In this video SEC-registered investment manager Bill Parish examines 529 College Savings Plans, sharing his views on how to best choose and set up the right plan for these important savings. Also, a look at Oregon’s 529 vendor Oppenheimer’s failure to protect its plan’s most conservative funds from massive losses, while similar funds around the country remained stable.
Duration : 0:8:36
Expand the description and view the text of the steps for this how-to video.
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If your home has an FHA-insured mortgage, learn how to get a lower fixed-rate FHA streamlined refinance loan.
To complete this How-To you will need:
Current FHA loan documents
Your credit score
A lender
A loan application
Escrow statements (optional)
Closing statements (optional)
Step 1: Find out if you have an FHA mortgage
Locate your loan documents and look for a 10-digit FHA case number to find out if have an FHA-insured mortgage. Your current mortgage must be FHA insured to qualify for an FHA streamlined mortgage refinance.
Tip: FHA case numbers can also be found on escrow account statements and original mortgage closing statements.
Step 2: Contact lender
Contact your original FHA mortgage lender and ask if they originate FHA streamlined mortgage refinances. If they don’t, contact other lenders.
Step 3: Find out your FICO credit score
Find out your FICO credit score, a factor in determining if you qualify for an FHA streamlined mortgage refinance.
Tip: 720 or higher is an excellent score. 660 to 719 is good. 620 to 659 is average. 619 and below is below average.
Step 4: Complete application
Choose a lender and fill out an FHA streamlined mortgage application. Loan approvals are determined by the review and verifications of the private lender.
Thanks for watching How To Streamline Your FHA Mortgage! If you enjoyed this video subscribe to the Howcast YouTube channel! http://www.youtube.com/subscription_center?add_user=howcast
Duration : 0:1:25
The United States has had public debt since its inception. Debts incurred during the American Revolutionary War and under the Articles of Confederation led to the first yearly reported value of $75,463,476.52 on January 1, 1791. Over the following 45 years, the debt grew, briefly contracted to zero on January 8, 1835 under President Andrew Jackson but then quickly grew into the millions again.[6]
The first dramatic growth spurt of the debt occurred because of the Civil War. The debt was just $65 million in 1860, but passed $1 billion in 1863 and had reached $2.7 billion following the war. The debt slowly fluctuated for the rest of the century, finally growing steadily in the 1910s and early 1920s to roughly $22 billion as the country paid for involvement in World War I.[6]
MOST IMPORTANT:
The buildup and involvement in World War II plus social programs during the F.D. Roosevelt and Truman presidencies in the 1930s and 40’s caused a sixteen-fold increase in the gross debt from $16 billion in 1930 to $260 billion in 1950.
After this period, the growth of the gross debt closely matched the rate of inflation where it tripled in size from $260 billion in 1950 to around $909 billion in 1980. Gross debt in nominal dollars quadrupled during the Reagan and Bush presidencies from 1980 to 1992. The Public debt quintupled in nominal terms.
In nominal dollars the public debt rose and then fell between 1992 and 2000 from $3T in 1992 to $3.4T in 2000. During the administration of President George W. Bush, the gross debt increased from $5.6 trillion in January 2001 to $10.7 trillion by December 2008,[7] rising from 58% of GDP to 70.2% of GDP. During March 2009, the Congressional Budget Office estimated that gross debt will rise from 70.2% of GDP in 2008 to 100.6% in 2012.[8]
Retrieved 5/28/10, from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_public_debt
Duration : 0:0:40
http://realestatemarketingthisweek.com/loan-modification/why-you-should-use-a-licensed-attorney-to-negotiate-your-loan-modification/ – Why you should use a licensed attorney to negotiate your loan modification –
Part 1 – Dan Havey thanks for taking the time to be with us tonight. Thank you Michael for having me and you are absolutely right 2008 for many people was a very tough year. Tough year for pretty much everybody that I know, how many banks have we lost in 2008? Hopefully the bleeding is gone; hopefully there arent too many more banks to fail. Quite a few banks have picked up some of the slack, but the reality of it is so many people have been faced with such hardships, we have solutions that we are maybe going to talk about today that they can look forward to, to make 2009 a great year.
Definitely that is what we are doing here with your organization at Velocity Financial and with the Modification Hotline and with many of the other things I am working on right now to help people out. When I first got into this business it was back in the late 80s, I moved here from Wisconsin after getting a degree in finance and I started selling repos for Fannie Mae, Countrywide, and the RTC. The Resolution Trust Corporation was responsible for getting rid of all the real estate owned by the over 1,800 S&Ls that failed. So I cut my teeth selling those reposed properties and got to know a lot about the laws and worked with a lot of attorneys and then in the mid 90s I moved into the mortgage business, and I immediately started there working with bankruptcy attorneys for the most part.
