Monday, November 23, 2009

USDA Rural Development

Please contact me about this program if you are interested in a:
No Money Down, low interest rate loan for the purchase of a primary residence!
You DO NOT have to be a first time homebuyer.
With the inventory of homes on the market, the prices at the lowest level and GREAT rates---people are finding it easier than ever to qualify!

Friday, November 20, 2009

Work Every Deal

I was able to work a deal that was turned down by another bank/broker/lender. If we work though every deal we sometimes come up with a new solution. What a Great Feeling When That Happens!

Wednesday, November 18, 2009

Training for the January 1st RESPA changes

HUD has firmly stated that they will NOT delay the effective date of January 1, 2010 - BUT they will not enforce sanctions in the first 120 days, as long as the company has shown a "good faith effort" to comply with the "Good Faith Estimate" ;-)

We have scheduled an in-depth online training with two RESPA attorney experts. To get details, go to:

www.RESPA-Training.com

Tuesday, November 17, 2009

GFE and HUD-1

Some POSITIVE news to start our morning.!!!

HVCC over the next couple days and now this --- EVERYONE should keep an eye and hear out and please report any news you have and I can distribute it.

**** I will be looking into the validity and following the discussions on this but this NEW GFE AND HUD-1 EFFECTS EVERY TRANSACTION and a delay would be a start.

HAVE A GREAT DAY!

Monday, November 16, 2009

HVCC--IMPORTANT

HVCC -- There should be a segment on HVCC this Wed and possibly again Thurs morning on Fox news network ( more info on time will follow if I can get it). The petition that has been circulating and signed by several thousand to contest "Home Valuation Code of Conduct" is being presented to Mr. Cuomo on Wednesday afternoon. We hope to see a lot of news outlets covering these events in the coming days--it will be very interesting to see what happens.

Monday, November 9, 2009

Do you heat with Propane?

A customer who was purchasing a rural home asked me yesterday what the cost of propane is per gallon. Since I don't heat with propane I had no idea of the cost. I thought, no problem, I'll just google "cost of propane in Minnesota"

I was suprised how hard it was to find specific information. The attorney general's office made reference to a weekly table of current, average propane costs, but they made it hard to find and hid it at the bottom of a bunch of other figures that had nothing to do with propane -- at least from my point of view.

This is the link to the chart and below is what I learned.

The lowest price in Minnesota for propane on November 2nd, 2009 was $1.32 per gallon

The highest price was $2.51 per gallon.

The average price was $1.64 per gallon

I also learned:

If you own your propane tank you can shop around for fuel at the cheapest price.
If you rent your tank you might be charged more by your provider just because they know you can't shop around.

I was going to supply a link to the article that tells about this but I can't find it again even though I know exactly what I'm looking for - the state needs to spend a little effort on making it possible to find things -- good grief!

The AG makes it sounds like buying propane could be tricky business. They make a point of saying "shop around".

The two bedroom house that started me on this search has a 750 gallon tank. At the average of $1.64 per gallon you would think it would hold $1,230 worth of propane, but you can only fill a propane tank a little more than three quarters of the way which brings the value down to $1,155. I doubt you'd want to let your tank go empty so it seems to me $1,000 would be an expensive fill for a 750 Gallon tank.

The next question, which I can't answer, is how many times a year do you have to fill a 750 Gallon tank for a 1200 sq ft house? I know that natural gas is a little cheaper than propane to heat with and a lot of 1200 square foot houses average more than $100 per month for natural gas. I would bet that for this 1200 square foot house with a 750 Gallon propane tank, the gas man would come at least twice a year to fill the tank.

It would be nice if someone who uses propane in this part of the country would share what they know.

Here's a link to the energy web site: http://www.state.mn.us/portal/mn/jsp/home.do?agency=Energy

Here's another link to a report on some of the AG's actions related to propane:
http://www.state.mn.us/mn/externalDocs/Commerce/Propane_Prebuy_Program_Report_062708011030_PropanePreBuy.pdf

Thursday, November 5, 2009

A message from Steve at SJD Mortgage

The legislature did extend the $8,000 homebuyer tax credit to contracts signed by April 30 and closed by June 30.
The Senate's bill also creates a $6,500 credit for those who buy a home after living in their current house at least five years. That measure would also apply to contracts signed by April 30 and closed by June 30. The current credit defines a first-time homebuyer as someone who has not owned a residence within the past three years. ( this information is coming from the cnn.money.com site ).