised himself from that tomb, rolled away a multiple ton rock, and walked out still bearing the holes in his hands and feet ... the marks of the price he paid on our behalf.

Sorry for this pause in political debate, but it's well worth the pause. If you are offended at this blatant statement, or feel that no one has the right to state "truth" when there are so many different opinions in today's society ... welcome to post modern predictable thought ... you too have been duped by humanities 7,000 year desire to be "my own person" and "not need a god"

Take a deep breath and dare yourself to ask "where do I stand for eternity?"

What's the solution to Gary Indiana?

noreply@blogger.com (briefs) — Mon, 09 Mar 2009 11:11:00 +0000

Doug Ross from the Times Newspaper is engaging readers on their ideas for solutions to the problem that is Gary Indiana. All of us in NW Indiana need to be not only concerned about Gary but interested in a solution, albeit a very long term one. What are your thoughts? What should be done about Gary, to help Gary?

Should the state step in and take over the City?
Should Miller be allowed to de-annex?
Should the airport be taken away from Gary and developed directly by the RDA?
Should Gary Sanitary be privatized and the proceeds of that sale used to pay off debt?
What city services should be eliminated to bring the budget into balance with state property tax caps?

I'll cross post in a few areas today, this is a worthy question and serious answers are going to be needed.

Dave Woodson - First Financial Trust Mortgage

noreply@blogger.com (briefs) — Thu, 05 Mar 2009 16:06:00 +0000

If you're looking for a mortgage today in Northwest Indiana, give Dave Woodson a shout at 219-872-8000. For home buyers and refinances in LaPorte, Porter, Lake and St. Joseph counties in Northern and Northwest Indiana.

Northwest Indiana Home Mortgages

Housing Starts Plunge - good news?

noreply@blogger.com (briefs) — Wed, 18 Feb 2009 14:04:00 +0000

Frankly yes, this means that inventories which were already shrinking late last year will continue to contract. Watch for price stabilization in the next 60 days in most markets. What does all this mean? It means that 5% interest rates, low home prices, little chance of renewed over-inventory problems, and increasing rents add up to the most affordable time to buy a home in ... probably ever frankly.

If you are even considering the idea of buying, you are going to miss the bottom by waiting around for CNN or MSNBC to tell you it's time. Call us 219-762-7200 we'd be glad to do a quick pre-qualification and get you out there buying at the bottom of the market.

Marketwatch Story:

Economic Report: Housing starts plunge 17% to record low in January

from MarketWatch.com - Top Stories

The collapse in the housing industry accelerated in January, as construction on new U.S. housing units plunged 16.8% to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 466,000, the Commerce Department reported Wednesday, far below the weakest levels of construction in the post-World War II era.

Grace Safrin with a new #realestate idea

noreply@blogger.com (briefs) — Mon, 09 Feb 2009 13:36:00 +0000

From San Fransisco Chronicle

See Jeff and Grace Safrin's blog for more information

You've had your house on the market for several months with no takers. Lately, though, a nice young couple has come back to give the place a second look, perhaps even a third. You wait anxiously, but still no offer.

Another tool to escape foreclosures 02.08.09

What do you do? How about turning the tables and making them an offer instead, an offer they just might not be able to refuse.

It's called a reverse offer, and it's a technique Grace Safrin, an associate broker with F.C. Tucker/Advantage Realty in Valparaiso, Ind., used to sell three houses last year. "It's a form of match-making that has worked on several occasions for us," she said.

Reverse offers aren't new. They were used in the 1980s recession when mortgage rates were in double digits and the few would-be buyers were often reluctant to pull the trigger. But except for a few mild slow markets since then, wannabe owners have pretty much fallen all over themselves to find houses, often battling over the same one, and all sellers had to do was sit back and wait for the offers to come in.

Things are different now. The market is saturated with homes, and buyers are back on the sidelines. So, if you are what is called a motivated seller, Safrin and a number of other progressive realty pros say it may be time to dust off this old tactic.

"In this real estate market, it's not always business as usual," the Northern Indiana agent said.

"A reverse offer works something like this: A potential buyer has shown more than passing interest in your house, and the buyer's agent has indicated his client really likes the place. But for some reason, a week or two has gone by and the buyer hasn't made an offer.

Something is holding him back. Perhaps he likes everything about the place but the carpeting. Maybe he wants to show the house to his parents and get their approval. Perhaps he still wants to look at several other places. Or maybe he's just paralyzed from watching the news about the awful real estate market.

It can be any number of things. So based on feedback from his agent, why not make the reluctant buyer an offer? Maybe you'll knock a few grand off your asking price, agree to change the carpeting and throw in a 12-month home warranty. Perhaps you'll also agree to wait for however long it takes for him to get approved for a mortgage, or give him some extra time to close.

In other words, whatever it takes to not only get his attention and but put his John Hancock on a contract. "I've never met a buyer who has been unhappy to receive a reverse offer," said Steve Leung, an agent in Cupertino. "Are they surprised? Usually. Will they listen? Most always."

Not all realty pros are enamored with the reverse offers. Greg Cremia of Shore Realty in Nags Head, N.C., is one nonfan. "Everybody is looking for something new," he said, "but new things aren't always the best."

Cremia's main objection is that with a reverse offer, the seller is tipping his hand. "What the interested buyer hears is that the seller is either desperate, struggling, getting divorced, sick, in financial trouble or needs to sell and is willing to negotiate a real bargain of a deal," he said. That's not the ideal position for a seller starting the negotiation process, he said, "but (it is) a dream scenario for a buyer."

Ruth Gabbard of Gabbard Hawaii Properties in Honolulu said she is a little gun-shy. Though she's done several successful reverse offers, she also is concerned that the seller may be showing his cards to the other side.

At the same time, Gabbard says that if the seller is desperate, his "desperation will come across no matter what."

"To me, price reductions spell desperate," she said. "If you reduce the price five times, that tells everybody everything they need to know. So why not take the bull by the horns. Sometimes, if there's just an inkling of interest from a buyer who's not quite to the plate, making him an offer might make him bite."

There are other ways to use reverse offers, which also are known as pre-emptive or seller-initiated offers. One might be if the buyer is using an inexperienced agent and your more veteran agent wants to write the contract to make certain it is worded perfectly. Another is if negotiations have broken down and you want to make one last-ditch attempt to get the deal back on track.

Todd Waller of Real Estate One in Ann Arbor, Mich., even uses the ploy when his clients have found two or three homes they'd be happy to buy. "I have asked the listing agents of those homes to submit an offer to my clients," he says. "For my buyers, it's an opportunity to not be tied to one contract and gauge a seller's willingness" to negotiate.

Still, reverse offers don't work in all situations. But if you are truly motivated, it is an aggressive, if unorthodox way to force the hands of an otherwise hesitant buyer.

Agents who have used the technique successfully suggest keeping these points in mind:

Interest: The would-be buyer must have shown some interest. Throwing an offer out there to just anybody who views your house probably won't be enough to get their attention. They should at least have come back for a second look. Otherwise, warns Kathy Skrzypiec of Newport County Real Estate in Tiverton, R.I., it could encourage fire sale-type counteroffers.

Feedback: Similarly, the buyer must have mentioned to his agent that there was something he liked about your property. The big backyard, perhaps. Maybe the woods behind the house. Or perhaps the large master suite. Whatever it is, something must have tickled his fancy; otherwise, he wouldn't have come back. "There has to be very, very good feedback," said Safrin, the Indiana broker.

The buyer: Your potential purchaser must be qualified. That is, he should be pre-approved for a mortgage. If he's not, you could be spinning your wheels. Also, try to determine what type of financing he is going after - government or conventional. The time it takes to process his loan will determine how long your property will be off the market.

His agent: You can't try to bypass the buyer's agent. "If you have good communications with the other agent," said Jenny Robinson of Keller Williams Realty in Clarksville, Tenn., "the offer can be tailored" to his client's needs.

If the buyer's agent balks, though, or if he doesn't understand that you are trying to open a dialog with his client to see if you can come to a meeting of the minds, making the buyer an offer won't work. That's why Safrin spends at least a half-hour with the other agent explaining what her seller is trying to do. "It's a new paradigm for the buyer's agent, too," she said.

The offer: Here, Safrin suggests putting yourself in the buyer's shoes, and being generous. Find out what has been holding the buyer back from making an offer, and meet those objections head on. If the house needs a paint job, for example, offer to paint it, or at least give the buyer an allowance to cover the cost. Or maybe he needs some help with closing costs.

Price: Obviously, you'll have to come down on your asking price. But don't cut to your rock-bottom number, at least not right away. "Leave yourself some wiggle room," said Gabbard, the Hawaii broker.

Expiration: Once the offer is made, it cannot be revoked unilaterally, said Leung, the Cupertino agent, so be sure the contract has an expiration date. Otherwise, it is considered an open offer.

Jim Zimmer from PCBA - housing first

noreply@blogger.com (briefs) — Sat, 07 Feb 2009 14:13:00 +0000

I've said it here a ton of times, and now former President of Porter County Builders Association says it bluntly: a housing recovery will yield a global economic recovery.

From the Times:
There is one important element missing from the landmark economic stimulus package being assembled on Capitol Hill. Little attention has been given to solving the devastating impact of the housing downturn, which is the root cause of the financial crisis that continues to escalate at an alarming rate.