I was helping people get out of their bankruptcies, chapter 13 bankruptcies, to avoid bankruptcies, to stop foreclosures and I did that up until the fall of 2007 and at that point the market really changed for me as we know most of the subprime financing went away. Some people might look at me and say, my god you gave people subprime loans, well if you are in a chapter 13 bankruptcy and your payment to the trustee is $1,500 a month and I can get you out of bankruptcy and reduce your total monthly outlay by $1,200, your mortgage payment would go up a little bit, I think this is a really good use of a subprime loan. And I certainly never had any complaints from anyone when I got them out of bankruptcy or I stopped their foreclosure and saved their home.
So late last year I moved out of the mortgage business for a while but I never really left it because it is pretty much what I have done my entire adult life. Over 20-25 years I have been involved with real estate, mortgages and finance and I worked for a while for about 6 months last year on a model for an idea that we came up with of being able to accurately predict the top and bottom of all real estate markets and we perfected it for Arizona and most of California. It worked really well to the point that we could actually predict the bottom of the market 6 months in advance and then after the bottoms hit all across the country we kind of stopped working on it.
It is one of the things I am going to start working on again over the next few months. The title of the book is Real Estates Future and you can go to my website at http://realestatesfuture.com and get a copy of that if you want to, it is not available yet but just put in your information and I am going to give away a whole bunch of free copies of it.
The reason why I went through this entire story is because a few months ago Michael and Velocity Financial came to me and said he was going to do loan modifications and I had been approached by other people and I had seen a bunch of garbage on the internet and the thing that he said to me that sold me was, You know Dan, you have to understand, were using attorneys to negotiate these loan modifications.
And that is, I didnt mean to interrupt but that is the key; that is one of the reasons it took us so long to get in. Even though Velocity Financial was at the very beginning of this mad craze, heck you cant drive down the street without seeing a sign that says loan mod, kind of like back in 2006 in the heyday of the mortgage business where you couldnt drive down the street and see a sign that said, if your mortgage payment is more than 1% you are paying too much. Well now everybody is jumping into the loan modification game and it is dangerous.
And that is exactly it, it is every unemployed loan officer has gotten into the loan modification game and I guess I am guilty of the exact same thing. It is just after having 20 years experience of working with attorneys, I know what they are capable of doing, I know how they can go in and negotiate and the biggest thing is they are there to protect the home owner, to protect the consumer, to protect their client because they have a fiduciary responsibility to that client… http://realestatemarketingthisweek.com
Duration : 0:6:29
http://realestatemarketingthisweek.com/loan-modification/home-owner-negotiated-loan-modifications-may-have-too-many-pitfalls/ – Home Owner Negotiated Loan Modifications may have too many pitfalls –
Part 4 – Yes, I think that makes perfect sense, the only analogy that I can come up with is I could probably figure out how to change the oil in my car, but its not my expertise. Im certainly not going to take the time away from what I have expertise in in order to figure out how to do that, Im going to have a professional do that, and it is the same idea with when someone is considering a loan modification.
You can probably call up that loss mitigation department of that lending institution versus going through the legal department and try to work through that scenario. But you dont know what you dont know, and if you take that approach and make that attempt it could cost you money, it could cost you a higher interest rate, it could cost you something that you are not even aware of. That’s where your team and the loan modification professionals and this attorney network that you exclusively work with come into play.
Again you talk about choosing to not change your own oil, of course you could figure it out, you wouldn’t operate on yourself, if you got yourself into some legal trouble and you were an attorney you wouldn’t represent yourself. Even though you may know what to do and how to do it, you are just not going to do it because you need an unbiased, 3rd party that is truly going to fight for your rights.
And who has expertise in this particular area, specifically focused on working on the mortgage holders, the consumers best possible outcome. That’s right and that is a great point, we have example after example of people who have tried to do the loan modification on their own and most of the time what we see is a situation that is best for the bank, a temporary fix, well people don’t need a temporary fix.
Temporary being the key word there, well make it better for one year, three years, five years, whatever it is, but we will tack it onto the life of the loan. One of our strategic partners was just sharing a story on the break about someone he knows personally that did this, they did this themselves without the benefit of an attorney and the end result was a temporary, short term fix today, all of the back interest, costs etc. were tacked on to the other side of the loan, of this mortgage. That is not what you are after, with a loan modification.
