When Selling Your Home, It May Be Profitable To Invest In It

The NBC Today Show recently ran a Home Staging series that’s worth watching.  Hosted by Barbara Corcoran, the trio of 5-minute pieces resemble HGTV Reality Shows but carry much more insight and “everyday tips” that ordinary folks can use.

The video clip above is look at a home on Long Island that, as Barbara called it, is “the worst house on the block”.  You can’t help but feel bad for the agent whose name is on the For Sale sign.

Of course, the story has a happy ending — the home is now under contract.

Watch all three home staging clips via YouTube:

• Home staging with a $100 budget
• Home staging with a $500 budget
• Home staging with a $5,000 budget (see clip above)

“People don’t want to put the money in,” Barbara says. “They’re thinking about taking the money out.” 

This series of videos shows how that line of thinking can actually reduce your profits.

How To Protect Yourself From Becoming A “Trigger Lead”

From the CBS News Video Web site, an interesting story for anyone who’s recently applied for credit.

Credit repositories now sell the contact information of people applying for new mortgage loans to other mortgage lenders that want to compete for the business.

Called “trigger leads”, an unsuspecting mortgage applicant can have his credit checked by a mortgage lender, and then discover that the credit bureaus have sold the rights to his personal information to countless other credit firms across the country.

Because trigger leads identify a person making a lending decision right now, one marketer of trigger leads calls them “the best leads in the business”. It’s no wonder that the credit bureaus are marketing them, and that some lenders are salivating over them.

As the family in the CBS video learned, though, it’s difficult to make the phone stop ringing.  Some of the calls bordered on harassment.

For consumers, there is a very low-tech opt-out Web site called http://www.optoutprescreen.com that is sponsored by the three major credit bureaus (and are also the ones that sell trigger leads).  You can opt out for five years, or submit a form by mail to opt out forever.

Watch the video and then go protect yourself.

(Image courtesy: CBS News Video)

The Fed Starts Its Two-Day Meeting

The mortgage markets officially enter “Wait-and-See” mode beginning today as the Federal Open Market Committee begins their two-day meeting.

The importance of the FOMC’s meeting to mortgage markets is all in the words of the committee as opposed to their actions (or lack thereof). 

After all, the group has not “done anything” in a year and yet markets always consider its meetings to be a highly-anticipated event.

What will the FOMC say about inflation, the economy, and the outlook for the future?  This is what impacts the mortgage markets more than anything else.

If the Fed is fearful of inflation, mortgage rates will go up because the dollar is expected to lose value.  That dimishes the value of mortgage bonds to foreign investors.

If the Fed is satisfied that the economy is exhibiting controlled growth, mortgage rates will come down, by contrast.

Right now, markets are anticipating a bullish view on inflation from the Fed and that is one of the reasons why mortgage rates increased so dramatically since March. 

It will be looking for further clues at 2:15 P.M. ET Thursday afternoon.