Over the past couple of years, more than 3 million jobs in construction and related fields have been lost, $3.5 trillion of home equity has evaporated, and home sales and production have plunged to record lows. The collapse of the housing market eventually resulted in the financial meltdown and credit crunch we saw last fall and now has spilled over into the general economy with devastating results.

Congress must fix the underlying problem in order to put the economy back on the path to growth and prosperity. At the same time as our lawmakers work to reduce mortgage foreclosures, they must provide incentives that will bring home buyers back into the marketplace. Providing a home buyer tax credit that could be applied toward a down payment would do the job. Based on local housing prices, the credit would range significantly higher than the $7,500 currently available for first-time purchases; it would go to all home buyers, with income limitations; and it would not need to be repaid. The credit would be available only until the end of this year, sending a strong signal to families who have been sitting on the fence that they need to act quickly to take advantage of this opportunity.

America's consumers and lenders won't regain the confidence our economy so desperately needs until they see an end to the downward spiral in housing values. As history shows, housing is the sector that leads the economy out of recession. Congress must make meaningful provisions in the stimulus legislation that will enable housing to return to that role as quickly as possible.

James Zimmer, Past President, Porter County Builders Association

REALTOR announces uptick in sales

noreply@blogger.com (briefs) — Wed, 04 Feb 2009 20:55:00 +0000

Now go ahead and talk it down, turn it into negative news, but the truth is the market is already turning around. We don't need a stimulus, we need more buyers to buy homes, flat:

Pending home sales increased as more buyers took advantage of improved affordability conditions, according to the National Association of Realtors^®. Big gains in the South and Midwest offset modest declines in other regions.

The Pending Home Sales Index,¹ a forward-looking indicator based on contracts signed in December, rose 6.3 percent to 87.7 from an upwardly revised reading of 82.5 in November, and is 2.1 percent higher than December 2007 when it was 85.9.

Lawrence Yun, NAR chief economist, said the index shows a modest rebound. “The monthly gain in pending home sales, spurred by buyers responding to lower home prices and mortgage interest rates, more than offset an index decline in the previous month,” he said. “The biggest gains were in areas with the biggest improvements in affordability.”

Hammond offering down payment assistance

noreply@blogger.com (briefs) — Fri, 23 Jan 2009 14:22:00 +0000

For many the interest rates dropping to 4.5% has only solved one half of the home affordability issue ... the second half is having enough for a down payment and closing costs.

The City of Hammond Indiana has a terrific program called Homebound, which allows a dollar for dollar matching for citizens interested in buying a home in Hammond. Here's the only info I could find on the city website about the program, for some reason cities that have good programs to help people buy homes do a poor job of promoting them.

The Homebound Home Ownership Program provides eligible individuals/households with forgivable loans to purchase a home in Hammond. The program is designed to further build interest in homeownership in the City. “One of the issues facing our City is the lack of owner-occupied housing. Like the College Bound program a year ago, Homebound is designed to create interest in investing and living in Hammond. The Homebound Home Ownership program offers buyers up to $2,500 to assist with a down payment or closing costs on an existing home and up to $5,000 on new construction. If you are interested in more information or in applying for the program, contact the city’s Department of Planning and Development Loan Officer Jennifer Hinojosa for an appointment 219-853-6333

I'll be calling and emailing today for more information on income restrictions too. Remember my first and foremost position here on this site: This recession was caused by a lack of confidence in real estate and the entire globe awaits a return to home ownership confidence and accessability here to restart the entire economy. Don't get caught up in other industries or stimulus bills, "It's housing stupid"

Conservative Cafe in Crown Point

noreply@blogger.com (briefs) — Thu, 22 Jan 2009 21:13:00 +0000

Perhaps you've visited this restaurant in historic Crown Point, Indiana ... but they are looking to raise funding to go national with franchises

clipped from www.inc.com

Elevator Pitch: Conservative Café Wants to Take Coffee Back from Liberals

LOCATION: Crown Point, Indiana

The Pitch: "Coffeehouses have always leaned to the left. We give conservatives a place to feel comfortable and rally around their values. We have got TVs tuned to Fox News. Our four blends are Liberal, Moderate, Conservative, and Radical Right. Conservative is our top seller, but Liberal, a decaf blend, is popular, too. We serve food and sell T-shirts with slogans like 'Peace Through Superior Firepower.' We are looking to raise capital to begin franchising and bring on an experienced partner. We have received more than 50 requests from prospective franchisees. We would like to start with four stores in 2009, then open 10 more in 2010."

FUNDING SOUGHT: $1 million

NWI Blogger and Tweetup

noreply@blogger.com (briefs) — Mon, 05 Jan 2009 02:01:00 +0000

NWI Indiana Blogger Meetup

This Thursday at 6 pm. at Golden Technologies 2402 Beech St. Valpo
No sales pitches, just a chance to meet everyone

Please come ... and also help us promote it. (use #nwindiana hashtag if using twitter)

Credit Crisis Timeline

noreply@blogger.com (briefs) — Fri, 02 Jan 2009 12:09:00 +0000

This is lifted from American Thinker, and by the way to the editor if you'd prefer I not take so much of the text leave comment or email me, I linked to it here and on #TCOT yesterday so you can get some new readers on an older post. The original article was written prior to the election and goes on to point out some thoughts on Obama and manipulating the situation to gain votes and socialize more of the economy. Also refer to my article Why banks aren't the bad guys

The Growing Government Hand

1933-1938

President Franklin D. Roosevelt initiated a series of "New Deal" reform programs designed to affect the mortgage market and homeownership. Fannie Mae, the Federal National Mortgage Association, was established to facilitate liquidity among lending institutions.

1968

As part of President Johnson's Great Society reform plan, much of Fannie Mae became a private owned yet government chartered company, a government sponsored enterprise (GSE) providing authority to issue mortgage-backed securities (MBS). Fannie Mae buys home mortgages in order to preserve liquidity in the secondary mortgage market. Though private, it remained backed by the Federal government.

1970

President Nixon chartered Freddie Mac, the Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corporation, as a GSE to compete with Fannie Mae. Designed to help grow the secondary mortgage market, Freddie Mac purchases mortgages from lending institutions to either be securitized as MBS and sold in the secondary market or held by Freddie Mac. At this time the secondary market for conventional mortgages was small.

1977

Sen. Proxmire (D-Wisconsin) introduced a "creeping socialism" community reinvestment Senate bill. Opponents argued the bill would allocate credit without regard for merits of loan applications, thereby threatening depository institutions. Proponents countered that it was only to ensure that lenders did not ignore good borrowing prospects in their communities. The bill's sponsor stressed it would neither force high-risk lending nor substitute the views of regulators or those of banks.

President Carter, pressed by grassroots organizations -- though opposed by the banking industry, signed into law the Community Reinvestment Act (CRA). In the years following the Act has undergone several revisions.

To boost community development laws, CRA was a provision designed to stem bank "redlining," the practice of drawing a red line around low-income communities and denying lending in these areas. The original intent of CRA was to encourage banks to foster homeownership opportunities in these underserved communities in which the lending institutions are chartered.

According to Section 801 of title VIII, "regulated financial institutions are required by law to demonstrate that their deposit facilities serve the convenience and needs [i.e., credit and deposit services] of the communities in which they are chartered to do business." Accordingly, "regulated financial institutions have continuing and affirmative obligation" to meet these needs. Moreover, the title required each "appropriate Federal financial supervisory agency to use its authority when examining financial institutions, to encourage such institutions."

1980s

With CRA came increased oversight of lending institutions to ensure they were giving credit to low- and moderate-income communities. Regulators expressed that CRA was not designed to compel credit allocation, nor did it require risky lending practices. Moreover, ECOA (Equal Credit Opportunity Act) and FHA, not CRA, were in place to address discrimination in lending. But community organization groups like the radical ACORN began efforts to reshape CRA into government-imposition, in accord with what "affirmative obligation" might suggest. They began pressing the semantic open door and stretching the "discrimination" provision to complain about enforcement of the regulations as lending institutions resisted bad lending practices in poor minority communities.

August 1989

To deal with the savings & loan fallout of the 1980s, Congress enacted the Financial Institutions Reform Recovery and Enforcement Act. In a move with ominous portent, FIRREA mandated public release of lender evaluations and performance ratings, resulting in added pressure on the banking industry. Such public oversight enabled bullying abuses of community organization groups like ACORN to further influence bank lending practices.

1990s

With the mechanisms in place, the community organizing groups began developing directed strategies to exert more and more pressure on the lending industry in the cloak of complicity with CRA. Community organizer Barack Obama worked closely with ACORN activists. Employing the radical Alinsky intimidation tactics Obama had learned and was teaching -- "direct action" -- activists crowded bank lobbies, blocked drive-up teller lanes and demonstrated at the homes of bankers to browbeat risky lending in poor and minority communities. Those who resisted were accused of racism to the media and government officials.

The agitators could now stall or hijack bank mergers by filing complaints of non-compliance against the institutions. Lawsuits alleging redlining and racism began flooding the court system. With the prospect of expansions and mergers threatened, banks settled cases and, significantly, increasingly made loans they would not have normally made. The net effect, as ACORN litigation increased, was that credit standards lowered.

Initially the GSEs resisted purchasing these risky mortgages but eventually the Clinton Administration instructed them to substantially increase the percentage of these mortgages in their portfolios. The government-backed Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac of the Clinton reforms became "a feeding trough," in the phrase of Peter Ferrara.