And when you think about it a temporary fix is what put most of these people in the situation to begin with it, were a temporary fix. Remember the billboards that said if your mortgage payment is only $500 a month you are payment too much, call us for a 1% interest rate. Give me a break, people fell for it, everybody fell for it, it was a disaster. You don’t need a temporary fix you need a real fix.
A real fix that is going to meet your needs as a consumer, that is going to meet the needs of your family so you can stay within the home and that’s going to meet the needs of your cash flow monthly, to get a reduced payment, whatever it is going to be for you and your family, that is the whole idea behind modifying your existing loan.
Another important item we hammer down on so many of these issues, a loan modification is not for somebody who doesn’t care. This is if you care and it appears that you will be faced with foreclosure, if you are late on your mortgage, if it is getting ready to go up, any number of genuine true hardships financially that happen to you. Your main goal has to be that you want to stay in your house, keep your family in that house, you need to call, we are here to help, we are not salesmen.
If you are able to find another solution, you know what we are happy for you, the more people in my opinion that are affiliates of my firm that are out there to help us through this process the better off we all are, the sooner we get through this loan modification, these toxic mortgages, the sooner all things economic will recover. The housing market is the basis for this economic crisis and everybody knows that.
There is no question and a number of experts that have weighed in and who have credibility that I receive advice from in terms of helping my own clients, they talk about the stock market in terms of when does it improve and when do stocks get a foothold and go forward and the economy starts to rise and recession come to an end and all those things… http://realestatemarketingthisweek.com
Duration : 0:6:24
http://realestatemarketingthisweek.com/real-estate/were-in-recession-and-hank-paulson-holds-the-purse-strings/ – Were in Recession and Hank Paulson holds the purse strings. -
Part 1 – Brett has brought with him some updates on the economy and how things are changing theses days and he brought some great information to discuss with you. We talk about all these different things in the economy and let’s be honest there are a lot of problems out there, no one can dispute that, the unemployment rate is the highest it’s been in many year, with Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac AIG being taken over by the government, Lehman brothers Bear Sterns, WAMU, Countrywide all gone, banks and insurance companies getting their bailout, the auto industry is the next one to get a bailout, were already working on our second stimulus package.
95% of the people according to President elect Obama are going to be getting a tax cut soon. Where is all of the money for all of this going to come from? It just seems to be a downward spiral. Brett’s got some great insight on this that he wants to talk about and some more, unfortunately, a little bit more dismal news, just want you to know before you drive off a cliff there is light at the end of the tunnel. We are going to talk about that so Brett, why don’t you share a little information if you could.
Yeah, I would be happy to, you mentioned a couple of things in your opening comments and one was about, the market seems to be anticipating bad news, and it certainly is not surprising it was a pretty significant down day on Wall Street again today, most of that was attributed to two things. Retailers such as Best Buy and Macy’s came out with their projections for consumer spending. Best Buy actually said something to the effect that it is the lowest level of consumer spending that they have ever experienced in the history of their business. Best Buy is actually one that hopefully will stick it out as we know Circuit City is filling for bankruptcy.
The other thing that you mentioned was jobless rate has climbed, the number has definitely increased, the NEBR is the government agency that is responsible for reporting when a recession begins and when it ends. They call it. They officially have not called one, but I think every reasonable person believes that we have been in one and probably have been in one for some time already.
So right supposedly there is some technical factor that says this is a recession that doesn’t mean that we flip the switch and boom here we are out of the recession is that right?
That is absolutely right and in hindsight is how they judge that time of when it started and when it comes to an end, and it’s usually several months after the fact, but it remains to be seen. We believe we are in a recession but we are going to talk about a couple of things that people are feeling this economic crunch and what they can do about it, specifically as it is regarding their home ownership and their mortgages.
A couple of interesting things that came out, Secretary of the Treasury Hank Paulson today made an announcement this morning regarding a change in the governments, they call it a rescue plan. Others call it a bailout. Thats the 700 hundred billion dollar plan, and apparently Wall Street is unhappy with the changes that took place, pretty significant.
