My Owner Financing Weblog

Happy Thanksgiving!

Maria Fee — Sun, 25 Nov 2007 22:11:13 +0000

Happy Thanksgiving!

November 22, 2007

If you’re anything like me you’ve invested tremendous amount of time, effort, forethought and money in this market in order to increase your wealth portfolio. Market resistance notwithstanding, I would like to wish you the best of the holiday season as we go into Thanksgiving. We all have much to be thankful for: our family, our friends, our businesses, and our freedom to do that which we do best of all. If you’re not at my Thanksgiving dinner table, then I encourage you to lift a glass for your many blessings.

Happy Thanksgiving!
Best in Success,
Maria Fee
REMI KNOX, LLC
Trading Financial Futures TM
281-346-0400   BUS | EMAIL   MariaFee@REMIKNOX.com
866-871-5914   BUS |
281-346-1300   FAX | WEB     www.REMIKNOX.com

Be your OWN BOSS! PART TIME NOTE BROKERING FOR FULL-TIME PROFIT.
Visit http://www.reminote.com/brokernotes.php.

Are foreclosures up in your neighborhood? Perhaps it’s time to Owner Finance!

Maria Fee — Thu, 01 Nov 2007 22:54:30 +0000

According to RealtyTrac Inc.(a mortgage data company based in Irvine, Texas) the number of residential foreclosures increased 100% in the third quarter of this year. These are very sobering statistics when you think about 446,726 homes nationwide in some stage of foreclosure activity.

Are you one of the homeowners that is finding it difficult to make the mortgage payment? Would you be willing to sell your home to a good buyer, assuming you could find one? I’m here to tell you that Owner Financing may spell the difference between getting your home sold, saving what is left of your your credit report, and allow you to take that new promotion.

Will you call me today to discuss the possibilities of Owner Financing? If it is not something that you think ultimately is in your best interest you can say so after we work through the numbers.

Oh by the way, I’m including the URL for that sad article about all those foreclosures:

http://biz.yahoo.com/ap/071101/foreclosure_rates.html

RealtyTrac Inc.: http://www.realtytrac.com

On its face, Owner Financing is a very useful financial tool to give you more money and more kinds of buyers in all sorts of markets. If need be, Owner Financing will allow your house to sell when no other house on your block has the foot traffic much less the “good” buyers.

Best in Success,
Maria Fee
REMI KNOX, LLC
Trading Financial Futures TM
281-346-0400 BUS | EMAIL MariaFee@REMIKNOX.com
866-871-5914 BUS |
281-346-1300 FAX | WEB www.REMIKNOX.com

Be your OWN BOSS! PART TIME NOTE BROKERING FOR FULL-TIME PROFIT.
Visit http://www.reminote.com/brokernotes.php.

Alan Greenspan says ‘Egregious subprime lending has bordered on criminal fraud’

Maria Fee — Sat, 29 Sep 2007 21:02:39 +0000

Want to sell your home? Owner Financing may be your only way to sell in this down market. Check out this video in which former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan likens adjustable rate mortgages (i.e. ’Egregious subprime lending bordering on criminal fraud’) to demons on the horizon. The video is 5:43 minutes long.

Andy Serwer of Fortune asks questions of former Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan about the subprime mortgage credit meltdown and what it means for the housing market at large. Alan Greenspan thinks that the presence of approximately a quarter million vacant, (unoccupied) new home starts in the United States are very corrosive to the overall market economy as well as the reserves of home owner equity that have built up in every other residence in America.

http://money.cnn.com/video/#/video/fortune/2007/09/17/fortune.greenspan.housing.fortune

Of course it is very telling when Michael Oldfield’s Tubular Bells theme song from “The Exorcist” is playing in the background. Does anyone else think this market has demons….?

It is never too late to Owner Finance!

Maria Fee — Mon, 17 Sep 2007 23:40:38 +0000

Thinking of moving? Is your house not garnering the foot traffic you had hoped for in spite of the fact it has been on the market for 90 days? Perhaps it is the ideal time to put a sign in front of the house that says “Owner Will Finance”. Let me explain my thinking.