The poor communities and their exploitive leaders benefited from the capitalization with a surge of homeownership, at least on the surface. Wall Street benefited from increased sales of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and guaranteed mortgage-backed securities, as the housing market benefited from new capital channeled from Fannie and Freddie. And the GSE heads profited, with political support in Washington in the form of campaign contributions.

In the period 1989-2008, topping the list of recipients of contributions from Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac is the chairman of the Senate Banking Committee, Sen. Dodd (D-Connecticut), who received $165,400. Second on the list is Sen. Obama (D-Illinois), receiving $126,349 with only three years in the Senate. Rep. Frank (D-Massachusetts), received $42,350.

February 1990 - Am I the only one to find it interesting that ACORN is in the center of this move to grab billions in bank money by government orders

Madeline Talbott, a well-known radical ACORN leader and banking industry agitator, challenged the merger of a Chicago thrift, Bell Federal Savings and Loan Association, who responded that they were being bullied into irresponsible "affirmative-action lending policy."

1991

ACORN interfered with a House Banking Committee meeting for two days protesting a move to bring CRA reform.

1992

Enforcement of CRA was "sporadic," as the Washington Times notes, until a Federal Reserve Bank of Boston study asserted that there were "substantially higher denial rates for black and Hispanic applicants than for white applicants." Co-author Lynn Browne was approached by co-author Alicia Munnell to do the study because "community activists were complaining that mortgage loans were not being made in minority communities."

According to the Times, however, "the study had mishandled statistics on minority default rates. When the errors were accounted for, the same study showed no evidence that nonwhite mortgage applicants were being discriminated against."

Frank Quaratiello, writing in the Boston Herald, cites Stan Liebowitz, "My guess is that they were interested in finding a particular result." Said Liebowitz, "Richard Syron was head of the Boston Fed at the time. He went on to be the head of Freddie Mac. They were looking for mortgage discrimination and they found it."

According to Quaratiello, Syron became Freddie Mac CEO and chairman in 2003 and "faced increasing pressure to buy up more and more risky mortgages, some of which the Boston Fed's guide had, in effect, served to legitimize." Regarding Syron's total compensation in 2007 of $18.3 million, Liebowitz reportedly quipped, "Nice reward for presiding over unprofessional research behavior, bankrupting Freddie Mac and crippling our financial system, all in the name of politically correct lending."

September 1992

The Chicago Tribune described the ACORN agenda as "affirmative action lending." And, writes Kurtz, "ACORN was issuing fact sheets bragging about relaxations of credit standards that it had won on behalf of minorities."

October 1992

Congress, enacting the Federal Housing Enterprises Financial Safety and Soundness Act of 1992, allowed legislation to "amend and extend certain laws relating to housing and community development." The Act created the Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight (OFHEO) within HUD to "ensure that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are adequately capitalized and operating safely." It also "established HUD-imposed housing goals for financing of affordable housing and housing in central cities and other rural and underserved areas."

Rep. Jim Leach (R-Iowa) warned about the impending danger non-regulated GSEs posed. As the Washington Post reports, his concern was that Congress was "hamstringing" the regulator. Complaint was that OFHEO was a "weak regulator." Leach worried that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were changing "from being agencies of the public at large to money machines for the stockholding few."

Rep. Barney Frank (D-Massachusetts) countered, as the Post reports, "the companies served a public purpose. They were in the business of lowering the price of mortgage loans."

September 1993

The Chicago Sun-Times reports an initiative led by ACORN's Talbott with five area lenders "participating in a $55 million national pilot program with affordable-housing group ACORN to make mortgages for low- and moderate-income people with troubled credit histories." Kurtz notes that the initiative included two of her former targets, Bell Federal Savings and Avondale Federal Savings, who had apparently capitulated under pressure.

July 1994

Represented by Obama and others, Plaintiffs filed a class action lawsuit alleging that Citibank had "intentionally discriminated against the Plaintiffs on the basis of race with respect to a credit transaction," calling their action "racial discrimination and discriminatory redlining practices."

November 1994

President Clinton addresses homeownership: "I think we all agree that more Americans should own their own homes, for reasons that are economic and tangible and reasons that are emotional and intangible but go to the heart of what it means to harbor, to nourish, to expand the American dream. . . . I am determined to see that you have the opportunity and together we can make that opportunity for the young families of our country. I am committed to a new and unprecedented partnership between industry leaders and community leaders and Government to recommit our Nation to the idea of homeownership and to create more homeowners than ever before."

June 1995

Republicans had won control of Congress and planned CRA reforms. The Clinton Administration, however, allied with Rep. Frank, Sen. Kennedy (D-Massachusetts) and Rep. Waters (D-California), did an end-around by directing HUD Secretary Andrew Cuomo to inject GSEs into the subprime mortgage market.

As Kurtz notes,"ACORN had come to Congress not only to protect the CRA from GOP reforms but also to expand the reach of quota-based lending to Fannie, Freddie and beyond." What resulted was the broadening of the "acceptability of risky subprime loans throughout the financial system, thus precipitating our current crisis."

The administration announced the bold new homeownership strategy which included monumental loosening of credit standards and imposition of subprime lending quotas. HUD reported that President Clinton had committed "to increasing the homeownership rate to 67.5 percent by the year 2000." The plan was "to reduce the financial, information, and systemic barriers to homeownership" which was "amplified by local partnerships at work in over 100 cities."

Kurtz concludes, "Urged on by ACORN, congressional Democrats and the Clinton administration helped push tolerance for high-risk loans through every sector of the banking system -- far beyond the sort of banks originally subject to the CRA. So it was the efforts of ACORN and its Democratic allies that first spread the subprime virus from the CRA to Fannie and Freddie and thence to the entire financial system. Soon, Democratic politicians and regulators actually began to take pride in lowered credit standards as a sign of ‘fairness' -- and the contagion spread."

Attorney General Janet Reno, with a number of bank lending discrimination settlements already, sternly announces, "We will tackle lending discrimination wherever it appears." With the new policy in full force, "No loan is exempt; no bank is immune." "For those who thumb their nose at us, I promise vigorous enforcement," reiterated Reno.

1997

HUD Secretary Cuomo said "GSE presence in the subprime market could be of significant benefit to lower-income families, minorities, and families living in underserved areas . . ."

1998

By falsifying signatures on Fannie Mae accounting transactions, $200 million in expenses was shifted from 1998 to later periods, thereby triggering $27.1 million in bonuses for top executives. James A. Johnson received $1.932 million; Franklin D. Raines received $1.11 million; Lawrence M. Small received $1.108 million; Jamie S. Gorelick received $779,625; Timothy Howard received $493,750; Robert J. Levin received $493,750.

April 1998

HUD announced a $2.1 billion settlement with AccuBanc Mortgage Corp. for alleged discrimination against minority loan applicants. The funds would provide poor families with down payments and low interest mortgages. Announcing the Accubank settlement, Secretary Cuomo said, "discrimination isn't always that obvious. Sometimes more subtle but in many ways more insidious, an institutionalized discrimination that's hidden behind a smiling face."

Before the camera, Cuomo admitted the mandate amounted to "affirmative action" lending that would result in a "higher default rate." The institution would "take a greater risk on these mortgages, yes; to give families mortgages who they would not have given otherwise, yes; they would not have qualified but for this affirmative action on the part of the bank, yes. It is by income, and is it also by minorities? Yes. . . . With the 2.1 billion, lending that amount in mortgages which will be a higher risk, and I'm sure there will be a higher default rate on those mortgages than on the rest of the portfolio."

May 1999

The LA Times reports that African Americans homeownership is increasing three times as fast as that of whites, with Latino homeowners is growing five times as fast, attributing the growth to breathing "the first real life into enforcement of the Community Reinvestment Act." This breath of "life" mandated that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac buy mortgages with deviant down-payments and debt-to-income ratios which allowed lenders to approve mortgages for lower-income families that would have been denied otherwise.

By now all pretense had disappeared, lending practices were based upon concerns of discrimination in the banking system regardless the consequences. The administration threatened to veto a bill passed by the Senate which had "shortsightedly voted to retrench" CRA, as the advocative Times put it.

Under pressure, Fannie Mae was resisting increased targeting, arguing that the result would be more loan defaults. Barry Zigas, heading Fannie Mae's low-income efforts, argued, "There is obviously a limit beyond which [we] can't push [the banks] to produce," the Times reported.

Fall of 1999

Treasury Secretary Lawrence Summers warned, "Debates about systemic risk should also now include government-sponsored enterprises, which are large and growing rapidly."

September 1999

With pressure from the Clinton Administration, Fannie Mae eased credit requirements on loans it would purchase from lenders, making it easier for banks to lend to borrowers unqualified for conventional loans. Raines explained that "there remain too many borrowers whose credit is just a notch below what our underwriting has required who have been relegated to paying significantly higher mortgage rates in the so-called subprime market," reported the New York Times.

With this action, Fannie Mae put itself at substantial risk in the event of an economic downturn. "From the perspective of many people, including me, this is another thrift industry growing up around us," warned Peter Wallison. "If they fail, the government will have to step up and bail them out the way it stepped up and bailed out the thrift industry." The danger was known.

September 1999

A study by Freddie Mac, confirming earlier Federal Reserve and FDIC studies, contradicts race discrimination arguments for CRA. The study found that African-Americans with annual incomes of $65-$75,000 have on average worse credit records than whites making under $25,000, showing that the difficulty in qualifying was not because of race but because of bad credit records. The Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas accordingly entitled a paper "Red Lining or Red Herring?"

