Feb

4

Monday Morning Quarterback

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Microsoft may be buying Yahoo. They also might be buying the Sun complex in Broomfield. Despite Google’s meteoric rise, Microsoft is/are still the Joneses and Google knows it!

The caucus in Colorado is Tuesday. Isn’t twenty years of Bush (4) + Clinton (8) + Bush (8) enough? For the record, I’m a huge fan of Barry. If you read his bio, you might become one too. He’s half African, half Caucasian. Raised in Hawaii. Lived in Indonesia. Schooled in California and NY. Senator for Illinois. He’s got the whole country and a lot of ethnicities covered plus according to the NY times he’s a MAC.

Rate cuts, rate cuts, and more rate cuts.

I’ll be the first to admit that I really didn’t think the Giants had a shot at winning the Superbowl. I grew up watching both the Jets and the Giants but since my brother liked the Giants, I adopted the Jets as my team just to spite him. Boy do I regret that move big time!

Despite being a Jets fan, it’s hard for me to hate the Patriots. New England line backer Tedy Bruschi is the same ethnic chop suey as I am.

Why do we love sports? My brother said it best, it’s unscripted drama.

My brother is now a Broncos fan.

Suck it Peter King!

    Jan

    16

    Video: The Subprime Meltdown of 2007

    Filed Under mortgage | Leave a Comment

    Reuters video on the Subprime meltdown via youtube:

    Sep

    18

    Fed Funds Rate down .5%

    Filed Under mortgage, personal finance, rates | Leave a Comment

    Fed Funds Rate down .5%

    WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Federal Reserve on Tuesday slashed the benchmark federal funds rate by a half-percentage point in a bold bid to buffer the economy from a housing slump and related financial market turbulence.
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    The decision by the central bank’s Federal Open Market Committee took the overnight rate down to 4.75 percent, its lowest level since May of last year. It was the first cut in the interbank rate — the Fed’s main tool to influence the economy — since June 2003 and the first half-point reduction since November 2002.

    Financial markets had widely expected the Fed to lower overnight borrowing costs, but were split over whether the move would be a quarter-point or more-aggressive half-point.

    In a related move, the Fed also lowered the discount rate it charges for direct loans to banks by a half-point to 5.25 percent.

    What does this mean?

    According to Marketwatch:

    Here’s what consumers can expect:

  • If a consumer is paying 8.25% interest on a $100,000 loan that is based on the prime rate — such as a home-equity line — a rate reset to 7.75% is likely. That’s the difference of about $500 a year, or roughly $41.66 a month in interest charges.
  • Resets on some adjustable-rate mortgages will be slightly better. Many ARM interest rates are based on an average of Treasury note yields coupled with a fixed margin, now at about 2.75 percentage points. At Tuesday’s 10-year yield of 4.49%, the rate is 7.24%. In July, it was at 7.77%. That makes the monthly payment on a $200,000 mortgage $1,363, about $73 less than it was in July. But Treasurys could head even lower following the Fed action.
  • Rates on credit cards, which have taken on a bigger role in consumer financing in recent months, are likely to dip a bit too, lowering minimum monthly payments.
  • Savings-deposit rates will go down, meaning that your bank balances won’t appreciate at the same rates you’ve seen all year.
  • Ditto on money market rates, hurting those on fixed incomes — generally the elderly — who rely on cash generated from such safe investments.
  • Interest rates on new loans for cars will fall, though it won’t have any effect on loans already in place. But Brian Bethune, the U.S. economist with Global Insight, urges consumers to wait until contract negotiations between autoworkers and their bosses are done this month. “They could pull out all the stops,” he said about automakers’ desire to unload inventory. And if the Fed lowers rates again next month, all the better.

    • Aug

    28

    Weekend Highlights

    Filed Under denver, mortgage, personal finance, real estate | Leave a Comment

    As the real estate market slows down, you should expect fewer and fewer articles in the newspapers especially during the final quarter (October, November, December). However, this part weekend, there were numerous devoted to real estate: