Released last Friday, housing starts showed an unexpected increase for the month of April.  Housing starts are a good way for the market to determine how hot things are in new construction.  Look further into the report however, and you’ll realize it’s not single family homes that have the numbers looking respectable.
 
Here’s the release from […]

Announced Thursday, the House of Representatives voted to approve (266-154) the ‘American Housing Rescue and Foreclosure Prevention Act’ (A.K.A. HR 3221).  This bill is Congress’ most comprehensive attempt thus far to address the foreclosure concerns in the US.   It’s important to remember that this bill must go on to the Senate for a vote […]

While browsing MarketWatch this morning, I found an interesting piece of news.  An analyst suggested that Bank of America should just walk away from the Countrywide Financial deal.  Obviously Paul J. Miller Jr. is not the first person to make that statement.  The rest of the statement is what I found interesting:

“BAC should completely walk away […]

Released at 2:15pm ET, the Federal Reserve announced their next move.  They’ve decided (in a 8-2 vote) that they are cutting the fed funds rate by .25%.  This brings the fed funds rate to 2%.   This also brings the prime rate down to 5%.  They also decided to lower the discount rate another .25%.  Cheap […]

Announced yesterday, Regency Homes (Iowa’s largest home builder) has lost it’s funding through Wells Fargo and has decided to hault all of it’s new construction projects. 
This decision leaves behind 300 houses that lenders will have to finish or sell as is.
Friday afternoon, Jamie Myers (president of Regency) told 103 employees they were out of work.   […]

I’ve always felt awkward defining this myself.  That is why I’m happy to say, I found a great article on this subject!  Recently on Inman Blog, Jack Guttentag (a great resource in my opinion) wrote about the differences between good and bad brokers.
Some key takeaways:

Good brokers are like financial planners. Mortgages should fit properly into […]

Are you or someone you know considering buying a first home?
I’ve got good news.  If you want to have fun and know the basics of this process and even some tricks on how to buy a home CHEAP… you need to be with us Thursday, December 6th at 7pm.  If you are interested, all you […]

Our next seminar is coming up very quickly!  The topic of this event is Improving Credit Scores.
Topic: Improving Your Credit Score
Place : 1031 Office Park Rd. Suite 1
           West Des Moines, IA 50265
Time : 7pm - 8pm
Why Should You Attend? With everything that credit score influences now its more important than ever […]