2000

The National Community Reinvestment Coalition instructed on how to exploit the new CRA regulations, "Timely comments can have a strong influence on a bank's CRA rating." NCRC asserted, "To avoid the possibility of a denied or delayed application, lending institutions have an incentive to make formal agreements with community organizations." That is, the mere threat to intervene in the CRA review process had equipped the ACORN groups for the massive shakedown.

Moreover, ACORN had been given a compelling incentive, as CRA allowed the organizations to collect a fee from the banks for their services in marketing the loans. The Senate Banking Committee had estimated that, as a result of CRA, $9.5 billion had gone to pay for services and salaries of the organizers.

Winter 2000

City Journal warned that the Clinton administration had turned CRA into "a vast extortion scheme against the nation's banks," committing $1 trillion for mortgages and development projects, most of it funneled through the community organizers.

March 2000

Rep. Richard Baker (R-Louisiana) proposed a bill to reform Fannie and Freddie's oversight in a House Subcommittee on Capital Markets.

Rep. Frank (D-Massachusetts) dismissed the idea, saying concerns about the two were "overblown" and that there was "no federal liability there whatsoever."

Treasury Undersecretary Gary Gensler testified in favor of GSE regulation. He argued that the bill would promote private market discipline, increase transparency and preserve market competition, reducing the potential for subsidized competitors to distort financial markets.

Fannie Mae spokesmen responded by calling the testimony "inept," "irresponsible," and "unprofessional."

Wallison of the American Enterprise Institute testified to the subcommittee that the bill was "a milestone in Congressional efforts to gain control of the Government Sponsored Enterprises." He added that the "political courage and stamina that was required to introduce this bill and to continue to press it forward cannot be overstated." He emphasized that the bill was only an "interim step in the necessary process of dismantling the GSEs and eliminating both their threat to the taxpayers and to the private financial sector of our economy."

Wallison explained why Fannie and Freddie "pose a serious problem for both the public and private sectors." First, they contain an inherent contradiction. "It is a shareholder-owned company, with the fiduciary obligation to maximize profits, and a government-chartered and empowered agency with a public mission. It should be obvious that it cannot achieve both objectives. If it maximizes profits, it will fail to perform its government mission to its full potential. If it performs its government mission fully, it will fail to maximize profits."

He sounded an alarm on a "vicious and dangerous cycle." "Fannie and Freddie must grow in order to maintain their profitability and hence their high stock prices, but there is no countervailing check on their growth - no effective competition, no required government approvals, and no fear in the financial markets that there is any risk associated with financing this growth. Moreover, their fiduciary obligations to their shareholders require them to exploit their subsidy to the fullest extent possible. These are agencies that are - in the fullest sense of the phrase - out of control."

Congressional Democrats and GSE representatives vigorously attacked any such criticism. "We think that the statements evidence a contempt for the nation's housing and mortgage markets," rebuffed Sharon McHale, Freddie Mac spokeswoman. Congressional Democrats and GSE representatives prevailed.

June 2000

Fred L. Smith Jr., writing in Investor's Business Daily, recalls testifying before the House Financial Services Committee that GSE "special privileges create a serious hazard to the market, to taxpayers [and] to the economy." He warned that these GSEs were "strange organizations, neither private-sector fish nor political-sector fowl" and that "as a result, no one is quite sure how these entities should be evaluated or held accountable." These new debt portfolios "will certainly increase the likelihood of a Fannie-Freddie default."

Rep. Paul Kanjorski (D-Pennsylvania): "Mr. Smith, that is almost a fallacious argument," adding that rapid growth of GSE debt holdings was nothing to worry about as it simply reflected "inflation and the growth of population. "Everything, proportionately, is that much larger."

Rep. Marge Roukema (R-New Jersey): "very few banks or S&Ls could, even in this day and age, even now, meet the stress-testing requirements which Fannie and Freddie are required to meet."

Rep. Carolyn Maloney (D-New York) regarding the Treasury Department line of credit: "It is really symbolic, it is obsolete, it has never been used." "Would you explain why it would be important to repeal something that seems to be of little use?"

Smith: "as long as the pipeline is there, it is like it is very expandable. . . . It is only $2 billion today. It could be $200 billion tomorrow."

Because of Democrat obfuscation, Smith's "tomorrow" arrived in 2008 when Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson put Fannie and Freddie into conservatorship.

April 2001

Fiscal Year 2002 Budget declares that the size of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac is "a potential problem," because "financial trouble of a large GSE could cause strong repercussions in financial markets, affecting Federally insured entities and economic activity," says a White House release.

July 2001

Subcommittee hearing on a bill proposed by Rep. Baker to transfer supervisory and regulatory authority over Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System and abolish the OFHEO.

Rep. Paul Kanjorski (D-Pennsylvania) responded: "This bill would dramatically restructure the current regulatory system for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. In my opinion, it also represents a solution in search of a problem. Nearly a decade ago, Congress created a rational, reasonable, and responsive system for supervising GSE activities, and that system with two regulators is operating increasingly effectively. H.R. 1409 would unfortunately interrupt this continual progress."

March 2002

Business Week interview with Fannie Mae Vice-Chairman Jamie Gorelick about the prospects for the coming year:

Gorelick: "we are expecting a very, very strong 2002."

Gorelick: "We believe we are managed safely. . . . Fannie Mae is among the handful of top-quality institutions. . . . . And we have consistently exceeded every standard that the examiners have set for us."

May 2002

In an OMB Prompt Letter to OFHEO, the President calls for the disclosure and corporate governance principles contained in his 10-point plan for corporate responsibility to apply to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

February 2003

OFHEO reports that "although investors perceive an implicit Federal guarantee of [GSE] obligations . . . the government has provided no explicit legal backing for them," warning that unexpected problems at a GSE could immediately spread into financial sectors beyond the housing market, according to a White House release.

2003

Rep. Richard Baker (R-Louisiana), chairman of the House Financial Services subcommittee with GSE oversight over Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, was informed by OFHEO "on the salaries paid to executives at both companies," according to the Washington Post. Reportedly, "Fannie Mae threatened to sue Baker if he released it, he recalled. Fearing the expense of a court battle, he kept the data secret for a year." "The political arrogance exhibited in their heyday, there has never been before or since a private entity that exerted that kind of political power," he said.

June 2003

Freddie Mac reported it had understated its profits by $6.9 billion. OFHEO director Armando Falcon Jr. requested that the White House audit Fannie Mae.

July 2003

Sens. Chuck Hagel (R-Nebraska), Elizabeth Dole (R-North Carolina) and John Sununu (R-New Hampshire) introduced legislation to address Regulation of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. The bill was blocked by Democrats.

September 2003

In an interview with Ron Insana for CNN Money, Rep. Baker warned, "I have concerns that if appropriate resources aren't allocated for internal risk management, the consequences will be far more severe than just a real estate slowdown. The losses would fall quickly through the capital these companies have and down to shareholders and taxpayers. These companies have some of the lowest capital margins of any financial institution in the nation, yet, at the same time, they are two of the largest. The concern is that if something doesn't work out the way they predict, the American taxpayer could be called on to pay off the debt in some sort of bailout."

The New York Times reports that the Administration recommended "the most significant regulatory overhaul in the housing finance industry since the savings and loan crisis a decade ago," calling for new supervision of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac by the Treasury Department. Reportedly, Congressional Democrats "fear that tighter regulation of the companies could sharply reduce their commitment to financing low-income and affordable housing."

Treasury Secretary John Snow testifies that Congress enact "legislation to create a new Federal agency to regulate and supervise the financial activities of our housing-related government sponsored enterprises" and set prudent and appropriate minimum capital adequacy requirements, says a White House release.

Rep. Barney Frank (D-Massachusetts): "I do not think we are facing any kind of a crisis. That is, in my view, the two government sponsored enterprises we are talking about here, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, are not in a crisis. . . . I do not think at this point there is a problem with a threat to the Treasury. . . . I believe that we, as the Federal Government, have probably done too little rather than too much to push them to meet the goals of affordable housing and to set reasonable goals.

Rep. Barney Frank (D-Massachusetts): "These two entities - Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac - are not facing any kind of financial crisis. . . . The more people exaggerate these problems, the more pressure there is on these companies, the less we will see in terms of affordable housing."

Rep. Melvin Watt (D-North Carolina): "I don't see much other than a shell game going on here, moving something from one agency to another and in the process weakening the bargaining power of poorer families and their ability to get affordable housing."

October 2003

Fannie Mae discloses $1.2 billion accounting error.

November 2003

Council of the Economic Advisers Chairman Greg Mankiw warned, "The enormous size of the mortgage-backed securities market means that any problems at the GSEs matter for the financial system as a whole. This risk is a systemic issue also because the debt obligations of the housing GSEs are widely held by other financial institutions. The importance of GSE debt in the portfolios of other financial entities means that even a small mistake in GSE risk management could have ripple effects throughout the financial system," from a White House release.

Mankiw explains that any "legislation to reform GSE regulation should empower the new regulator with sufficient strength and credibility to reduce systemic risk." To reduce the potential for systemic instability, the regulator would have "broad authority to set both risk-based and minimum capital standards" and "receivership powers necessary to wind down the affairs of a troubled GSE," says a White House release.