The idea at the time this legislation was passed in congress and ultimately signed by President Bush into law was to use the funds to buy the bad assets, mortgage backed assets from banks and lending institutions, they changed that and recanted that today, Hank Paulson specifically announced that they are no longer going to be using those funds, that the current plan calls for 250 billion dollars of the 700 billion to be used to buy stock of those banks and financial institutions
Does Hank Paulson, does he need to get approval for this? One of the things that have been discussed all week long has been, was the fact that as this legislation was passed and approved, is that he has full power to make these types of decisions, without the benefit of it being discussed through congress and those traditional channels. He is currently the most powerful man in the world. He has the whole checking account to himself to decide what the best distribution of those funds is. It certainly appears that way and apparently he changed his mind and announced it today… http://realestatemarketingthisweek.com
Duration : 0:5:40
http://realestatemarketingthisweek.com/loan-modification/loan-modifications-are-all-the-craze-beware-and-only-work-with-an-attorney/ – Loan Modifications are all the craze, beware and only work with an Attorney –
Part 5 – I have been a part of these broadcasts where we have talked about the loan modification concepts exclusively and to your credit Michael and your team at Velocity I saw you guys as being first to the punch if you will, first to start introducing this concept not only to the listening audience but to your clientele whenever it might be appropriate for the people who need to look at that option. Now I am seeing on street signs that are handmade and posted on street signs all over the city, call me for loan modification. I am hearing commercials and radio broadcasts that are discussing this loan modification concept; I have seen infomercials regarding this now so its becoming a bigger and bigger scope, its a big buzz right now and maybe you could tell me, and I already know the answer to this how long have you been doing this? And then what are the criteria for someone to consider this process?
Its funny that the loan modification concept is new and its the new buzz word and everybody is talking about it and everybody is doing it and it has been around forever. People have been able to do this for many, many years. The banks dont want your house back; they really, really dont. They may act like it and when you talk to them it may sound like they do but they dont. Velocity Financial is working with a national network of attorneys that have been doing this for 16 years, they have done thousands of these.
These law firms have represented thousands of home owners helping them, keeping them from going into foreclosure. You will see yard signs, street signs, advertisements. As you know Velocity Financial does not advertise, the radio station does play a spot because its important for people to know there is legitimate, licensed help out there. What I want to point out is if you have tried to do it on your own and it didnt work out, I am sorry about that and it doesnt mean it cant be done.
Most importantly you want to deal with somebody that you can sit across the table from, that is here locally, and you dont want to write a check to anybody other than a law firm. A licensed attorney needs to handle this, it is the best way to handle this. Velocity Financial does not charge an up front fee; we take care of all of the necessary paperwork, the discovery work. We do all of that and we dont charge for that. You do have to pay an attorney to represent you and after the case is done and modified and everyone is happy, they will pay us for the work that we have done. So dont work with anyone who isnt an attorney, thats my opinion.
In most states its the law and in Arizona its the wild, wild, west once again as usual, loan modifications are just not regulated but you know what, if you need a legitimate firm, if you need a human being to talk to and sit down with and lets get this thing worked out.
Well as you know Michael I started in the business about 20 years ago and the entire time I have really been working with attorneys. When I was doing loans for 12 plus years, I worked almost exclusively with bankruptcy attorneys helping to bail their clients out of bankruptcy and out of foreclosure, and I had been approached by other people and seen plenty of stuff on the internet about how you can basically buy a book online for $495, or go to a seminar, or do whatever and suddenly youre this loan modification expert after you read the book and filled out a couple of forms and that just doesnt give you the knowledge, the background and especially the negotiating ability that you have when you’re dealing with an attorney… http://realestatemarketingthisweek.com
Duration : 0:5:40
Tax on 1099C, Cancellation of Debt Income; Short Sale, Loan Modification & Foreclosure. Exception; Mortgage Forgiveness Debt Relief Act, Bankruptcy & Insolvency. Go To http://RealEstateMarketingThisWeek.com
Part 1 (Excerpt)
Expert tax advice from a CPA regarding a real estate related issues
Today’s show has a timely message. We have with us, an expert in the tax ramifications of the different types of mortgage situations that people find themselves in, we have brought in Mike Patenella, that I will introduce in just a moment, as well as Brett Fallon is back with us. Were going to be talking about the tax ramifications of short sales, foreclosures, and some of the different types of loan modifications.
Now if you listen to our show regularly, of course you know, we have been over the last several weeks, talking about loan modifications, but we have been getting hundreds of e-mails and calls requesting more information on the loan modifications. There are also some interesting questions that people ask about whats going to happen in regard to taxes. Thats the one thing that so many people are not talking about.
Well we need to talk about it. Its something that we need to bring to you that you can hear and thats what were going to focus the majority of today’s show on. Before I introduce Mike I need to introduce one of my very best friends and the best financial advisor I have ever known, Brett Fallon. Brett thanks for being on the show today.
Brett also has some information in regard to the markets and there is some really great, exciting stuff out there. But before I throw that back over to Brett, we have our expert guest today. He is a CPA and his name is Mike Patenella, thank you for being on the air with us today.
