If  you owe more on your home than the home’s current value, the new HAMP program offers hope. It divides your mortgage into two parts – one for the amount of the current property value, and one for the difference. The second one is interest-free, and it’s forgiven over three years.

The Equifax Personal Finance Blog http://www.equifax.com/blog/  recently published an article about the new program. Written by Ilyce Glink, the article is entitled “Want a Principal Reduction Loan Modification? The New Home Affordable Modification Program (HAMP) Rules You’ll Have to Live By.”

To qualify, homeowners must owe more than 115 percent of the current value of their home, they must be in default on their mortgages (or are about to be), and their house payment must be more than 31 percent of their income. Loans acquired through FHA, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are not eligible for the HAMP program because those lenders will be announcing programs of their own later in the year. Some private banks are also introducing their own programs for people who don’t qualify for government-sponsored assistance.

If you think the program might help you, check out the details at the Equifax Personal Finance blog today and get started. One of the benefits of the new program: you should get your answer in 30 days. People used to have to wait months and go through a modification trial period. And if you don’t qualify for this program because you’ve lost your job, you’ll find information on the blog for a separate HAMP program designed just for you.

Snopes.com says that “prudent” real estate agents advise their home sellers to accompany the burial with a combination of making home repairs, staging their home, and pricing it correctly for the market.

It’s not surprising that burying St. Joseph in the yard did not make the list of home selling tips that recently appeared in the Equifax Personal Finance Blog. Instead, real estate expert Ilyce Glink talks about a different modern-day phenomenon: reality TV.

Rather than helping to sell homes, TV shows that follow homeowners as they prepare homes for market or follow buyers as they make their selections could be making the process harder on the rest of us. According to Glink, buyers who’ve watched hours of programming showcasing homes staged for television have extremely high expectations for the homes they visit. So her first tip: “make your house look good enough to be on TV.”

The article, “Selling a House: 4 Tips to Get More Buyers through Your Door,” continues with several practical and proven ideas for selling your home. Glink starts by acknowledging the difficulty of selling in today’s climate, when the number of people looking for a home has fallen by as much as 40 percent since the passing of the tax credit deadline.

Her tips give recommendations for getting your house online, researching your competition and pricing. The pricing section discusses the effect of changing appraisal rules and why those rules could mean you need to price your house lower.

For Glink’s complete, sensible advice on this and other real estate topics, visit the Equifax Personal Finance Blog. And if you have had success using a statue of St. Joseph to sell a home, we’d like to hear about it right here!

The article, “Unemployed? The New HAMP Loan Modification Program Might Help You Keep Your House,”  by real estate expert Ilyce Glink gives the details. Glink is a regular contributor to the Equifax Personal Finance Blog,  which posts educational articles in the areas of credit, insurance, retirement, taxes and real estate.

The Unemployed Program, part of the larger Making Home Affordable loan modification program, is set to start August 1, 2010. As expected, there are stipulations. The borrower must be the one who is unemployed and receiving unemployment benefits. The mortgage must be a first-lien loan on the borrower’s principal residence originated on or before January 1, 2009. And you must make the request before you are three monthly payments behind.

There are more requirements than we can list here, and they’re not all set in stone yet. Glink promises to keep readers informed of any changes to the current rules before the program starts. The Equifax Personal Finance Blog also links to the directive that sets up the program, and it offers a place to ask Glink questions about the HAMP program or other real estate issues.

Dennis Ginder, division president at Mattamy Homes in the Jacksonville region, said the donation included 10 executive chairs, five filing cabinets, two dry-erase boards, five bulletin boards, five wastepaper baskets and a large box of miscellaneous office supplies.

Mattamy also donated miscellaneous items to the City Rescue Mission including eight filing cabinets and five boxes of office supplies.

Ginder said Mattamy Homes relocated its corporate offices at 7800 Belfort Parkway recently as new home sales associates are seeing more demand at Mattamy Homes sales and information centers at Cornerstone at Watermill, Covenant Cove and North Campus in Jacksonville, Kensington, Kings Trace and Sevilla in St. Augustine, and Durbin Crossing, The Colony at Greenbriar and Worthington Park in St. Johns.

“Visitor traffic and sales in all nine Jacksonville-area communities are beginning to pick up and we no longer need as much space or furnishings in our corporate offices,” Ginder said.

If that’s you – or if you’ve already purchased and are waiting for your check to arrive in the mail – be aware that credits are coming more slowly than anticipated. The reasons have to do with a combination of the workload for the IRS (an estimated 1.8 million credits filed with 2009 taxes) and the IRS’s need to get this right after criticisms regarding the distribution of the first tax credit in 2008.