We are only hours away from a crucial if not historic announcement from the Federal Reserve as it announces which direction interest rates will take. The stock market has already factored in a rate cut from the Fed (of at least .25) and frankly would like to see more.

Although third-quarter results are due in later this week from the major brokerage houses such as Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, Lehman, and Bear Stearns, these major investment banks suffered stock price drops anywhere from $.88 to $2.98 in their respective shares today.

The price of crude oil and gold are up while the Dow Jones industrials closed moderately down 39.10 (to 13,403.42) with declining issues outnumbering advancers by a rate of more than 2-to-1 on the New York Stock Exchange.

Couple that somber investment information with former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan talking in an NBC interview on Monday in which he posits that the likelihood of an economy wide recession is now slightly larger than at the beginning of the year.

Surprisingly, the economy posted 4,000 jobs lost in the month of August. If you had moving on your mind, it’s far better to sell ahead of the credit crunch…. than anything else.

I think it’s time to carry back a second mortgage to get your house sold. What do you think?

Best in Success,
Maria Fee
REMI KNOX, LLC
Trading Financial Futures TM
281-346-0400   BUS | EMAIL   MariaFee@REMIKNOX.com
866-871-5914   BUS |
281-346-1300   FAX | WEB     www.REMIKNOX.com

Be your OWN BOSS! PART TIME NOTE BROKERING FOR FULL-TIME PROFIT.
Visit http://www.reminote.com/brokernotes.php.

Help me think through this….

Maria Fee — Wed, 12 Sep 2007 03:15:34 +0000

According to the National Association of Realtors, home sales are off. No, really!

In fact if you go to their web site you’ll see the following article listed below for your convenience. With your help, I would like to go through the article paragraph by paragraph to understand where we are from a real estate standpoint. If you have any desire whatsoever to owner finance the sale of your primary home, this article will help you decide!

Mortgage Problems to Dampen Home Sales in The Short Term
WASHINGTON, September 11, 2007 – Tighter credit for home mortgages will measurably dampen home sales in the short term and postpone an expected recovery for existing-home sales until 2008, according to the latest forecast by the National Association of Realtors®.

“We have already started the fourth quarter of the fiscal year 2007 and the National Association of Realtors only now uses words like ‘dampen’ when describing nonexistent real estate sales. That is a curious use of phraseology.”

Lawrence Yun, NAR senior economist, said unusual disruptions in the mortgage market are dampening the outlook for home sales, notably for August and September. “There’s been an unusual hit to home sales, starting in March when subprime problems emerged and more recently when problems spread to jumbo loans, with many potential buyers on the sidelines.

“This is not rocket science, folks. If a group of people do not pay back their mortgage loans then banks won’t have enough funds to finance jumbo loans.”

“However, the jumbo loan market is now beginning to settle, and FHA-insured loans are helping to fill the subprime vacuum. The volume of existing-home sales this year will be better than 2002, which was the second year of the housing boom.”

“I don’t mind going back in time to find a year better than the one were currently having but to go back five years tells you how bad the current market is!”

Existing-home sales are projected at 5.92 million this year and then rise to 6.27 million in 2008, compared with 6.48 million in 2006. New-home sales should total 801,000 in 2007 and 741,000 next year, below the 1.05 million in 2006.

“Estimates are just that: no one is going to lose their job for a bad set of guesses. To my mind, anyone who wants to forecast into the year 2008 about homes bought and sold is playing fast and loose with the numbers. If their crystal ball is so accurate, they wouldn’t be forecasting real estate news.”

“A sharp production pullback by homebuilders deep into 2008 is a healthy trend that will help trim down housing inventory,” Yun said. Housing starts, including multifamily units, are expected to total 1.37 million this year and 1.26 million in 2008, compared with 1.80 million in 2006.

“When realtors use terms like ‘healthy trend’ to describe homebuilders losing their shirt on new-home construction, something has to be wrong with the vocabulary set.”

