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Vacation Time - Guest Posters to the Rescue 2007-09-04 09:47:10 Hey gang - your blogger is taking a breather.  I’m off to the wonderful Northeast, back to my roots, to spend time with my Mom & Dad, and celebrating my Grandmother’s 80th birthday.  I’m going for two weeks - with a week planned in Maine (at my Dad’s) and a week in Connecticut with my mom. They, while excited to see me, are more thrilled at spending time with their first grandson. Fear not readers - I have lined up the BEST bloggers in the housing and real estate blogosphere to contribute guest posts almost daily here at BlownMortgage.com.  I am incredibly honored that these folks have taken time to share their insight with us over here at BlownMortgage.com and we will all be better for it. Look for the first one later today and every day thereafter.  I will continue to post news items as they come up, so keep the emails coming.  I won’t be far from the computer, but not chained to it. Here is just a sampling of the authors contributing: Bloodhou ...

PSA: Go FHA! 2007-09-04 09:00:14 Hey everyone, a friendly mortgage tip.  Let me know if this sounds like you: Your credit scores are 620 or below You haven’t had any late mortgage payments in the last 12 months You have a loan amount under $362,760 That loan balance is less than 97.15% of your home value You have an adjustable rate mortgage set to adjust If that sounds like you, and you are looking for a way out, how does this sound? 30-year fixed loan No prepayment penalty In the mid-upper 6% range 1% origination fee No junk fee charges Sound good? You might be a potential candidate for FHA financing.  And if President Bush’s plans for FHA secure go through these great loans will be opened up to more people.  If you had a subprime mortgage loan and need to get out of a loan that is about to adjust to a payment you can’t afford try FHA.  It may be the best way for you to find an affordable monthly mortgage payment plus add some stability to your life as well. Subprime adjustable rate mortgage ...

NovaStar blood-letting continues; slashes retail force 2007-09-04 08:31:58 Market Watch is reporting that NovaStar will slash another 275 jobs in its retail loan division as a proposed securities offering that would have raised at least $100 million for operating and funding capital fell through. In a cost cutting effort NovaStar will close 12 retail branches and trim 275 jobs. From Market Watch: NovaStar also said it will “sharply” reduce retail mortgage activity, closing 12 retail origination offices and cutting the number of employees in that part of its business to roughly 125 from 400. NovaStar said it will now focus mainly on managing its $15.45 billion portfolio of securitized residential loans, plus mortgage securities.   “We are pulling back to focus on NovaStar’s core strengths and preserve liquidity,” Scott Hartman, chief executive of NovaStar, said in a statement. “Suspending wholesale lending and shrinking the retail operation are painful decisions, but we believe it is best, at this point, to concentrate ...

Selling Mistakes to Avoid 2007-09-04 07:50:29 1. Failing to prepare your home for “buyers’ eyes” When was the last time you stood across the street and took a good hard look at your home? Don’t underestimate the importance of making a good first impression. It begins at the street — it’s called curb appeal. If you are competing with other homes for sale in your area, how does your home honestly compare? Here are some basic questions that you should ask yourself: What is your first impression of the house and yard area? What are the best exterior features of the house or lot? How can you enhance them? What are the worst exterior features of the house or lot? How can you minimize or improve them? Park your car where a potential buyer would and walk towards the house, looking around you as if it were your first visit. Some quick tips: Clean windows, fresh paint, swept walkways, and a lush green lawn are essential. Add colorful flowering potted plants, if the weather permits. Get rid of mold and ...

ByTheOwner August For Sale By Owner Stats: New Listings, Sold Properties, Active Listings 2007-09-04 03:45:01 Here are ByTheOwner.com’s Canadian For Sale By Owner stats for August 2007: New listings increased 61% from 669 new listings in August 2006, to 1080 new listings in August 2007 Sold properties increased 39% from 361 sold properties in August 2006, to 502 sold properties in August 2007. Total active listings increased 30% from 3,970 active homes for sale in August 2006, to 5189 active homes for sale in August 2007. www.bytheowner.com ...

ByTheOwner August 2007 Webstats - FSBO Visitors Increase 57% 2007-09-04 03:27:53 ByTheOwner.com’s website statistics for the month of August 2007: Website visitors increased from 463,560 unique visitors in August 2006, to 729,036 in August 2007. This is a 57% increase in unique website visitors from August 2006 to 2007. Pageviews increased from 5.0 million page views in August 2006, to 6.5 million pageviews in August 2007. This is 30% increase in pageviews from August 2006 to 2007. Unique visitors and pageviews are the two most useful statistics when it comes to measuring the exposure you will receive from a For Sale By Owner website. Unique visitors is the number of individual people coming to look for properties on the site. Pageviews is the number of pages that those visitors look at. On ByTheOwner.com in August 2007 we had 729,036 unique visitors and they looked at 6.5 million pages. This means each visitor looked at approximately 9 pages. Some websites claim to have a certain number of “hits”�. This is not a valid measure of website activi ...

Condos Are A Lofty Concern 2007-09-04 02:40:59 While American home building and sales have cratered and prices have dipped 3.2% on the year, Canadian resales rose nearly 10% in July to a new record and average prices jumped 12.6 per-cent to a record $311,495. Toronto high-rise sales, meanwhile, are in their second year of 24% increases year-to-date. The luxury hotel-condo — usually commanding the top floors of some architectural jewel and bearing a marquee name like Ritz or Four Seasons — is the latest boom’s must-have. “It is now common to see 2,000-to 2,500-square-foot condos selling for $2-million or more with property taxes and condo fees to match,” Sherry Cooper, chief economist at BMO Capital Markets, said in a recent note. “Per square foot, condo prices are now higher than single-family home prices of similar quality and location.” At the Four Seasons hotel-condo in Yorkville for example, a 2,500-square foot condo sells for more than $4-million; a 3,900-square-foot penthouse has a $ ...

Staging is Simple Arithmetic… Sort Of 2007-09-04 01:50:00 If you spend any time researching home staging you will quickly read some of the most fundamental advice commonly given by home stagers is to REMOVE the CLUTTER and THIN-OUT any excess “stuff” in a home that is going to be for sale. Stagers seem to effectively communicate the message that SUBTRACTION is part of Staging 101. However, we here at Real Estaging have come to learn that sometimes what it takes to properly stage an occupied home is NOT just what needs to be taken out… but what needs to be put in. ADDITION, or adding items to the home, is the other half have to the staging equation that is often overlooked by MANY stagers. It is easy for a stager, that does not have inventory, to say nothing needs to be added to improve a homes appeal. Which may be 100% correct. But what if just by adding a few items your home goes from ordinary to extremely memorable and wonderfully appealing? When looking for a stager, consider the fact that stagers who have invested in pr ...

The Mortgage Broker vs. Mortgage Banker Argument 2007-09-03 14:08:57 Several people have asked me to comment on the differences between mortgage brokers and mortgage bankers and levy an opinion on which I believe to be the better business model. I am, of course, weighing in on what I believe the best model to deliver service and a solid loan to a consumer, and will ignore owner-related issues such as profit margins as they do not relate to the overall customer experience. This is not meant to be a deep introspection of the two models; rather, consider it a survey of some of the important differences between the two and their implications on customers interacting with each. If you’re wondering why I may be able to speak to this argument with any rigor it is due to the fact that the company I own has operated under both the mortgage broker and mortgage banker business models. As the champion of our switch from brokering to banking, and the change agent involved in the transition, I have a first hand knowledge of all aspects of the differences be ...

A brief history of your Blown Mortgage Scribe - Part One 2007-09-03 12:18:22 I have recieved now more than a few requests to share a bit more about my background with respect to how I ended up where I am now than i reveal on my About page. It is a task that I have not been too excited about as it feels self-indulgent and overly revealing at the same time. I am sure that many of you will skip these posts (and yes there is more than one) and feel free to do so, those of you interested in where this is all coming from - enjoy. There are four parts to this thing and I’ll be rolling them out over the next week or so. It is definitely an unfinished piece. Particularly the parts about my indoctrination in to the industry and any in-depth conversation of where I learned what I share here; but its a modest start and one that I hope puts some perspective me - the person who writes Blown Mortgage every day. – Morgan Part 1 A lot of people ask me about my background and how and why I am in mortgages. Most people want to know why someone in the mortgage ind ... History

Downtown Toronto Condos - East End 2007-09-03 07:05:39 Here is look at the condos currently on the market in eastern part of downtown Toronto (from Yonge Street to the Don Valley, south of Bloor Street). Parking and storage locker are not included in the purchase price unless indicated. 1. THE BLOOR STREET NEIGHBOURHOOD: 38 Charles St. E. Builder: Cresford Developments. A 26-storey, 327-unit precast concrete building. Prices: from $194,900 for 518 sq. ft. to $1.1 million for 2,026 sq. ft. Fees: 44 cents per sq. ft., plus hydro. Amenities: swimming pool, whirlpool, exercise room, billiards/games room, party room, dining room, sun terrace, two guest suites, 24-hour concierge. Sales: about 85 per cent sold. Status: under construction. Occupancy: December 2007. Sales centre: 876 Yonge St., 416-977-1100; thebloorstreetneighbourhood.com. 2. CASA CONDOMINIO RESIDENZA: 33 Charles St. E. Builder: Cresford Developments. A 46-storey all-glass building and a five-storey podium, with 407 units in total. Prices: from $186,900 for 431 sq. ft. to $595,90 ...

How we got in to this mess - a video 2007-09-01 22:09:29 So, we’ve been hooked on the screen cast thing around here lately. First it was the podcasts, then the 30-second news clips (starring yours truly as a talking head) and now we’re on to the screen casts. In this video I cover some of the rudimentary top-level actions that got us in to this mortgage and credit mess. Not deep economic theory, not really anything deep - just a cursory look at the problems articulated by yours truly. View the video here. While this clip is geared for the Realtors out there, consumers will surely find the overview of the problem valuable. One note of disclosure. This presentation is not mine, not the words, not the slides. You see, lots of mortgage people pay for prepackaged information that comes to them at different intervals. There are many services that provide this type of information. We get to use it as our own as part of advisor-based marketing. Lots of people use it, most don’t say that they didn’t come up with it. P ...

ROYAL LEPAGE POLL FINDS HOUSE STAGING A PRE-SALE MUST FOR CANADIANS 2007-09-01 03:32:36 CONTRARY TO BELIEFS, COSTS ARE LOW AND NEED IS HIGH -Poll also finds 75% of Canadians classify their home décor as current and 45% call themselves pack rats. With the busy housing market right, Canadians are contemplating home improvements to help entice potential buyers. According to a poll released today by Royal LePage Real Estate Services, the attitudes of Canadians towards appropriate house sale preparation costs and the currency of their home’s décor differs from industry experts. The 2005 Royal LePage House Staging Poll (conducted by Maritz Research) illustrates that 54 per cent of Canadians think that $2,000 or more is the appropriate amount to spend in preparing a house for sale, with a surprising 25 per cent willing to pay over $5,000. The poll also shows that 75 per cent of Canadians would classify the style of their house as current or somewhat current. These findings are counter to house staging specialists, who maintain that although the majority of homes in C ...

Ameriquest to Close - execs wonder “why’d we spend all that money on Super Bowl ads?”� 2007-08-31 21:34:52 Ameriquest, long the poster-child of successful (and suspect) subprime lending announced that the unit will close upon the finalization of their sale to parent company Citi. Citi will pick up their servicing portfolio, along with their wholesale arm Argent Mortgage in the deal. Thanks to commenter BB for pointing out the news story to us. From the release: Along with shuttering Ameriquest, Orange-based ACC Capital Holdings also said it was selling its wholesale mortgage origination operation and a mortgage servicing business to Citigroup for an undisclosed sum. Under the agreement with ACC, Citigroup acquires servicing rights for $45 billion worth of loans. Terms of the deal, expected to close Sept. 1, were not disclosed. Citigroup is the nation’s largest financial institution. The sale includes operational centers in Orange and Rancho Cucamonga, along with Rolling Meadows and Schaumburg, Ill., as well as a broker network extending across 48 states. More from the OC Register o ...

Peace, Love and Props (to our sponsors) 2007-08-31 15:06:14 A weekly thing over here - a gracious thank you to the sponsors that support Blown Mortgage.  We have two new sponsors this week: The Truth About Mortgage - is a great blog providing all sorts of mortgage-related information; including the inside tips and secrets surrounding how mortgages work. A great reference for anyone wanting to learn more about mortgages and the mortgage industry.  You can get to them via the “Mortgage Advice” link under Premium Links.  Check them out! MathNotMagic.com - A site that talks about the Mortgage Accelerator program; a program where you can reduce the interest payments made on your mortgage by more than half.  It’s simple math, and reducing interest - not magic!  For payment-stressed home owners looking to reducing interest check out MathNotMagic.com. Of course, to our loyal sponsors OfferAngel.com, Weichert Realtors, New Day Trust Mortgage, MyFICO.com, Life Lock Identity Theft prevention - thank you! And thanks to all our reader ...