In the article, “Home Buyer Tax Credit Cash: 7 Things You Need to Know When Filing for the Home Buyer Tax Credit,” tax expert Eva Rosenberg offers guidance for filing your credit request correctly and for following up if the IRS mistakenly denies your request. The article appears on the Equifax Personal Finance blog, where Rosenberg serves as a regular expert contributor.

Her key points for filing? Provide lots of documentation, and if anything seems unclear, write out an explanation. Her blog lists appropriate documentation to demonstrate to the IRS that you qualify for the credit. If you’ve already been denied and you’re certain you should have received the credit, she tells you the steps to take when you resubmit your tax return.

The Equifax Personal Finance blog also offers guidance no matter where you are in your financial life, from checking your credit report for the first time to preparing for retirement. It’s a must read for basic training of the financial variety.

And NOW… mortgage rates are at a 50-year low. And some experts predict that home prices could go even lower – or at least not go higher in the short term. On the Equifax Personal Finance blog, Real Estate Expert Ilyce Glink argues that NOW really is a good time to buy because of those two factors. Your new home will cost less because prices are so low and because you won’t pay as much to finance it.

But if you really are planning to jump in NOW, you need to plan to stay awhile. Check out Ilyce’s post at Equifax to find out why before you buy your new home.

Ginder was nominated by his peers and was one of forty selected out of 170 nominated for the honor. The award was based on his community service and achievements in the industry he serves.

Ginder joined Mattamy Homes in 2008, and his division posted a 38 percent increase in 2009 sales over the previous year.    He is active in St. Johns Habitat for Humanity, Northeast Florida Builders Assn. and the St. Johns County Builders Council.

Mattamy Homes expanded into the U.S. in 2003 and has divisions in Jacksonville, Orlando, Charlotte, Phoenix and Minneapolis.  The homebuilder is the largest and most active in Canada with annual revenues exceeding $1.3 billion.  Visit www.mattamyhomes.com.

Features for Home Shoppers

The advanced site presents the home buyers with a myriad of Media options; including a Floor Plan Viewer with zoom-ability and full screen, Photo Viewer with large, high quality photos, WalkThruTM Video, and the new RoomPlanner that allows the user to drag and drop furniture onto the floorplan to experiment with furniture placement and design.

FPO 2.0 brings a new, high level of information to the home buyer about a listing. Our goal is to provide the most robust content platform for properties online, said Kris Cone, CEO of FloorPlanOnline®. To be able to see the floorplan of a home, click on a room and see the photo of that room – it’s a powerful tool. To then further make it your own with the RoomPlanner gets the buyer interested and engaged.  We are taking great care to offer this premium service affordably and efficiently through full or self service options.

Features for Listing Agents

The site also allows the listing agent to perform search engine optimization (SEO) on individual properties and do their own tracking via Google Analytics (or other tracking programs).

Visit FloorPlanOnline® for more information on version 2.0.

The EPA has several online resources available:

1) Updated data and other information on the BP oil spill site:

• Get air quality and water data
• Find answers to common questions
• Submit technology solutions

2) Connect with the EPA via social media sites:

• Administrator Jackson’s personal account of the response to the oil spill: Facebook and Twitter
• EPA’s announcements: Facebook and Twitter

3) Subscribe to EPA oil spill updates

You can also visit the coordinated government response site for:

• Information about the spill and efforts to stop the oil from flowing
• Hotlines to report oil on land or injured wildlife
• Details of how you can volunteer

If you’re looking to learn how to harness the power of online networking by posting meaningful content that will get responses, putting together a social networking strategy and schedule, sell with creativity and passion and turn obstacles into benefits then you need to be at the Super Sales Rally.

Sponsored by internet marketing firm, mRELEVANCE, this super informative, high energy event features Meredith Oliver, MIRM, MSCP and Melinda Brody, MIRM. You’re invited to join the dynamic “M & M”  team for a fun, content rich, interactive educational experience.

High energy and packed with ideas to boost your sales NOW, this year’s rally will unleash your inner sales rock star to ignite your personal selling power and blow past your goals. This rally is NOT a fluffy motivational speech! Expect hard hitting, practical ideas you can implement immediately to drive commission straight into your wallet. Get ready to rock your sales all year long!

Super Sales Rally Topics Include:

• Personal branding
• Creative thinking
• Entrepreneurial selling
• Negotiation skills
• Networking & prospecting
• Social media networking
• Lead follow-up
• Technology tools

The Super Sales Rally will be held from May 13 from 8 – 11:30 a.m. in conjunction with the 2010 Southern Building Show, a 3-day conference taking place May 13-15 at the Georgia World Congress Center in Atlanta, Georgia.

The conference will feature five different tracks:

1. design and architecture
2. business operations and finance
3. sales and marketing
4. construction/building science
5. green building.

To sign up for the Super Sales Rally or learn more about the 2010 Southern Building Show, please visit the Southern Building Show Website, interact with them on Facebook or follow along on Twitter @SouthBuildShow