Mortgage Secrets…Learn What the Experts Say

This quote is a perfect fit for what I talk about in my video today:

“The great thing in this world is not so much where you are, but in what direction you are moving.” And it’s completely up to you!!  ~ Oliver Wendell Holmes

Great Big Dreams Require Great Big Thoughts & Little Tiny Steps from Janet French on Vimeo.

It’s really quite simple to enlist the help of a Trusted Advisor team. All it takes is one simple phone call to schedule a short 1-2 hours of your time to sit down with me and get your finances on track. From that point forward, all you need to do is keep committed, meet with us annually and let us handle the rest. Now you’re on your way to a balanced life!!

And if even if it’s not the time to refinance your loan, you may be thinking, “What on earth could a mortgage consultant do for a client that doesn’t need a loan? After all, the loan is closed…what else is there???”

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Like with anything else, simple advice is never appropriate in all circumstances. It all depends upon your particular situation. Today’s personal finances are much more complex. A house and mortgage are not just a component of a proper financial strategy. You need to examine all of the other factors of your finances such as your assets, liquidity, tax situation, credit, and your credit availability.

Your mortgage is not “just” the loan on your home; it is an important piece of your overall financial picture. A better way to look at your mortgage is to examine it in the context of your entire portfolio. A piece of real estate is an asset to your portfolio. The mortgage on that piece of real estate determines how much of that asset is leveraged versus how much is tied up with real cash.

Sure, you might have some equity or not at this point but your payments are the same, your tax deductions may be less and you still have x amount in savings and are struggling to put enough money away for retirement. Ask yourself, has much changed in your life since your property value had increased so dramatically over the previous years or you refinanced last time to pay off high interest credit cards and are they still gone?

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The ADP Employment report was released this morning, showing a dismal reading of 79,000 jobs lost last month, the biggest loss since November 2002. Job gains reported for May were also revised lower. After adding in an estimated 20,000 government jobs created in a typical month but not included in ADP’s read, their report suggests that about 60,000 jobs were lost in June…inline with estimates for tomorrow’s official Jobs Report from the Department of Labor. Initially Mortgage Bonds traded higher on the negative news, but have since come off their highs.

Oil and food prices are soaring…so consumers have to make hard choices as to where they spend their money, as so much is now going to the necessities of gas and groceries. Look no further than yesterday when Starbucks announced it is going to close 600 stores - about 15% of their US stores overall, which is a clear indicator that consumers are putting their double latte money right in the gas tank. This event and others like it will put a lot of people on the unemployment line.

Get Out of the Box

“Wherever we look upon this earth, the opportunities take shape within the problems.”
~ Norman Rockefeller, U.S. Vice President

In this weeks video, I discuss a few important topics pertinent to today’s economic conditions:

1. 3 solid money saving tips
2. I’ve come up with a solution to the energy crisis and I’ve also found a way to balance the budget. I’ll share with you my ideas on how to solve both problems in a relatively short amount of time.
3. I will discuss with you why this real estate market and the opportunities that are there for the taking are unlike any other real estate market cycle in times past.

Of course, all ideas and plans require willing and accountable participants that finish what they start. I’m always here to lend my 2 cents to those inspired to make a change for the better in their lives. I’ve had my own set of hard times and I’ve participated in plans that had no chance of success, and I learned a lot from every one of them. Now, however, I have a team of experts that will do their very best to ensure that my mistakes of years past are not repeated.

Human progress and excellence comes when someone goes beyond “why” to “why not?”
~ John Glenn, astronaut, U.S. senator

As you watch this video, think about the following:

Often you don’t know what you can do until you do it; what you can be until you become it; or what you can have until you have it. Enjoy!

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What is happening here in the local Southern California real estate market? Do you believe that prices are flattening out and we are “at the bottom” of the market or do you believe that we have a ways to go and we wont see prices flattening out until well into 2009?

Brief snippet from an article I read an last week:

“LATE PAYMENTS: One in 11 mortgaged houses was at least 30 days late or in foreclosure at the and of March, according to the Mortgage Bankers Association. The delinquency and foreclosure rates are the highest in the 36-year history of the MBA’s quarterly survey. In California, 1 in 19 mortgages are delinquent (5.26 percent) and 1 in 32 are in foreclosure (3.13 percent). Combined, 1 in 12 houses are delinquent or in foreclosure. That’s better than the national combined rate, but the state numbers aren’t seasonally adjusted. If they were, they would be higher. The national numbers are seasonally adjusted.”

Most of us in this business have now seen the adjustable rate mortgage reset chart, below, that’s been floating around now for about the last 8-9 months. What’s interesting and changing is that at the beginning of this market decline, loans that were in default were hitting the REO market about 7 months after a homeowners first late payment. Now we are seeing banks hold off on issuing the notice of default for 5-6 months before issuing the NOD. We wont see these homes as REOs until mid 2009.

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Over the last couple of days, I have been at a Mortgage Planning Summit in Las Vegas. I have been surrounded by several top mortgage planners in the country, peers and business coaches who have the insight and wisdom to help us through the tough times. And lets face it, it’s a tough time in our industry right now!

I wanted to share with you a couple of insightful thoughts that I find meaningful and extremely valuable and I believe you will too.

Trust and Stress
Don Hutson, co-author of The One Minute Entrepreneur talked about the inverse relationship of trust and stress in business. When trust is high, stress is low and vice versa. When I think about this in perspective to my clients, I realize that when I trust in myself, my clients place higher trust in me, our relationship or transaction is smooth and there is very little stress. However inversely, when I do not trust that I am going to create new business, work with a particular client or earn enough money, my fear about not having enough money and my finances creates lack of trust in my own abilities and then projects out to my clients and referral partners and I manifest just that, lack of new business. Nobody wants to do business with someone who is not confident in their skills. Read the rest of this post

Quote of the Week:

Vision (I made “vision” realllly big because it takes as much energy to think BIG as it does to think small. Pretty cool, right?)

“People who say that life is not worthwhile are really saying that they themselves have no personal goals which are worthwhile. Get yourself a goal worth working for. Better still, get yourself a project. Always have something ahead of you to look forward to…to work for and hope for.”

Dr. Maxwell Maltz

Author and Psycho-Cybernetics

The inspiration for my video this weeks comes from a very personal story of mine that happened last week and it has everything to do with asking the right questions of your paid professional before AND during the loan process. A great point that I mention in my video this week is the importance of knowing what your trusted advisor is going to do for you AFTER your escrow is closed. I mean, don’t you want to know? If you are working with someone who isn’t a cheerleader for what his/her company does for their clients after a transaction is closed, well, I hate to break this to you but, there probably isn’t a whole lot that company AND that person has to offer you by way of continuing education and debt management. It’s an unfortunate part about the mortgage industry. We are doing our part to fix that problem!

Please take a few minutes to watch this video (that was supposed to go out two days ago….arrrrgh!), then read the rest of my email:

http://www.vimeo.com/1125901
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Today I talk about what I have been seeing and hearing in the real estate market. There is a lot of fear about buying property because values are still dropping and yet when you look at the facts, homes are on sale, interest rates are still at historic lows and money is still available. BUT, it’s next to impossible to time the bottom of the market AND money is getting harder to get every week and interest rates are expected to rise.

You have a choice. Risk is waiting until you think prices have hit rock bottom and hope that you can still get financing OR be stoked that homes are on sale today and financing is still relatively decent.

And that brings me to my Quote of the Week….

“When you realize that by changing your perspective, big things can be seen as little things, it becomes much harder to worry about anything at all.” ~Tut - A note from the Universe

80% of all millionaires in this country made their money in real estate, and it wasn’t simply because they owned investment property! Owning real estate as an investment is a great tool because you can leverage the asset to further your wealth. BUT of course you have to own it first before you can take advantage of appreciating and declining home values. Shouldn’t you get to be one of the 80%? Absolutely!

“If you owe the bank $100.00, you have a problem. If you owe them $1,000,000, the bank has a problem!”
Donald Trump