Wall Street Journal (04/17/12) Zibel, Alan New standards from the Federal Housing Finance Agency will require mortgage servicers to review and respond to short sale requests within 30 days of an offer on the property and provide weekly status updates if the offer is still under review after that. Mortgage firms will have to make [...]

The Obama Administration is launching a revised version of HARP to expand the borrower which will qualify essentially helping many more people refinance who otherwise wouldn’t have under the original program.  Below is a list of FAQ’s. What is HARP? The Obama administration in 2009 rolled out HARP to refinance borrowers whose loans were backed [...]

The Federal Housing Administration (FHA) announced that it is increasing both upfront and annual premiums for its insured single family loans. An increase of 0.10 percent in the annual premium mandated by the Temporary Payroll Tax Cut Continuation Act of 2011 will be effective for all loans written after April 1. In addition, FHA is [...]

I found this article on www.cnn.com.  I  thought it was quite interesting with a good perspective so I decided to repost it.  CNN) — The U.S. Postal Service appears to be the latest casualty in digital technology’s slow but steady replacement of working humans. Unless an external source of funding comes in, the post office [...]

Standard and Poors™ has downgraded the US sovereign rating to AA+, and kept the rating outlook at negative, suggesting improvement in the fiscal situation will be needed to avoid further downgrades. Federal agencies have issued guidance clarifying that this action will not affect risk weightings for US Treasury or agency debt. Key Points: 1. At [...]

A new report from the MetLife Mature Market Institute reveals that older Americans are losing $2.9 billion annually to elder financial abuse, an increase of 12 percent over estimates reported in 2008. “The MetLife Study of Elder Financial Abuse: Crimes of Occasion, Desperation and Predation Against America’s Elders” also reports that crimes committed by strangers [...]

Before it was known for long weekends, BBQ’s, family, camping and boating, let’s remember the true meaning behind memorial day and thank those who is serves.  Memorial Day, which falls on the last Monday of May, honors the men and women who died while serving in the American military. Originally known as Decoration Day, it [...]

“Don’t follow leaders / Watch the parking meters” Ah, the weather. In theory, it was largely to blame for the fact that far fewer of the unemployed in America put on their jackets and sought employment recently. Thus, our economy only produced 36,000 new jobs last month. Further, when the people doing the unemployment phone [...]

The present today is slipperier to evaluate than usual for an odd reason: it is so similar to the turn of last year. Hardly anything has changed. Interest rates are the same, near 5.00% for mortgages, near 3.50% for 10-year Treasurys, both expected to rise last year as now. The lack of employment is the [...]