“The mortgage markets will calm further in the months ahead, but it’s important to underscore the fact that conventional loans – the vast majority of available financing – are available to creditworthy borrowers,” Yun said. “Patient buyers in most areas who do their homework will recognize that housing remains a good long-term investment.”

“This is the interesting part as it pertains to Owner Financing and that there is very few creditworthy borrowers in today’s market. As I visit with various realtors they indicate that the good buyers are staying home because they’re afraid to be caught in a valuation crunch. Simply said, they don’t want to buy a home that is overvalued. To lure good buyers in the market, you the owner of the home will have to produce incentives such as Owner Financing.”

Existing-home prices are likely to slip 1.7 percent to a median of $218,200 this year before rising 2.2 percent in 2008 to $223,000. The median new-home price is estimated to drop 2.2 percent to $241,100 in 2007, and then increase 1.7 percent next year to $245,100.

“Any discussion of what is going to happen in the fiscal year 2008 is off-limits. Nobody can time the market and no one can see the future. Anyone who says otherwise has a bridge they want you to buy in Arizona.”

The 30-year fixed-rate mortgage is projected to average 6.4 percent for the balance of the year and then edge up to the 6.5 percent range in 2008.

“We expect the Fed to cut rates two times before the end of the year, which will lower interest rates for prime borrowers and FHA-insured loans,” Yun said. “FHA modernization could buffer the fallout of subprime loans, which would raise our sales forecast in the future.”

“Saying that you expect that the Federal Reserve Board will cut interest rates is analogous to saying we expect the impossible from our government. Last time I checked there was no discussion as to whether Ben Bernanke was going to cut rates or not.”

Growth in the U.S. gross domestic product (GDP) is forecast at 2.0 percent in 2007, below the 2.9 percent growth rate last year; GDP will probably grow 2.7 percent in 2008.

The unemployment rate should average 4.6 percent for 2007, unchanged from last year. Inflation, as measured by the Consumer Price Index, is estimated to be 2.8 percent in 2007, compared with 3.2 percent last year. Inflation-adjusted disposable personal income is likely to increase 3.6 percent this year, up from 3.1 percent in 2006.

“If you want to know what the annual rate of inflation is, www.bls.gov is a better source, not the Consumer Price Index. The Consumer Price Index may be a useful measure first some kinds of things but is not useful for measuring inflation or wage appreciation.”

The National Association of Realtors®, “The Voice for Real Estate,” is America’s largest trade association, representing more than 1.3 million members involved in all aspects of the residential and commercial real estate industries.
# # #
For more information, contact: Walter Molony, 202/383-1177, wmolony@realtors.org
http://www.realtor.org/press_room/news_releases/2007/sept_forecast07_dampen_home_sales.html

“By all means, go ahead and visit with Walter Molony about some of the hard data appearing in his article. Ask him if he trusts his puff piece enough to put his job on the line if the pie-in-the-sky guess-estimates are incorrect. I know a lot of homeowners that need to sell their home and cannot trust these figures. Real estate is too important to leave to the realtors.”

Maria Fee — Tue, 11 Sep 2007 02:50:25 +0000

My, what a busy weekend I’ve had. It was good but it was also exhausting. As a result, I didn’t feel like sharing some mortgage note news earlier today but I decided to go ahead and share with you a couple tidbits that I discovered in today’s reading.

Ordinarily I wouldn’t think of upwardly mobile and mobile home being two phrases used in the same breath but if you live in Aspen Colorado you may be blessed by location, location, location! Read this article about Smuggler Park being a five-minute walk from downtown Aspen and all the owners of the lots in this trailer park are sitting on top of real estate that may start at 500 Large!

http://www.denverpost.com/ci_6776884?source=rss

CountryFried Financial Corporation was in the news on Friday, September 7, 2007 A.D. as they announced employment reductions/firings totaling as much as 20% of its workforce, or about 12,000 jobs. You can read about it here:

http://biz.yahoo.com/ap/070907/countrywide_job_cuts.html?.v=18

or here: http://www.countrywide.com

An adjustible floating rate mortgage could sink your ship of state. But don’t count on the government bailing you out….

