“If only I knew what my street was like before I bought the house!”

Ignore the statewide statistics, forget the city figures. Phooey to the neighborhood. Reinforcing the notion that all real estate is local, meet Street Advisor, the definitive guide to America’s many streets.

Unfortunately, there just hasn’t been enough helpful information catalogued just yet to make Street Advisor a powerful force. That doesn’t mean you can’t be the first, of course.

Participate in the Local Expert program, or just share what you for the fun of it. Leave comments about your block’s restaurants, upload photos of the streetscapes, and write about recent real estate sales activity. As Yelp is to local businesses, Street Advisor is to, well, streets.

Stop by and add to your street’s official Street Advisor review.

The Fed left the Fed Funds Rate unchanged again today for the ninth time in a row after 17 consecutive hikes.

The Fed once again highlighted inflation containment as its chief concern while noting that pressures on the economy appear to be moderating. This is good news for holders of home equity lines of credit and credit card debt — both products’ interest rates are based on Prime Rate, a derivative of the Fed Funds Rate.

Not surprisingly, the Fed also gave a nod to the recent gyrations in stock and bond prices, although it did not state whether that is a strength or weakness to the overall economy.

Mortgage rates were flat after the Fed’s fairly neutral remarks.

Source
Parsing the Fed Statement
The Wall Street Journal Online
August 7, 2007
http://online.wsj.com/mdc/public/page/2_3024-info_fedparse_shell.html

Don’t have time or the money for a big vacation? Why not try a mini-vacation?

The goal of a vacation is to get away from the daily grind for a bit and clear your head. There are always plenty of places right around the corner, if you just spend some time looking.

After Labor Day, children are back in school, the weather is still nice enough to be outdoors, and tourism has slowed.

It’s really a perfect time to call local campgrounds, resorts, and/or odd haunts to see if there is a decent rate going. You can get in the car and drive to a nearby city, or rent a room in your own city and see it like a tourist might.

Think about the venues nearby that sounded like a great day trip, but you never got around to. Pack two or three of them together and call it a road trip.

A few nights spent visiting less-than-touristy tourist stops and eating unhealthy food can clear your mind jwith equal force as the perfect beach and frosty margarita. And it’s a lot cheaper, too.

Last week, several high-profile mortgage lenders closed their doors, but not all news was bad. For many mortgage rate shoppers, in fact, mortgage rates edged lower for the third consecutive week.

If you only watched the news, or market commentary on CNBC, you may have the wrong idea about what is really going on within mortgage markets.

According to the people paid to sell subscriptions and/or advertisements, this is the worst melt-down in the history of the bond market.

According to more level-headed observers, though, corrections like this are a normal and regular event.

Large hedge funds (like those from Bear Stearns making headlines) made bets on the economy and those bets are losers right now. Whenever large losses occur on Wall Street, other players try to limit their exposure to the same type of loss.

Friday, we discussed why lenders are shutting down, but we can’t forget that the number of lenders funding loans dramatically outnumber those that are not. Last week, the total number of unfunded loans was a very small number next to the total number of loans that did fund.

Yes, there are plenty of homeowners whose lives will be impacted by the snap-back in available credit, but many can get help before the proverbial hammer drops.

If there is a lesson to learn here for the average person, it’s that “now” is always a smart time to reach out to your financial planner to create a savings plan. You never know when your personal finances will be impacted by the whims of Wall Street trading.

Several high-profile mortgage lenders, including American Home Mortgage, closed their doors this week and stopped funding loans. Others dramatically limited their list of “eligible” borrowers.

Many buyers and sellers across the country have been stranded at the closing table without funds this week, only adding to the confusion.

Because the story is not getting much press, let’s talk about why lenders are having to shut down. It’s not because they made bad loans in the past, per se.

It’s because their only function is to serve as a go-between for Wall Street and home owners.

Different from mortgage banks, a “traditional” bank collects deposits from customers and then lends some of those deposits in the form of mortgages. Then, a special quasi-government agency steps in and buys the mortgages from the bank, in effect, “replacing” the deposits.

If you’ve heard of Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac, they are the quasi-government agencies we’re talking about. Their mandate is to buy home loans from banks that meet certain criteria.

For a mortgage bank, though, Fannie and Freddie are not the buyers — it’s hedge funds, pension funds, international investors, and others. If these end investors decide to stop buying loans, the mortgage bank can’t play matchmaker anymore.

And that is precisely what’s happening.

Unlike Fannie and Freddie, mortgage banks rely on investors to provide money to their clients and, now that many investors closed the spigot on mortgage loans, many mortgage banks have no choice but to fold.

Money Magazine recently listed their 2007 Top 100 Places To Live with Middleton, WI topping the list.

The full Top 10 list, in order:

1. Middleton, WI
2. Hanover, NH
3. Louisville, CO
4. Lake Mary, FL
5. Claremont, CA
6. Papillion, NE
7. Milton, MA
8. Chaska, MN
9. Wallingford, PA
10. Suwanee, GA

How did Middleton get to number one? The formula seems to make sense:

• Good education system
• Low crime rates
• Short commutes to work
• Good air quality

Number 100 on the list? Cottonwood Heights, Utah.

There are lessons to learn from the on-going mortgage guideline changes and it mostly comes down to this: Good credit is worth working for.

Some of the keys to good credit lie in the basics:

• Pay your bills on time every month
• Don’t surpass your credit limits
• Don’t co-sign on a loan then ignore it and then expect that it’s being paid on time

Some of the keys are not so obvious, though.

For example, a credit limit should be always be three times its current balance (at least). This is because with excess capacity on a credit card, a person is left with an emergency source of funds should it ever be needed. The credit bureaus like to see that.

One of the most overlooked common sense credit tips, tips relates credit “history”.

The credit bureaus reward people that have shown experience in managing credit and the longer that experience, the better the boost to your credit score.

For this reason, you should not close a credit card account just because you’re done using the credit card associated with it. Doing so erases a part of your credit history.

The better approach is to bury the credit card in a drawer, take it out every 3-4 months for a a single, small purchase (i.e. $5-10), and then pay your bill promptly.

As regular “client”, the creditor will constantly remind the credit bureaus that you are an active card holder, and that you are responsibly managing your debt, thereby increasing your credit score.