February 2004

Fiscal Year 2005 Budget again highlights the risk posed by the explosive growth of the GSEs and their low levels of required capital, and called for creation of a new, world-class regulator: "The Administration has determined that the safety and soundness regulators of the housing GSEs lack sufficient power and stature to meet their responsibilities, and therefore . . . should be replaced with a new strengthened regulator," reports a White House release.

Mankiw cautions Congress to "not take [the financial market's] strength for granted." Again, the call from the Administration was to reduce this risk by "ensuring that the housing GSEs are overseen by an effective regulator," says a White House release.

June 2004

Deputy Secretary of Treasury Samuel Bodman spotlights the risk posed by the GSEs and called for reform, saying "We do not have a world-class system of supervision of the housing government sponsored enterprises (GSEs), even though the importance of the housing financial system that the GSEs serve demands the best in supervision to ensure the long-term vitality of that system. Therefore, the Administration has called for a new, first class, regulatory supervisor for the three housing GSEs: Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, and the Federal Home Loan Banking System," the White House reports.

September 2004

OFHEO reported that Fannie Mae and CEO Raines had manipulated its accounting to overstate its profits. Congress and the Bush administration sought strong new regulation and authority to put the GSEs under conservatorship if necessary. As the Washington Post reports, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac responded by orchestrating a major campaign "by traditional allies including real estate agents, home builders and mortgage lenders. Fannie Mae ran radio and television ads ahead of a key Senate committee meeting, depicting a Latino couple who fretted that if the bill passed, mortgage rates would go up." Again, GSE pressure prevailed.

October 2004

Rep. Baker again warned about the coming crisis in the Wall Street Journal: "Then there's the lesson of a company, Frankenstein-like, seemingly grown so powerful that it can intimidate and arrogantly flout all accountability to the very government that created it."

Baker adds, "Although their bonds bear the disclaimer ‘not backed by the full faith and credit of the U.S. government,' the market does not believe it and looks right past the companies' risk strategies to the taxpayers' pockets."

In a subcommittee testimony, Democrats vehemently reject regulation of Fannie Mae in the face of dire warning of a Fannie Mae oversight report. A few of them, Black Caucus members in particular, are very angry at the OFHEO Director as they attempt to defend Fannie Mae and protect their CRA extortion racket.

Chairman Baker (R-Louisiana): "It is indeed a very troubling report, but it is a report of extraordinary importance not only to those who wish to own a home, but as to the taxpayers of this country who would pay the cost of the clean up of an enterprise failure. . . . The analysis makes clear that more resources must be brought to bear to ensure the highest standards of conduct are not only required, but more importantly, they are actually met."

Rep. Maxine Waters (D-California): "Through nearly a dozen hearings where, frankly, we were trying to fix something that wasn't broke."

Rep. Maxine Waters (D-California): "Mr. Chairman, we do not have a crisis at Freddie Mac, and particularly at Fannie Mae, under the outstanding leadership of Mr. Frank Raines."

Rep. Gregory Meeks (D-New York): "And as well as the fact that I'm just pissed off at OFHEO, because if it wasn't for you I don't think that we'd be here in the first place, and now the problem that we have and that we're faced with is: maybe some individuals who wanted to do away with GSEs in the first place, you've given them an excuse to try to have this forum so that we can talk about it and maybe change the, uh, the direction and the mission of what the GSEs had, which they've done a tremendous job. There's been nothing that was indicated that's wrong, you know, with uh Fannie Mae. Freddie Mac has come up on its own. And the question that then presents is the competence that, that, that, that your agency has, uh, with reference to, uh, uh, deciding and regulating these GSEs. Uh, and so, uh, I wish I could sit here and say that I'm not upset with you, but I am very upset because, you know, what you do is give, you know, maybe giving any reason to, as Mr. Gonzales said, to give someone a heart surgery when they really don't need it."

Rep. Ed Royce (R-California): "In addition to our important oversight role in this committee, I hope that we will move swiftly to create a new regulatory structure for Fannie Mae, for Freddie Mac, and the federal home loan banks."

Rep. Lacy Clay (D-Missouri): "This hearing is about the political lynching of Franklin Raines."

Rep. Ed Royce (R-California): "There is a very simple solution. Congress must create a new regulator with powers at least equal to those of other financial regulators, such as the OCC or Federal Reserve."

Rep. Gregory Meeks (D-New York): "What would make you, why should I have confidence? Why should anyone have confidence, and uh, in, in you as a regulator at this point?"

Armando Falcon, OFHEO Director: "Sir, Congressman, OFHEO did not improperly apply accounting rules. Freddie Mac did. OFHEO did not fail to manage earnings properly. Freddie Mac did. So this isn't about the agency engaging in improper conduct. It's about Freddie Mac."

Rep. Christopher Shays (R-Connecticut): "And we passed Sarbanes-Oxley, which was a very tough response to that, and then I realized that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac wouldn't even come under it. They weren't under the ‘34 act, they weren't under the ‘33 act, they play by their own rules, and I and I'm tempted to ask how many people in this room are on the payroll of Fannie Mae, because what they do is they basically hire every lobbyist they can possibly hire. They hire some people to lobby and they hire some people not to lobby so that the opposition can't hire them."

Rep. Artur Davis (D-Alabama): "So the concern that I have is you're making very specific, what you have correctly acknowledged, broad and categorical judgments about the management of this institution, about the willfulness of practices that may or may not be in controversy. You've imputed various motives to the people running the organization. You went to the board and put a 48-hour ultimatum on them without having any specific regulatory authority to put that kind of ultimatum on ‘em. Uh, that sounds like some kind of an invisible line has been crossed."

Rep. Christopher Shays (R-Connecticut): "Fannie Mae has manipulated, in my judgment, OFHEO for years. And for OFHEO to finally come out with a report as strong as it is, tells me that's got to be the minimum not the maximum."

Rep. Barney Frank (D-Massachusetts): "Uh, I, this, you, you, you seem to me saying, ‘Well, these are in areas which could raise safety and soundness problems.' I don't see anything in your report that raises safety and soundness problems."

Rep. Maxine Waters (D-California): "Under the outstanding leadership of Mr. Frank Raines, everything in the 1992 Act has worked just fine. In fact, the GSEs have exceeded their housing goals. What we need to do today is to focus on the regulator, and this must be done in a manner so as not to impede their affordable housing mission, a mission that has seen innovation flourish from desktop underwriting to 100% loans."

Rep. Lacy Clay (D-Missouri): "I find this to be inconsistent and a and a rush to judgment. I get the feeling that the markets are not worried about the safety and soundness of Fannie Mae as OFHEO says that it is, but of course the markets are not political."

Rep. Barney Frank (D-Massachusetts): "But I have seen nothing in here that suggests that the safety and soundness are at issue, and I think it serves us badly to raise safety and soundness as kind of a general shibboleth when it does not seem to me to be an issue."

Rep. Don Manzullo (R-Illinois): "Mr. Raines, 1.1 million bonus and a $526,000 salary. Jamie Gorelick, $779,000 bonus on a salary of 567,000. This is, what you state on page eleven is nothing less than staggering."

Rep. Don Manzullo (R-Illinois): "The 1998 earnings per share number turned out to be $3.23 and 9 mills, a result that Fannie Mae met the EPS maximum payout goal right down to the penny."

Rep. Don Manzullo (R-Illinois): "Fannie Mae understood the rules and simply chose not to follow them that if Fannie Mae had followed the practices, there wouldn't have been a bonus that year."

Rep. Christopher Shays (R-Connecticut): "And you have about 3% of your portfolio set aside. If a bank gets below 4%, they are in deep trouble. So I just want you to explain to me why I shouldn't be satisfied with 3%?"

Franklin Raines, Fannie Mae CEO: "Because banks don't, there aren't any banks who only have multifamily and single-family loans."

Franklin Raines, Fannie Mae CEO: "These assets are so riskless that their capital for holding them should be under 2%."

January 2005-July 2006

Sen. Chuck Hagel (R-Nebraska), co-sponsored by Sens. Sununu and Dole and later Sen. McCain, re-introduced legislation to address GSE regulation.

"The bill prohibited the GSEs from holding portfolios, and gave their regulator prudential authority (such as setting capital requirements) roughly equivalent to a bank regulator. In light of the current financial crisis, this bill was probably the most important piece of financial regulation before Congress in 2005 and 2006," reports the Wall Street Journal.

Greenspan testified that the size of GSE portfolios "poses a risk to the global financial system. It would be difficult, if not impossible, to bail out the lenders [GSEs] . . . should one get into financial trouble." He added, "If we fail to strengthen GSE regulation, we increase the possibility of insolvency and crisis . . . We put at risk our ability to preserve safe and sound financial markets in the United States, a key ingredient of support for homeownership."

Greenspan warned that if the GSEs "continue to grow, continue to have the low capital that they have, continue to engage in the dynamic hedging of their portfolios, which they need to do for interest rate risk aversion, they potentially create ever-growing potential systemic risk down the road . . . We are placing the total financial system of the future at a substantial risk."

Bloomberg writes, "If that bill had become law, then the world today would be different. . . . But the bill didn't become law, for a simple reason: Democrats opposed it on a party-line vote in the committee, signaling that this would be a partisan issue. Republicans, tied in knots by the tight Democratic opposition, couldn't even get the Senate to vote on the matter. That such a reckless political stand could have been taken by the Democrats was obscene even then."

