Current Home Lending Info Blog for Southern Nevada

After a very scary week of some turbulence in the mortgage industry, interest rates are finally improving!  With over .5% hike in interest rates over the last week, mostly due to stock improvemets, there has been some very positive movement in interest rates today.  Even as recent as yesterday, stocks were having a good day.

For those that don't know, or those that I have not used this example for, let me explain it to you so you understand why stocks play such an important role when it comes to mortgage interest rates.  Unlike what you may hear from the bobble-heads on TV, interest rates are not tied to the 10 Yr. Treasury Rate.  In fact, in many cases, they actually work inversely.  Now, let's say that you are an investor on Wall Street and you have one dollar to invest.  If stocks are seeing a rise in the market, and you feel that stocks will continue to see a rise, you will put your dollar in a stock. 

However, when stocks begin to take a dive, and you see the NYSE and the NASDAQ getting hit by stocks plummeting, you want to make sure that your dollar stays safe, so you take that dollar out of the stock, and you put it into the bond market, which is where you really see what makes the interest rates move on mortgages.  Bonds carry much less of a risk than Stocks do, so if you feel that the stock market is volatile and unstable, you will put your dollar in the bond market which will help our mortgage interest rates stay low.

Now, the bond and stock market are not the only factors that effect the interest rates.  There are many factors, but one of the other major factors are the economic reports that come out during the month. 

The way these reports work is that they are each based on a specific category that effects our overall tracking of how our economy is currently doing.  With each report, there are "specialists" in these fields that predict what the report is going to be.  For instance, the jobs report is one of the major factors that comes out each month that weighs heavily on the movement of rates.  Now, with the job rates, just like all others, they rely heavily on what the market believes will happen, and the rates will adjust accordingly.  To remember it best, the way you want to look at the market is like this:  If it is something that betters our economy in the United States, that is bad for interest rates.  So, in the example of the Jobs Report, if we are anticipating that 100,000 jobs will be lost, and only 40,000 jobs are lost for the month, expect to see a major hit in the interest rates.   However, if they are expecting that 40,000 jobs will be lost, and 100,000 jobs are lost then the interest rates on long term notes, like mortgages, will likely have a very high drop in the rates.

There are about five or six major reports that effect rates like this.  So, when asking me or any other mortgage broker or banker what "The current interest rate is" remember that that question is a very difficult one to answer without having all of the knowledge of your financial situation, what you are looking to finance, and where rates are at the moment.  Interest rates have the ability to change as often as every second of the day, and there has definitely been days where you have seen rates move up and down many, many times. 

Make sure while shopping for a rate that you ask your mortgage broker what the bond market is currently looking like, and what economic reports are coming out, if any, that could have an effect on your interest rates.

I hope that you found this blog helpful, please feel free to leave comments, and have a great day!

David Schwartz

Here is a chance to do something good and also get something in return!  The chances of winning something are fantastic!

Yerba Buena Center for the Arts is raffling this $2.4 million San Francisco Dream House. Proceeds from this raffle benefit Yerba Buena Center for the Arts in San Francisco.

Raffle tickets are $150. The Grand Prize winner chooses either the Dream House or $1.8 million in cash.

$150 helps support Yerba Buena Center for the Arts and enters you into the raffle for a chance to win this $2,400,000 dream house in beautiful San Francisco, CA. Over 370 other prizes are also available. 1 in 100 chance to win a prize.

The Grand Prize Drawing will take place on July 25, 2009 — further information is available on the Prizes page.

There is also a drawing for referring your others, where you could win $10,000! 

Please enter my information in that they ask for, which is my name (David J. Schwartz) and the City and State where I live which is Henderson, NV.  I would greatly appreciate your support.  This is a cause that I am supporting, and I hope that you will be able to as well!  Good luck!

With the market the way it is now, Nevada has been given a bad name like many other states.  However, the reason that Nevada caught the worst of the situation is because we are one of the quickest states that allows the banks to foreclose.  While many of the other states have people in the same situation as us, it takes quite a bit longer for their homes to be taken from them.

Because of this bad rep that we have received, I have started a group on a website that brings people together who have like interests.  The website is called www.meetup.com, and is FREE to join and be a part of.  The group that I have started is The Henderson Everything Real Estate and Finance Group.  I created this group because there were none like it in Southern Nevada.  My intentions with the group is to bring like-minded people together who wish to see our community continue to grow the way it has, and network those who are in the real estate community, as well as teach those who are first time home buyers as well as investors on how to best purchase homes in the community at a great deal, while being able to not bring down the values of the homes at the same time.  Up to this point, there has been many real estate agents and lenders in the community who were not given, or cared to for that matter, the proper knowledge to foresee the buyers and sellers best interest in mind, as well as helping the community.

This is a brand new group, and I have just scheduled our first meeting which will be more a networking, getting to know each other type of event.  Also, I will be going over some of the hottest tips available to educate those who are interested in purchasing or selling homes in Southern Nevada, particularly Henderson.

To learn more about this group, our first event, or to have any questions answered, please visit the site at http://www.meetup.com/TheHendersonEverythingRealEstateandFinanceGroup/calendar/10563577/i3/cl. 

I look forward to seeing you all there!

Best Regards,

David Schwartz

While many have been motivated this year by the fact that the new plan has included the fact that, as first time home buyers (or at least someone who has not owned a home in the past 3 years), it has been great that, come tax time, you would receive this $8,000 gift. 

However, up until now, it has been just that...a tax rebate that you can take advantage of when doing your taxes and getting your rebate check.  However, it has been made public that the government is currently in the works to allow you to utilize the Governments Gift when purchasing a home?  So, what does this mean?  It means that, not long from now, we will soon be able to finance homes with an FHA loan up to around $225,000 without ANY MONEY OUT OF POCKET!!  For the first time in two years, we will finally find a way to put together a program that will allow you to Purchase a home with a ZERO DOWN!

This is going to do a lot for not only the the purchasing of homes across the entire country, but also right here in our community.    Hopefully it will shed some new light into our dark and gloomy reporting of the Las Vegas Valley. 

So...How do I go about getting this plan into action you ask?  Since it is still early, and there is no program for it yet, you can't.  But, within the next two days, I will be creating a registration page and a link or form on the front page at www.homeloansofnevada.com and putting it on all of my blogs that you can go there to register, and the second that it comes out, we will prepare prequalifications for your new homes, and get you set up with realtors to go out and take advantage of this Huge Opportunity!

Until then, look for more of the latest info from me, right here on the Vegas Loan Blog...

David J. Schwartz