Believe it or not, even though you may have heard that lenders have tightened their grip on loans, as long as you meet the conditions of your lender and the Fair Housing Administration, it is very possible to buy a home with nothing down. [Read more…]
Archives for May 2008
Letter from Gabriel A. Negrete
Over the past 10 years I have sponsored a young boy who has grown into a man through Compassion International. Today I received my final letter from him, which was bitter sweet. Gabriel was only 7 years old when I chose him to be my sponsored child. Gabriel was born in 1990 and it’s time for him to leave the Compassion Project. I have posted his final letter here. I urge you to consider reaching out to someone who is in part of the world that doesn’t experience the same luxuries that we do. It truly blesses their lives.
April 9th, 2008
Dear Sponsor Jonathan Griffith:
I greet you with a special affection in the love of Jesus and I wish you are very well. I thank God because I do well at biology and after my school studies, I will go to University. I would like to study medicine and I am praying that God let me to study that career. I am going soon to turn 18 years old and I am going to leave the project where I learned many things. I was playing with a soccer team, my position is middle camp and I visited many places where we had to play and I met many special poeople that help me with my formation and the most important is that I knew to God and His immense love to us. I am living with my grandmother and my aunts in Pastrana Barrero Neighborhood which is a very peaceful neighborhood and there I have many friends. My address is (removed) my phone number is (removed). I am very grateful with the sponsorship that you gave me all these years. It was a great blessing although I did not have the oportunity to see you in person. But I know that you are a great person. I thank your letters and for praying for me. I ask you always pray for me and I will take you into my heart because I will never forget all you did for me. I trust in God to bless you and protect you and whole your family. I say good bye with a great hug. So Long!
I love you,
Gabriel A Negrete H
Needless to say, I feel as though I have a long lost son in Columbia who has grown up in adverse conditions and one day I will meet him. The experience is well worth the monthly gift. Compassion International.
The Climate in Phoenix Arizona
Over the past week, in the Valley of the Sun the temperature has taken us on quite a ride. Phoenix has a long standing reputation for basting it’s residence in a “dry” heat, but year after year, we experience a strange anomaly between seasons. Some of you may not realize that Phoenix doesn’t experience the typical four seasons. We go from cool to hot, hot to cool, year after year. Sure, there are plenty of beautiful areas in the Arizona wilderness that experience all four seasons, but Phoenix isn’t one of them.
Take a look at the graph below. This is the temperature history for Phoenix according to weather.com along with the forecast through the end of the month as of Friday, May 23rd at 10:55 AM. Every year, when the temperature moves from cool to hot, we see a quick increase in temperature followed by nearly a week’s worth of teaser temps, and then the full blown summer heat begins.
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I’ve never understood why this happens, but being a resident of Arizona for over 36 years, it has become quite clear that the pattern isn’t going to change. Since I can remember, in the summer, when the temperature moves from hot to cold, somewhere around the last week in October, we experience a period where we are teased with cool weather for a few days, then we experience a few more days of blasting heat, then it cools down for the season. So, in the “winter” it gets hot for a few days, cools down then the furnace fires up, and in the summer, it cools down for a few days, fires up a quick reminder of how hot it can be, then cools down for the season.
I just wish we were on the October end of the season, and not the May end. It’s gonna be a hot one.
What is a short sale?
What?
The concept is rather simple. When you sell something for less than the amount that is owed, you are selling it short of the full amount.
Why?
Lenders became opportunists during the past few years and decided that they would irresponsibly lend the full value of homes to nearly anyone without proof of income. In some cases, lenders were giving homeowners more than 100% of the value of their home. They were giving away money without explaining to buyers that the reason their payments were so affordable was because the loans they were issuing were interest only adjustable rate loans; a perfect solution for a short term investment, but horrible for long-term homeownership.
How?
John Doe in 2006 finds a home that he wants to buy. At his income level, he can afford to spend $2000.00 every month on a mortgage. The home that he wants to purchase, if financed conventionally on a 30-Year fixed interest mortgage would put him over his monthly mortgage payment budget. He could solve that problem by including a down payment to reduce the loan amount, but he doesn’t have any money in the bank. The lender, knowing they would make their money on closing costs and doc fees, decides to offer creative financing to John Doe Roofers Surrey so he can afford the home. They write an interest only, adjustable rate mortgage with a pre-payment penalty and more than likely a 5 year expiration period on the adjustment for the full amount of the home. The adjustable rate mortgage ensured that after 5 years, sometimes 3 years, the loan would come due to adjust up, which would bloat his payment way above what he would have been able to afford in the first place.
At this point, John Doe has zero equity in his home and a payment he can’t afford. With the declining market values, his situation is worsened by the fact that he won’t be able to sell the home for as much as he bought it. He owes more than the home is worth. Why is this a problem? Well, normally the homeowner could simply stay put in their home, make their monthly payment, and ride the market until the natural average increase in value caught up to them. The real problem is that John Doe couldn’t afford the home in the first place, and he’s out of cash. He has to sell.
In comes the Short Sale.
Since John Doe is in a position where he MUST sell, he would rather do that than file bankruptcy and walk on the property, so he appeals to the bank for approval to sell the home for less than what he owes. He must prove that he has a legitimate hardship before the bank will actually allow his chosen brokerage to sell the home. He can list the home for sale, but when it comes to actually selling the home, accepting an offer, he must obtain bank approval, and that may take up to 90 days, depending on who the lender is and how well they process Short Sales.
If the home that John Doe is living in doesn’t receive an offer quickly enough, the property may enter into foreclosure and the bank might have to give him the boot. When this happens, the bank puts the property on the auction block. If the property doesn’t sell at auction, the bank owns it.
As a result, the buyer believes that he/she is entitled to pay less than listing price on just about any property out there, whether short sale or not.
So You Found The Right House, Now What: Part 1
Before the internet existed, the process would have occurred in a different order. You would have first sought out your real estate professional, then you would have begun searching for a home. This is still happening today, but now you have the ability to find the home you love on your own. There’s no substitute, however, for seeing the home in person, and that’s what you’ll need a licensed real estate agent for.
Let’s say that you did find that dream home on the internet. You drove by it a few times, maybe even had the opportunity to talk with the owner [Read more…]
Finding the Right Look and Feel
I’m not a programmer by any means. I’m good at setting up systems that work towards a purpose. I can dive into a mechanism clear it out, and put it back together so I understand how it works. Creating it from scratch will be left up to the programmers, the geniuses.
When I adopted WordPress a few years ago, I migrated from MoveableType, a site that I was turned on to by Michael Parrish of Oblivio.com, who I found after searching Google for [Read more…]