Your Financial Guide

Last month, the seasonally adjusted annual rate for FHA loan applications fell to an estimated 1,450,900, the lowest January since 2007, according to the FHA Single-Family Outlook released this week.

The agency blamed severe storms throughout the country for part of the lull in applications – higher mortgage rates were probably to blame for the rest of the shortfall.

During the month, a total of 103,991 single family loan applications were received, including 55,417 for home purchases, 41,178 to refinance, and 7,396 reverse mortgages.

The total was down 7.6 percent compared to December and 17.5 percent lower than a year earlier.

Meanwhile 119,521 mortgages were endorsed during the month, including 63,887 purchase money mortgages, 49,167 refinances, and 6,464 reverse mortgages.

Endorsements were down 10.5 percent from a month earlier and 24.6 percent lower than a year ago.

At the same time, loan servicers reported to the FHA that 612,443 mortgages were in a serious default, yielding a default rate of 8.9 percent.

That was up slightly from 8.8 percent a month earlier, but down from 9.2 percent last year.

However, the FHA has already paid out 115,272 claims so far this fiscal year, 48 percent more than the 77,887 paid out during the same time last year.

Most of these claims were loss mitigation payments and a number of others were pre-foreclosures.

So far this fiscal year, the FHA has received 182 applications for its short refinance program and 363 applications for the Hope for Homeowners program, insuring 40 and 93, respectively.

Just 12 Hope for Homeowners applications were endorsed in fiscal year 2010 – Congress originally made available $300 billion for these types of loans, anticipating as many as 400,000 families would benefit from the loan program.

The housing affordability index measured by the National Association of Home Builders and mortgage lender Wells Fargo hit its highest point ever in the fourth quarter.

The so-called HOI (Housing Opportunity Index) climbed to 73.9 percent during the quarter, meaning nearly three-quarters of families earning the national median income of $64,400 could afford to buy a home.

It surpassed the previous high of 72.5 percent set back in early 2009, and jumped from 72.1 percent in the third quarter of 2010.

“Today’s report shows that housing affordability at the end of 2010 was at its highest level since we started computing the HOI,” said Bob Nielsen, chairman of the National Association of Home Builders (NAHB), in a release.

“However, while this is good news for consumers, both home buyers and builders continue to confront extremely tight credit conditions, and this remains a significant obstacle to many potential home sales.”

In other words, please either lower mortgage rates even more or make qualifying for a mortgage even easier than it already is, perhaps by bringing back 100 percent financing.

Indianapolis Most Affordable, NYC Most Expensive

The Indianapolis-Carmel, Indiana metro was the most affordable in the nation during the third quarter, with 93.5 percent of all homes sold considered “affordable” to households earning the area’s median family income of $68,700.

Conversely, the New York-White Plains-Wayne, N.Y.-N.J. metro was again

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Last week I was part of a rather heated discussion on facebook about Texas’ budget woes and proposed cuts to its education budget. One of the people involved in the discussion was a school adminstrator. I asked him how he would solve the supposed education cuts. He wrote this:

“A .01% increase in taxes would prevent all this. That’s $150 a year on a $150,000 house.”

.01% increase in taxes…

Seems really low, doesn’t it? It’s not. Here is how it translates into taxes:

My house is worth roughly $150,000 on the tax rolls. We paid $3,500 in property taxes last year. If they were

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Weight Watchers’ profits have jumped off the scale.

The diet company’s stock rocketed 46% Thursday amid word that a spike in new members worldwide and the growth of its online business propelled earnings last quarter.

Also helping the shares was Weight Watchers’ prediction that revenue would grow 15% to 20% this year amid a big increase in subscribers, especially in the U.S.

The closing price of the stock – $65.39 – set an all-time high for the company, which was founded in Queens in the early 1960s and first sold shares to the public in 2001.

“Looking at 2011, we are seeing terrific enrollment volumes in our North American and U.K.

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Over the past few weeks I have been gathering supplies in preparation for building my first raised bed garden.  The weather has been unusually cold this winter, so I was very pleased when I woke up this morning and it was nice outside.  Time to build the raised beds!

Before I get to the pictures of the actual build – a little back story.  Several years ago I stumbled across Mel Bartholomew’s awesome book Square Foot Gardening: A New Way to Garden in Less Space with Less Work and have always wanted to give square foot gardening a shot.  Recently, I discovered Emily’s site – My Square Foot Garden – and I knew that the time had finally come.  I needed to stop procrastinating – and start planting.

Here are my first two raised beds -

Both beds are made from 2 x 8 x 4 boards, screwed together to make a box.  I also added some  braces across the bottom of both boxes, for a little extra support.

I lined the boxes with cardboard (a recommendation I’ve found on several square foot gardening website) and then added a mixture of peat moss, perlite, vermiculite, and compost.  As you can see, I still need to add a bit more “soil” to both boxes.  I really didn’t know exactly how much soil I would need – and I underestimated.  I’ll fill them up tomorrow.

Here are the two boxes, side by side -

I left enough room between the two boxes for the lawnmower to pass.  (Please forgive the shade, but I took the pictures around five in the evening and we have tall trees in our side yard.)

The boxes are located in close proximity to our new compost bin.  Unfortunately, the compost bin is only a few weeks old, so I had to purchase compost at the hardware store.  Next year, I should have my own, homemade compost to use.

The 2 boards (which were originally 16 feet long) cost about $16 each.  The soil ingredients were roughly $40 dollars, so both beds cost an estimated $80 to make.  I used 3 cubic feet of peat moss, 4 big bags of compost (sorry, I didn’t get the information from the bags and have already disposed of them) and a small bag of both vermiculite and perlite.

Roth IRA account is made for people in retirement. This is a solid idea created by the Government of the United States and now as people take advantage of it. The Roth IRA is a retirement plan that is used by individuals to save an amount from their salary without any kind of tax. why go for roth ira? After a period of time, the amount of money in the account will increase. This way you can accumulate your savings and get a valuable source of money after retirement. A Roth IRA offers various incentives to the individual municipalities, but you must first know its rules.

There is a limited amount of contributions per year you can do. When you reach the fixed age, this number increases, but the amount of the contribution remains the same. Read more…

The customers generally have numerous rotating debts to repay. The interest rate is enormous. Besides that, there is no definite tenure, and levies are frequently charged on delayed and overlooked payments. Credit card debt consolidation means to borrow cash for payment of credit card loan and pay a single loan payment monthly to just one creditor. The interest rate is more allied to the credit history of borrower.  This also establishes the fact; the loan requirement for credit consolidation debt should be secured or non-secured.

Debt Consolidation Loans for Credit Card Debt Payments

The most important motive to consolidate credit card debt is to condense the sum of cash required to pay revolving debt every month.

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