April 2005

Treasury Secretary John Snow again calls for GSE reform, "Events that have transpired since I testified before this Committee in 2003 reinforce concerns over the systemic risks posed by the GSEs and further highlight the need for real GSE reform to ensure that our housing finance system remains a strong and vibrant source of funding for expanding homeownership opportunities in America. . . . Half-measures will only exacerbate the risks to our financial system," from a White House release.

May 2005

At AEI Online, Wallison warned that "allowing Fannie and Freddie to continue on their present course is simply to create risks for the taxpayers, and to the economy generally, in order to improve the profits of their shareholders and the compensation of their managements. It is a classic case of socializing the risk while privatizing the profit."

January 2006

Chairman Greenspan, in a letter to Sens. Sununu, Hagel and Dole, warned that the GSE practice of buying their own MBS "creates substantial systemic risk while yielding negligible additional benefits for homeowners, renters, or mortgage originators." He stated, ". . . the GSEs and their government regulator need specific and unambiguous Congressional guidance about the intended purpose and functions of Fannie's and Freddie's investment portfolios."

March 2006

Sens. Sununu and Hagel introduced an amendment to a Lobbying Reform Bill directing GAO to study GSE lobbying and requiring HUD to audit the GSEs annually.

May 2006

After years of Democrats blocking the legislation, Sens. Hagel, Sununu, Dole and McCain write a letter to Majority Leader William Frist and Chairman Richard Shelby expressing demanding that GSE regulatory reform be "enacted this year" to avoid "the enormous risk that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac pose to the Housing market, the overall financial system, and the economy as a whole."

May 2006

Sen. McCain (R-Arizona) addressed the Senate, "Mr. President, this week Fannie Mae's regulator reported that the company's quarterly reports of profit growth over the past few years were ‘illusions deliberately and systematically created' by the company's senior management. . . . Fannie Mae used its political power to lobby Congress in an effort to interfere with the regulator's examination of the company's accounting problems. . . . OFHEO's report solidifies my view that the GSEs need to be reformed without delay."

McCain stressed, "If Congress does not act, American taxpayers will continue to be exposed to the enormous risk that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac pose to the housing market, the overall financial system, and the economy as a whole. I urge my colleagues to support swift action on this GSE reform legislation."

April 2007

Sens. Sununu, Hagel, Dole, and Mel Martinez (R-Florida) re-introduced legislation to improve GSE oversight.

April 2007

In "A Nightmare Grows Darker," the New York Times writes that the "democratization of credit" is "turning the American dream of homeownership into a nightmare for many borrowers." The "newfangled mortgage loans" called "affordability loans" "represent 60 percent of foreclosures."

September 2007

President Bush: "These institutions provide liquidity in the mortgage market that benefits millions of homeowners, and it is vital they operate safely and operate soundly. So I've called on Congress to pass legislation that strengthens independent regulation of the GSEs . . . the United States Senate needs to pass this legislation soon."

2007-2008

The housing bubble began to burst, bad mortgages began to default, and finally the Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac portfolios were revealed to be what they were, in collapse. And the testimony is evident as to why. As Wallison noted, "Fannie and Freddie were, I would say, the poster children for corporate welfare."

September 2008

Rep. Arthur Davis, whose testimony is found above in October 2004, now admits Democrats were in error: "Like a lot of my Democratic colleagues I was too slow to appreciate the recklessness of Fannie and Freddie. I defended their efforts to encourage affordable homeownership when in retrospect I should have heeded the concerns raised by their regulator in 2004. Frankly, I wish my Democratic colleagues would admit when it comes to Fannie and Freddie, we were wrong."

Why banks aren't the bad guys

noreply@blogger.com (briefs) — Tue, 30 Dec 2008 15:31:00 +0000

And Regulators and Big Government Is: excerpt from my upcoming book "A Conservative on the 2009 Housing Recovery"

In the vacation markets real estate speculators drove an irrational exuberance with myths and stories of huge returns with “no risk” of ever having to purchase the underlying property. This is really where the whole “bubble” talk started. As early as 2002 I can remember investors from the Chicago area flying to Florida to look at proposed condominium sites for investment flips. They would put down perhaps $20,000 per unit and then the sales organization for the developer would work to sell the units to others in return the investor would get back their money plus a share of the increase. The developer was able to use these funds in the interim to secure construction lending and tell the bank they had a sizable portion of the units pre-sold.

Enron, yeah Enron, and for that matter Tyco and other high-flying CEO’s at public companies caused investors and regulators to look more squarely at off-books transactions and balance sheet manipulations. Frankly blame the investors here, for desiring continual and regular increases in income from a world where regular is myth. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, private companies with implicit government guarantees at that time, were caught up in the balance sheet manipulation game and needed more fee income for their bond securitizations to keep investors and regulators happy. We'll look with more interest at Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac later, but suffice it to say no company can serve two masters. You are either a government entity, and the regulators are your boss; or you are a shareholder entity and the shareholders are the boss and take the risks.

Congress stepped in after Enron and Tyco with the motto “It’s OK, we’re from the government and we’re here to fix everything” and passed Sarbanes-Oxley a ridiculous expense creating monster with little or no positive effect unless you were an attorney or accountant. It was interesting this last week to watch the Madoff crisis on Wall Street, knowing that the SEC nor Sarbanes-Oxley overregulation could do anything about a true securities criminal. Shame on the investors again for wanting something that can't be had.

Oh yeah, I forgot while on the subject of government over-stretch, banking regulations also “required” or ORDERED banks to make loans in targeted bad neighborhoods to keep their charters as banks. Community Reinvestment Act (CRA) loans were then given looser standards, or no standards at all to meet these ludicrous requirements. This program was drastically increased under President Bill Clinton with banks being told, lend in the inner city or lose your charter to operate.

Banks decided the only way to off-set the sure losses from CRA loans, was to also expand lending to these loose standards in other communities. The thought was to balance almost certain losses in CRA targets with gains in non-CRA communities. Some liberal economists have scoffed at my point, and have suggested what we need is a lot more regulation. They are biased, in general the science of economics tends toward central control and even socialism, it's just plain eaiser to control and predict when less people have any power.

Loans were created to allow 100% financing on real estate. Other loans allowed self-employed borrowers, always tough to lend because incomes rise and fall each month, to “state” an income and support it with assets or credit scores. These were not all bad loans, to this day and with all the talk of a bubble burst and credit crisis foreclosures are still less than 25% of all these sub-prime, ALT-A and other composite loans.

During this period of steadily loosening requirements for a mortgage under the now famous Sub-Prime and Alt-A lending phase, the securitization of mortgages become extremely complex. Typically a mortgage loan is originated by a local bank or mortgage broker and then actually funded by a larger mortgage banker/company. These loans are then packaged together into big pools and the payments are used to secure bond financing in the open market. This entire process started to become very difficult to understand, but investors kept buying without asking for details. The transparency that we all assume exists in the market, where investor knows what they are buying, was slowly dissolved to the point of complexities that only super-computers and PhD's could understand.

During early 2007 the demand for housing began to decline off records in previous years, this is a regular occurrence and we all know there’s a roughly 7 year housing cycle. This demand reduction though, this time, was reported as the beginning of the housing bubble burst by major media. Real estate professionals, never wanting to be left out, jumped on the bandwagon and decried to one and all “Housing is dropping, sell and drop your price now." I fault real estate professionals with losing their professionalism generally. Want to create chaos in a movie theater? You yell "fire" and watch as people rush the doors.

Regional banks also decided at this in-opportune time to dramatically decrease their exposure in construction and real estate lending. Some banks shut down their entire lending departments and told staff remaining to be prepared to take part in wholesale auctions to get rid of everything else. Thus began the credit freeze. Though some friends in banks have confronted my theory with a contrary view: regulators stepped in at this time and ordered banks to cut real estate lending for fear of losses and banks did what they were told. What an interesting parody of thoughts, the regulators ordering banks to reduce exposures to real estate, while the Treasury Sec. and Congress is complaining that banks have frozen all lending.

Like a run on a bank, when confidence wanes, markets and consumers over-react and over-sell their assets for fear of being stuck with them. Couple this phenomenon with legitimate concerns about speculators in vacation markets and you have pressure on values and immediate increases in inventories. Oldest economic theory in existence, when supply is high and demand soft, prices decline.

Investors finally decided to look deep inside their bond portfolios and found to their dismay higher foreclosure rates from Sub prime and Alt-A mortgages than they expected. Why they didn’t expect higher defaults no one knows, I can remember many a time asking “why are these loans priced so low, shouldn’t they be above 10% for the risk inherent in less documentation?”

Large mortgage companies came under attack first, with the removal of hundreds of higher risk programs and demands that they make things right quickly. Well they couldn’t and in reducing the number of products they offered, their stocks were battered by their stock holders. Many of these large mortgage companies went under and the survivors are weak and incapable of helping create a housing recovery.

One such company was Countrywide Home Mortgage, once the largest in the nation. Once again CEO largess and a board of directors who said nothing about spending untold millions on themselves and the officers, the company began a slow spiral. There will be some that will suggest that this was due to Sarbanes-Oxley, not even close to the truth. The biggest issue was that programs were removed, ones that they made millions selling, and that now were considered too risky. Countrywide was battered, sued, regulated, torn apart and sold off to Bank of America when the stock became nearly worthless.

A note on mark to market – I can’t say that I’m any kind of expert on this rule, but clearly the mark to market rule forces portfolios to be reviewed and marked down if the assets “might” be worth less in the future. When default rates began to be a problem, especially in the speculator vacation markets, this created a need to mark down some of these portfolios for possible future problems. The bond fund manager needed to either cover these short-falls or raise more capital. We'll talk more later about some easy fixes to this margin call problem in the future, but suffice it to say that with 80% of all mortgages still performing quite nicely these bond funds are getting decimated for lack of being able to raise billions in cash to cover the calls. Remember most of the loans are still current and paying, but they are being marked down to ridiculous lows to facilitate an arbitrary and capricious regulation.

During the beginning of 2007 raising more capital at banks was costly but possible, but the more the media talked about a pending recession the less possible. Banks were freezing all lines of credit and non-bank investors were having a hard time taking risks expecting a recession.

Step in the government again, with a monster move to take over Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Congressional leaders even going the extra mile to talk bad about banks that were potentially also in trouble. Government action to broker a sale of Merrill Lynch to Bank of America began to look and feel like a major problem was brewing. Note that now Bank of America now controls the once largest mortgage company in the country and one of the largest securities firms, Countrywide and Merrill Lynch, both purchased with government assistance and insistence at pennies on the dollar.

Remember 2008 is election year, and all the talk so far has been about how poorly the Bush administration has “managed” the economy. Note the irony, George Bush had nothing to do with foolish speculators, with under-priced Alt-A loans, or with Sarb-Ox. But he’s supposed to manage the entire economy and protect investors and banks from themselves. Sadly after 7 years of providing pretty conservative and solid leadership, even George Bush began to cave to pressures of economic calamity and legacy.

Oil runs to $140 a barrel on speculation that we really don’t have enough oil for a solid global economy and thus gasoline runs up to $4.00 or higher in many parts of the country. Guess what, when a big chunk of every families’ income goes up three fold, they cut back on other consumer goods. Once a family pays 40 or 50% of their income to the government in taxes, then gasoline to get to work, for housing and basic needs; retail discretionary purchases will have to be reduced if the others are grabbing more and more money.

Enter the October stock market drop, banks being taken over by the FDIC, and lending grinding to a halt. Congress, and this time President Bush too, decides to throw more money into the system to fix it. They craft a $700 Billion bailout bill, initially a few pages long and eventually many hundreds of pages long with pork and regulatory foolishness. They throw the first couple hundred billion at a few chosen banks, and guess what? The banks start buying other banks and still won’t make any loans to consumers or small businesses. Congress cries foul, but the die has been cast, when regulators demand that banks shore up their balance sheets they do so at the demize of lending.

The story culminates with auto makers complaining that the credit crunch and economy has stalled their demand too, they begin moves to cut production and staffing. Steel manufacturers and support industries do the same. None of these cuts is quick enough, because who would have predicted that banks would take the better part of a year off from lending to anyone? As I write today there are hospitals demanding bailout money, state governments, commercial real estate developers, and retailers. Where does it end, how can we possibly afford to hand hundreds of big companies millions and billions?

Sound fanciful? Sound like I have an axe to grind? On the former it’s not a fictional story, this all happened in the course of the last couple years, and THE major player in the whole works was the government, with an unquenching need to step in and makes things worse and worse each time. On the latter, we enjoyed our home building company and all the things we learned. Early in 2007 we were informed by our key banks that they were under pressure from their regulators to reduce real estate exposure and that they could really only finance homes that were pre-sold, so no new specs. We totally understood that decree, since specs were selling slowly and gathering low bids anyway.

Then on one fateful day in August of 2007, we had 7 pre-sold homes to close. Homes that we had worked on as a team for six months, and closings we really needed because the market was a lot slower than at any other time in our 10 years of business. On that day we received word that three major mortgage lenders had gone out of business, and none of the 7 homes we thought were sold and ready to close, would indeed close.

Those seven buyers did not close, even though none of them were trying to hurt anyone or destroy the market. I laid off my entire staff within the next two weeks, closed the doors, and began the process of fighting with the very banks that turned off the spigot.

No one in our company was a speculator, a ponzi schemer, an abuser or scammer. We fought to build homes for mainly first time buyers using every financing tool legally obtainable in the open market. No, I don’t have an axe, but I’m mighty sure that the media and bankers and government regulators that destroyed this market need to removed and replaced with Americans who believe in the American Dream. Not an American Dream of handouts or entitlements, but an American Dream of rugged individualism and self-worth.

I’m also equally convinced that 2009 will be a dramatic housing recovery, based on the same principles that made this nation great: limited government, freedom to choose, ownership of property, celebrating success, and innovation. Without this housing recovery, there can be no American or global economic recovery. When people feel uncomfortable at home they won't invest, they won't spend, they won't create jobs in small businesses, in short we have all paused to see if housing can get up off its knees. It's time for recovery.

Myth - A nation of renters

noreply@blogger.com (briefs) — Mon, 29 Dec 2008 17:30:00 +0000

Some of you know I'm working on a book project, A Conservative on the 2009 Housing Recovery, and today specifically the second chapter which details commonly held myths about housing. Here's a bit of Myth Number One - would appreciate any feedback positive or negative.

Chapter Two- 10 Myths about housing

Myth One - It would be better for more families to rent their homes

This is a catagorical insult to the American ideal. We may as well suggest that Americans would be better off if only landowners voted, or if the government controlled all health care, or any other list of nonsensical mental excursions that end up in socialism or worse. The AMERICAN DREAM has been and must continue to be that a family can own their own home. For a few transitory households renting may make some sense at times and in certain seasons. But for the most part every family should have the opportunity to purchase a home. President Bush announced goals of attaining record levels of homeownership in excess of 78% of all households, these were great goals and his leadership should not be faulted merely because housing values have slid. It's a good idea to save for retirement, and just because many IRA's and 401K's have reduced in value due to stock values, this does not mean people should stop saving for retirement.

I hesitate to say this so strongly for fear that do-gooders will then suggest that the government needs to step in to make ownership happen by legislation or regulation. No, no, and a thousands times NO! Families want to buy a home, they want to live out the American Dream of ownership and wealth creation. They don't need the government to tell them to do it or manipulate the markets to make it happen. Builders want to build for first time buyers, and one of their largest obstacles is the government in the form of impact fees and zoning that combats affordable housing. Lenders want to provide mortgages for first time buyers, and help them fix their credit if need be, once again government gets mostly in the way. We cannot legislate the American Dream, isn't that the whole point of our 230 year experiment? The American Dream exists where familes and individuals make decisions for themselves. Government needs to stay out of the way, so they can decide for themselves.

Almost every family I have met over my last 20 years in this industry would be better off owning a home than renting. First, our tax system favors home ownership in that all mortgage interest can be deducted, rent cannot. Second, every payment made in a normal 30 year mortgage helps that family accumulate a little more equity and thus household wealth. Third, the self-confidence and pride instilled in a family when they own their own home is patently American in its ideals and culture. We want to have our own place, a place that is ours and no one else's. Sure there were many families that I met that couldn't quite afford a home yet, or had some credit issues that we needed to work to clean up, or needed totally different jobs to make it all work. But in every case where a family wanted to do the work, to be disciplined to save some money, pick up a second job, contact creditors and work things out, homeownership was possible.

When we fall for the liberal tact of "some just aren't smart enough or astute enough" to own a home, we start down a slippery slope of "us and them" that is not American. There are many families that cannot afford a $500,000 home, but they may well be able to purchase a $65,000 home after six months of saving for down payment and cleaning up credit problems.

One last comment, to my conservative friends reading along, who think I'm being hypocritical using tax law as a reason to buy a home. I will agree that for the most part tax laws should be simplified and flattened. If during this process one day the mortgage interest deduction is eliminated, while taxes are actually reduced and flattened, I will be supportive. I understand that favoring one consumption decision over another is still government manipulation and intervention. Today though, the tax laws do strongly favor purchasing a home over renting, and if we merely eliminate the tax benefit for some environmental or culture correctness that suggests that more people should rent, I won't back it.

Merry Christmas Real Estate Community

noreply@blogger.com (briefs) — Thu, 25 Dec 2008 12:46:00 +0000

I know that many of our most loyal readers are home buyers, mortgage customers, or construction prospects ... keep reading but this specific post is dedicated to the real estate community, specifically those we call affectionately RE.net.

I cut my online teeth with many of you on Active Rain and then followed the early adopter all over to numerous media and bookmarking sites, each time learning a brand new tool and finding to my surprise, that the same people were moving like a pack. Some of those social sites, I just don't have the time to keep current, so I apologize if I've missed a message or request out there somewhere.

In the meantime, with everything so focused on business and credit crisis and home building implosion, friendships were formed. I may have missed out on a few of those since I had to shut down my home building company and spend the better part of 2007 and 2008 changing hats and getting re-situated. And yes, I do love to play politics, so 2008 when I did have some free time was political in nature.

But, on this august Holiday, while sitting in Naples with my family, working on my first book about none other than Housing and a Housing RE.covery ... I want to return to my RE.net roots and thank all of you.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year

Open to disagreement

noreply@blogger.com (briefs) — Mon, 22 Dec 2008 02:51:00 +0000

I know many of you will be stopping by over the next couple days to read the latest Carnival of Real Estate, which I posted here at

RE.covery Carnival of Real Estate

just moments ago. I still don't have the knack for cool graphics or logos ... or witty poetry or moving songs written to the blogs submitted. But I am adamant that's it's time to embrace a philosophy of recovery in housing for 2009. You can disgree, I encourage it, comment or subscribe and engage later too.