Mike is an expert in taxes, he is a CPA, he knows the ins and outs of all matters tax. His expertise in this particular area is widespread. Mike is an expert and will have specific answers to questions that we have put together. If you have had a foreclosure or youre facing foreclosure or if youre considering a short sale or bankruptcy, any number of things. Were going to touch on each just a little bit.
But we have a few numbers on our staff who are experts in loan modifications, we have put together a great video that helps explain the process, it’s about seven minutes long. And we will get that sent out to you in immediately.
Duration : 0:5:25
Predatory Lending, Mortgage Fraud,Real Estate,Foreclosure,Subprime,FBI,FDIC,Bailout, Judicial Injustice,Value inflated 136%, BB&T Bank,loan, congress, Judicial Injustice, Adjustable Rate,News,CNN, Mortgage
Duration : 0:5:2
Amidst the Real Estate & Mortgage Meltdown; Foreclosure Fraud & Scams; Real Estates Future is Great. First Time Home Buyers, FHA Loans & Seller Paid Closing Costs. Go To http://RealEstateMarketingThisWeek.com
Part 4 (Excerpt)
Mortgage Backed Securities, Collateralized Debt Obligations and Tranches Oh My!
Now, I put the colorful title on How to Screw the Bank that Screwed You for no other reason than to get people to click on it to get the information, because frankly, a lot of people were given really bad loans, were given really bad advice, and sometimes you have to fight back.
Here is one of the things and again Ill try to make this as uncomplicated as possible. Let’s say you bought the house and you got the loan through a mortgage broker. Well that mortgage broker didnt really give you the loan. They bought that loan from a wholesaler of mortgages. That wholesaler of mortgages, in turn bought that loan from one of those big huge Wall Street banks, most of which are out of business right now.
Important thing to point out if I may, Velocity Financial is a mortgage broker, we do get our money from several wholesale banks, I just wanted to point that out because we’re glad were a broker.
Just to continue the analogy. So the broker buys it from a wholesaler, who buys it from the Wall Street bank, and like I said, most of them are out of business now. And what the Wall Street bank did with thousands of these loans worth billions of dollars, they put them all together into what is known as mortgage backed securities. That is the stuff you hear like Fannie Mae is selling and there is an interest rate put on them, and what happened to these mortgage backed securities is they in-turn were bought up by other Wall Street banks, combined with other mortgage backed securities and they were called collateralized debt obligations.
Well then these brainiacs on Wall Street decided to chop these collateralized debt obligations up into what is referred to as tranches. So let’s say you had your best quality AAA borrowers in the top tranch . And obviously your ZZZ borrowers were in the bottom tranch. Each one of them was given a specific interest rate, each one of them was rated by a bond rating firm, and each one of them was given insurance.
Well, what happens is as these got split up and sold over time the notes on the mortgages go with the debt itself. So CDO over in Bangladesh owns your mortgage now, but here is the problem, they dont have the paperwork.
So the reason I went through this whole story is in case your bank comes to you and says were going to foreclose what you want to do is go and get yourself an attorney and you want this attorney to go to this bank and say we want you to prove to us that you have standing, that they have the legal right to come after you and foreclose on you. And here is the thing, if they dont have the paperwork, if they dont have the note on the property, they cant prove that they have standing. So whether its the wholesaler, who is foreclosing on you, whether its the servicer, whoever it is, chances are very good that they dont have this note.
So again, he got a little complicated. You want to go to the website http://mortgageanswerman.com and there are several articles there, and a lovely little chart that I drew up, except that it will be much nicer than this piece of paper, and I will have all the information there. I had a friend just recently who was in foreclosure and she made the phone call, and she said, you cannot foreclose on me without the original note. Now eventually it got foreclosed on, but it delayed it several months until they were able to find that note. Chances are they may never be able to find that note.
And in many states, including Florida and Ohio they are very successful at using this tactic to stop or completely do-away-with the foreclosure sale. We dont necessarily want to encourage people to go down this path, right? Were looking for a stall essentially?
Well, hopefully no one will ever have to get to that point. But if you believe that your servicer, your mortgage company is not being nice to you. Especially if you call them up and want to do a loan modification, and they are dragging their feet, filing foreclosure and coming after you, you have to protect yourself. And this is one of the ways you can protect yourself by hiring an attorney and suing them for lack of standing
That is one of the things that I want to talk about that Velocity Financial is involved with a national network of attorneys who do this sort of work. Velocity Financial does not charge an upfront fee for these types of loan modifications, we do hire an attorney and they work with the national network of attorneys to work on your behalf. They do charge a retainer, of course, if they are going to fight for you they need to be paid, however, there are no upfront fees…
Duration : 0:6:36