Maria Fee — Tue, 04 Sep 2007 03:16:40 +0000

An adjustible floating rate mortgage could sink your ship of state. But don’t count on the government bailing you out. Those working in Rome on the Potomac believe that the free-market system only exists to prey upon borrowers. Nevermind the fact that borrowers were the beneficiaries of five years of artificially low rates….

“Most of the other bills are still in planning stages, like numerous measures to regulate and penalize mortgage lenders who engage in predatory lending. Schumer acknowledged, however, that it won’t help anyone already suffering with a bad mortgage.

“This won’t do anything about what happened in the past, but it will prevent the present crisis from getting worse, because mortgage brokers are still preying on these people,” Schumer said.”
http://biz.yahoo.com/ap/070903/risky_mortgages_congress.html?.v=1

“Bad” mortgages or not, private equity sources know how to do due diligence on vetting potential subprime borrowers. We don’t just need a return to the liquidity in the credit market, we need a return to common sense in lending without government interference.

Correct me if I’m wrong but am I seeing another bad banker news release coming from the Hill?

Frank Statement on the President’s Remarks on the Mortgage Markets
Washington, DC – Rep. Barney Frank (D-MA), Chairman of the House Committee on Financial Services, today offered the following statement in response to President’s address on problems in the mortgage markets:

“I welcome the Administration’s recognition that a greater public response is required and I look forward to working with them because I agree with a number of specific things that they propose. The Financial Services Committee has already advanced legislation, including a GSE bill that awaits Senate consideration, and we hope to send the FHA bill over soon. We also are working with the Ways and Means Committee to address the tax issues involved. However, there are some points of difference that we will need to work out going forward:

With regard to the FHA, going forward, I don’t think that working people and lower income people who are making payments to the federal government should be charged more than others.

Second, I agree that the rules that regulators have developed for banks have been good ones, but I believe that federal action is necessary to apply them to all originators and the time for further study is over.

Third, there should be some rules to provide some quality assurance to investors in the secondary market. At his speech in Jackson Hole, Federal Reserve Chairman Bernanke noted the need for modification of the securitization process to provide greater investor protection and increased incentives for responsible lending. I believe that well- drafted legislation is essential to achieving this.

Next, I continue to believe that the portfolios of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac can play a bigger role than they are currently are playing, particularly in helping the refinancing of subprime mortgages that are about to experience significant interest rate increases. I believe that the Administration’s objections to this are not based on safety and soundness grounds, but represent their one remaining ideological refusal to recognize the need for a greater institutional role in this regard.

Finally, there needs to be a federal role in the construction of new affordable housing and preservation of existing affordable housing.”
http://www.house.gov/apps/list/press/financialsvcs_dem/press083107.shtml

For more information about HR1852, The Expanding Homeownership Act of 2007, please click on the following link:

http://www.house.gov/apps/list/press/financialsvcs_dem/press050307.shtml

For more information about HR1427, The Federal Housing Finance Reform Act of 2007, please click on the following links:
http://www.house.gov/apps/list/press/financialsvcs_dem/press032907.shtml

http://financialservices.house.gov/index.shtml

Going in the Hole at Jackson Hole, Wyoming

Maria Fee — Sat, 01 Sep 2007 01:08:08 +0000

Going in the Hole at Jackson Hole, Wyoming

“At a central bankers’ symposium in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke made clear that he was following what analysts have described as a “tough love” policy toward borrowers and especially toward lenders.”

And thus begins the Federal Reserve System’s disorderly capitulation and rhetorical spin in reversing their two year long course of previously removing of liquidity (tighting the money supply) from the market and now in a mad rush to reinflate the banking system to stabilize the credit markets. There is panic out there folks and Wall Street did it. Now the credit crisis contagion has spread to Main Street in the form of tighter mortgage markets. Regular homeowners looking to move or take a better job will not be able to sell their homes as they once thought.

When the Reuters business desk writer Tabassum Zakaria says:

“Bush urged lenders to work with homeowners to renegotiate their mortgages to prevent default. He called on Congress to approve legislation he proposed last year to modernize the Federal Housing Administration, which provides mortgage insurance to borrowers through a network of private sector lenders.”

…. I can’t help but think that Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke is ordering all the government arms under his control to rearrange the deck chairs on the Titanic. Modernizing the FHA will not speak to the problem that is in the wider market now that subprime collateralized debt obligations (CDOs) genie is out of the bottle. The financial draft horses have fled the barn and no amount of barn”modernization” will get them back.

This business writer goes on to report:

“The FHA will soon launch a new program called “FHA Secure” to allow homeowners with good credit history, but who cannot afford their current payments, to refinance into FHA-insured mortgages, Bush said. “This means that many families who are struggling now will be able to refinance their loans, meet their monthly payments and keep their homes,” he said. Bush also pledged to work with the Democratic-controlled Congress to temporarily reform a key housing provision of the federal tax code to make it easier for homeowners to refinance their mortgages.”

But wait a minute? I thought they just reported that President Bush said certain homeowners were not able to afford their current payments and now we’re going to refinance them so that they can go into deeper debt by postponing their foreclosures? That is a curious way to put off the inevitable until the next election cycle!

Repeat after me, I’m from the government and I’m here to help you….

You can read about it here: http://biz.yahoo.com/rb/070831/bush_subprime.html?.v=9

Is the future so bright you just have to wear shades?

Maria Fee — Wed, 29 Aug 2007 21:30:04 +0000

Got that big promotion? Will you be moving to take that new job? Shall I send over some sunglasses because the future is looking so bright?!

Won’t you be surprised when you go to sell your home and your prospective buyer can’t even qualify for a bank loan in spite of the fact that they intend to make very large down payment and have stellar credit histories! Horror of horrors, they cannot find a bank that wants to underwrite a conventional jumbo mortgage loan!

Welcome to the world of the home-grown subprime mortgage liquidity meltdown! You respond in bewilderment by saying that your home is in an upscale neighborhood and the “good” buyers in front of you have easily qualified for jumbo loans before (that is to say home loans greater than $417,000).

With a certain incredible air in your voice, you say your property does not even reside in California where the median home price is well above $500,000 (and jumbo mortgages are as much as 44 percent of all mortgages issued in certain metro areas, according to data from First American LoanPerformance).

Maybe it’s time to consider Owner Financing just to get out of Dodge….?!

I am not making this up. Consider these articles:

http://biz.yahoo.com/ap/070829/mortgage_applications.html?.v=1

http://biz.yahoo.com/ap/070829/expensive_homes.html?.v=2

Did anyone happen to see where residential mortgage applications in the United States fell last week?

Maria Fee — Sat, 25 Aug 2007 02:53:17 +0000

“The Mortgage Bankers Association said its seasonally adjusted index of mortgage application activity fell 5.5% to 641.1 in the week ended August 17. Applications, however, may have climbed earlier in August as a major lender hurt by turmoil in mortgage bond and other financial markets closed its doors, forcing borrowers to reapply elsewhere, said Jay Brinkmann, a vice president of research at the MBA. The drop in applications we see here may be an indication that those borrowers have now been taken care of,’ he said.” You can read about it here:

http://www.cnbc.com/id/20387510

Mr. Brinkmann at the Mortgage Bankers Association posits that due to the fact Countrywide Financial had to lay off most of their lending help that every single perspective home loan borrower somehow got their lending needs met elsewhere! Do you think that’s the case? Do you think that every single perspective borrower found a private money lender to meet their housing needs?!

I’m not buying it. Owner Financing certainly is one way to go forward during this liquidity crunch but conventional lenders are simply not making mortgage loans like they used to.

I also read where privately held First Magnus Financial filed for bankruptcy and will no longer be issuing mortgages which leaves a gaping hole where the residential mortgage market used to be.

I smell money on the private mortgage side the likes of which haven’t been conceived of in over 20 plus years!