The least you can do is care enough to have some emotions about the American Dream. I do.

My twitter profile is Daltonsbriefs

RE.covery Carnival of Real Estate

noreply@blogger.com (briefs) — Sun, 21 Dec 2008 22:41:00 +0000

I LOVE A PARADE - Especially a PARADE of REAL ESTATE POSTS about a RECOVERY!

I hinted, oh I did more than hint, I all but said what it was I cared about this week: This week's Carnival of Real Estate is all about

THE 2009 REAL ESTATE RECOVERY ... RE.COVERY

What recovery you ask? Who says, and why make such a big deal on a holiday week? All good questions and the reason there is a comments section below. Go ahead, I dare you to engage. It is my firm held conviction that 2009 will be one of the biggest recoveries in the history of investments, and real estate will be the big winner!

Although not a RE.net blogger, none other than former Fed Chair Alan Greenspan said "real estate recovery should begin in early 2009. Greenspan cited as one of his reasons for the prediction, that United States homes prices have begun slowing in their decline in value. And that this is the first step toward making progress for investors to start considering taking risk. Greenspan went on to say that he believed that during the first 6 months of 2009, that he believed home prices would stabilize, and that once the real estate market stabilizes, that it will lead to a more stable economy and market."

My Pick for Best Post of the Week:

Real Estate Recovery in 2009 from The Real Estate Bloggers has the Governor of California predicting that 2009 will see the real estate recovery. I for one agree. This post wasn't submitted but I took some liberty and included it to start things off.

Honorable Mentions:

9 Ways That "Waiting For Mortgage Rates To Fall" Can Come Back To Haunt You

I read a lot of hyped up mortgage guys telling their clients to lock or not lock or float or whatever, this post actually read well, gave some good information and told the truth. Thanks.
Dan Green on twitter

Real Estate Trends to Watch for in 2009

The 2009 Market
Legal Issues
Brokerages
The Internet
Buyer and Seller Mindsets
Follow on twitter

2009 Market Predictions - What are yours? Now, I may disagree with the author, who was a bit negative for my pro-RE.covery philosophy for 2009, I sure appreciate his desire to engage and get readers opinions. Here's his twitter profile.

Online Video is Beginning to Become the New-Normal for Real Estate

Jim Reppond on Twitter ... thanks for commenting Jim, I'm hoping the other authors do the same.

8 Steps to Starting Out In Real Estate Investing"It gets to be overwhelming to the point that Newbies just end up not doing anything or WORSE end up getting involved in some b.s. $5000, $10,000 or $15,000 mentoring program and at the end of it - they still don’t know what to do! Oh the agony of hearing the stories from sweet innocent newbie investors who have finished being mentored by big name gurus only to still be left scratching their head." Twitter profile

Listing Your Home During The Holidays

"You think that listing your home during the holidays isn’t a good idea Boulder Colorado? Well…think again! This time of the year is a great time to have your home on the market. Just remember the basics. Price it right, comparable to the competition. Make necessary repairs and add staging so it shows well . Work with your Realtor on a great marketing plan. And do what you can to make it accessible to potential buyers. With these things in place, you are more likely to have a quick sale, and you are not competing with all of the homes that will be on the market in the spring. Twitter Profile Rotroia

Why Can't Real Estate Be Like Gasoline?"The fact remains that any participant in any market, even the most sophisticated futures traders, begin their analyses with supply and demand. We have often written that real estate is no different."

Simple Staging Steps that will Help Your Home Sell Faster - Karen Goodman is focused on helping her clients sell their homes. Karen Goodman on twitter.

A personal note - I tried to include twitter profiles of the writers where possible. If you like one of the posts, go and comment ... subscribe to the RSS feed ... and follow the writer on twitter. 2009 will be the year of collaboration especially online.

REAL ESTATE RE.COVERY 2009

Need Input - 2009 Housing Recovery #TCOT

noreply@blogger.com (briefs) — Thu, 18 Dec 2008 12:15:00 +0000

As is currently posted on Top Conservatives on Twitter I am considering and researching for a book based on a Conservatives views on a Housing Recovery next year. Since I'm a blogger and social media activist, it would only seem right that I ask my readers for input and ideas.

This is an open thread, which I'll also post on Active Rain, for ideas and debate. We may disagree, that's ok, at least we're willing to think and try some things. I am predicting that there won't be an Economic Recovery in 2009 unless housing recovers. The question is, how?

Fire Away!

Carnival of Real Estate here on Monday

noreply@blogger.com (briefs) — Wed, 17 Dec 2008 17:39:00 +0000

For the second time I am proud to host and edit the Carnival of Real Estate here on this site. Submissions need to be sent in by Sunday so I can read and choose the top real estate posts for the week.

From the Carnival Site:

The carnival will make its next appearance on Monday, December 22nd at Northwest Indiana Mortgages. Please submit your best post by Sunday December 21st, to be considered. Are you a real estate blogger and would you like to host a future edition or take a more active role in administration of the CoRE? If so, get instructions on how to do so here. Please check the complete FAQ list if you have other questions as to how to participate.

I won't tip my hand quite yet on theme and method of choosing, but let's just say yesterday on a radio talk show I announced my opinion that the Housing Recovery of 2009 started three months ago in September ...

Lowest rates in like 50 years for mortgages

noreply@blogger.com (briefs) — Tue, 16 Dec 2008 23:06:00 +0000

WOW!

I didn't really think rates could go lower, seriously. If you have a rate over 6%, it's time to refinance or better yet ... go buy some real estate. Rates dropped below 5% TODAY!

WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) -- The Federal Reserve pulled out all the stops in its campaign to save the U.S. economy Tuesday, slashing interest rates to just above zero and promising to try an array of new economic measures to stimulate spending.

The central bank's Federal Open Market Committee established a target range for the federal funds rate of zero to 0.25%, effectively cutting its key rate for overnight lending to banks by between 0.75% and 1%.

Rates would need to be kept low "for some time," the central bank said.

'The Fed will employ all available tools to promote the resumption of sustainable economic growth.'
— Federal Reserve

Ian Shepherdson, chief U.S. economist at High Frequency Economics, said the funds rate has "hit rock bottom."

Go ahead call me at 219-762-7200 let's take a look at your options

Housing more affordable - Rates below 6%

noreply@blogger.com (briefs) — Thu, 04 Dec 2008 19:55:00 +0000

Exactly why are you still sitting in your apartment again?

CARPE DIEM by Mark J. Perry

According to the National Association of Realtors' (NAR) most recent report, the housing affordability index (HAI) reached a six-year high of 141.8 in October (see chart above). An HAI of 141.8 means that a family earning the median family income in October ($60,840) had 141.8%% of the income necessary to qualify for a conventional loan (6.23% fixed-rate) covering 80% of a median-priced existing single-family home ($181,800).

So, if you are making anywhere near $60,000 total family income, and you're renting, you are wasting money. Plain and simple.

Twitter for real estate, mortgage, local issues

noreply@blogger.com (briefs) — Wed, 03 Dec 2008 13:50:00 +0000

Blatant Self-promotion: Follow me on twitter

No beating around the bush here, I'm on a bit of a campaign to surpass 2,000 followers on Twitter and would appreciate any adds today.

My Twitter Profile - Daltonsbriefs

For those that follow issues political, of course I do, you may find the list Top Conservatives on Twitter to be quite interesting ... with some great writers worth following. As you can see, I'm falling a bit behind since I'm at the 2,000 following ceiling and can't even follow the whole list. I'm hoping that if I pass the 2,000 followers level then the Twitter gods will let me follow more people.

I'll post this to twitter group and political groups, those most likely to follow. Thanks

Buy a toaster - get a bank for free

noreply@blogger.com (briefs) — Wed, 26 Nov 2008 14:11:00 +0000

I think I saw this last week, but forgot to bookmark so here it is

clipped from mjperry.blogspot.com

FDIC Special: Buy a Toaster and Get a Free Bank

Northwest Indiana Mortgages - FHA and Conventional

Indiana mortgage company update

Valparaiso Mansion for sale - the rest of the story

Real Estate in Recovery - Northwest Indiana

Easter and a pause in the action

Happy Resurrection Sunday - Easter

What's the solution to Gary Indiana?

Dave Woodson - First Financial Trust Mortgage

Housing Starts Plunge - good news?

Economic Report: Housing starts plunge 17% to record low in January

Grace Safrin with a new #realestate idea

Jim Zimmer from PCBA - housing first

REALTOR announces uptick in sales

Hammond offering down payment assistance

Conservative Cafe in Crown Point

NWI Blogger and Tweetup

NWI Indiana Blogger Meetup

Credit Crisis Timeline

Why banks aren't the bad guys

Myth - A nation of renters

Chapter Two- 10 Myths about housing

Merry Christmas Real Estate Community

Open to disagreement

RE.covery Carnival of Real Estate

RE.covery Carnival of Real Estate

9 Ways That "Waiting For Mortgage Rates To Fall" Can Come Back To Haunt You

Real Estate Trends to Watch for in 2009

Need Input - 2009 Housing Recovery #TCOT

Carnival of Real Estate here on Monday

Lowest rates in like 50 years for mortgages

Housing more affordable - Rates below 6%

Twitter for real estate, mortgage, local issues

Blatant Self-promotion: Follow me on twitter

Buy a toaster - get a bank for free

FDIC Special: Buy a Toaster and Get a Free Bank