Did you know Veterans Day dates back to November 11, 1918 when the Germans signed the Armistice, an order to cease fire, and World War I ended? Originally, Veterans Day was known as “Armistice Day,” but the name was changed to Veterans Day in 1953, so that all military veterans could be honored and acknowledged.

One of the most recognized Veterans Day ceremonies is held at Arlington National Cemetery, which draws hundreds, if not thousands of visitors. This ceremony is held on November 11th at exactly 11:00 am. At that time, a military color guard honors America’s war dead at the Tomb of the Unknowns. The Tomb of the Unknowns is a shrine honoring the many thousands of veterans who gave their lives in defense of our nation.

As powerful as the National Ceremony is, you don’t have to travel to the nation’s capital to take part in a ceremony. Each year, the Veterans Day National Committee selects a number of regional sites for Veterans Day observances throughout the country–from parades and ceremonies to military exhibits and tributes. To learn more and find a ceremony near you, visit the Department of Veteran Affairs website for a listing of regional information.

In addition, you can also dedicate some family time to learning more about Veterans Day and the military heroes it honors. You can find a number of resources online, including the official history of Veterans Day and a teacher’s guidethat includes information, activities, and even coloring book pages for kids.

As we pause and pay tribute to America’s veterans, we must honor them with our gratitude, knowing that they served and sacrificed to protect and preserve the values of this great nation…and continue to do so today. May we never forget their strength, courage, and profound willingness to stand up and defend our way of life.

I hope this important holiday finds you and your family well.

This week marks the official start of Summer in Texas. If your home’s outdoor area has furniture in it, you’ll want to make sure that your furniture is clean.

In this 4-minute video from Lowe’s, you’ll learn tricks to keep your outdoor furniture clean, and protected from the elements. All types of outdoor furniture are covered in the lesson including metal, resin-based, and wooden.

The offered tips include:

• Why you should never remove the “care tags” from a furniture pillow
• Choosing the proper pressure-washer tip for the job at-hand
• How to use car wax as a rust-preventative

Furthermore, the instructional video includes tips for cleaning fabrics and canopies; and for shampooing an outdoor rug.

There’s lot of reasons to keep your outdoor furniture clean — health reasons among them — but it shouldn’t be lost that clean furniture will have a longer useful life than furniture that’s been neglected or ignored.

Clean your outdoor pieces at least twice annually and they’ll give you years of good looks and comfort.

The Federal Reserve released its March 15 meeting minutes Tuesday. The notes revealed a Federal Reserve split between optimism and caution for the U.S. economy.

The minutes’ official name is “Fed Minutes”. It’s a periodic publication, published 3 weeks after each meeting of the Federal Open Market Committee. The FOMC meets 8 times annually, so the Fed Minutes is published 8 times annually, too.

The Fed Minutes is similar to the meeting minutes released after a condo board gets together, or after a meeting of the Board of Directors at a large corporation. The minutes give a detailed account of the important conversations and debates that occurred among the attendees.

At the Federal Reserve, those conversations are deep and, as such, the minutes are long; much longer than the more well-known, post-meeting press release anyway.

Whereas the press release is measured in paragraphs, the minutes are measured in pages.

Here is some of what the Fed discussed last month:

• On inflation : Pressures are rising, but largely because of food costs and oil costs.
• On housing : The market remains “depressed” with large inventory and weak demand.
• On stimulus : The Fed will keep its $600 billion bond plan in place.

In addition, there was talk about ending the Federal Reserve’s accommodative monetary policy (i.e. the near-zero percent Fed Funds Rate). The FOMC’s voting members unanimously elected to leave the Fed Funds Rate near 0.000 percent last month, but there was talk of raising the benchmark rate later this year.

Conforming and FHA mortgage rates in Texas are mostly unchanged since the Fed Minutes release.

At the moment, the Fed is 92% complete with their program, and when they back out of it, this is going to attract investors that are going to require more yield. Well more yield for them means higher rates for you (and me).

Be on the lookout here in the next month or so as things progress and wind down.

We know everything there is to know about FHA loans. While FHA has been the hot and “new” topic for the past few years, we have been doing FHA loans for over 10 years.

We know how important it is to make your home affordable and this is why we have chosen to excel in the FHA loan program.

With an FHA Loan, you get:

• Low Down Payments
• Great Interest Rates
• Easier qualifications than normal financing

Whether you are looking to simply learn more about how much you can get approved for or needing to refinance out of your high interest rate loan, we can help!

We make the FHA mortgage process simple and stress-free by offering you great advice, great rates, great service, and most importantly, and great experience.

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New FHA Mortgagee Letter:

U.S. DEPARTMENT OF HOUSING AND URBAN DEVELOPMENT WASHINGTON, D.C. 20410-8000

OFFICE OF THE ASSISTANT SECRETARY FOR HOUSING-FEDERAL HOUSING COMMISSIONER

January 22, 2010

MORTGAGEE LETTER 2010-04

TO: ALL FHA-APPROVED MORTGAGEES

ALL HUD-APPROVED HOUSING COUNSELING AGENCIES

SUBJECT: Loss Mitigation for Imminent Default

The Helping Families Save Their Home Act of 2009 expanded the authority to use FHA Loss Mitigation to assist defaulted FHA borrowers avoid foreclosure to include those mortgagors facing ”imminent default” as defined by the Secretary. The purpose of this Mortgagee Letter is to define imminent default and provide guidance to FHA-Approved servicers on how to assist those FHA borrowers. At this time FHA is limiting the loss mitigation options that may be used to assist borrowers facing imminent default to forbearance and FHA-HAMP. The guidance provided in this Mortgagee Letter is effective immediately…

To read this mortgagee letters and any attachments in their entirety, please visit: http://www.hud.gov/offices/adm/hudclips/letters/mortgagee/ view the 2010 letters and click on the letter of your choice. Mortgagee Letters from previous years can be found on the same page.

Existing Home Sales report came in around 16% lower in December at 5.45M, a lot lower than the 6M expected.

The main thing in the news today is Ben Bernanke and his chances of a second term. From the way it looks, he will be reconfirmed as the Fed Chairman.

Tomorrow we have the Consumer Confidence report which should have some impact on rates, so I’d recommend floating any rate locks at the moment until tomorrow.

Increases in FHA UFMIP, monthly MI factor, and reductions in seller paid closing costs
I’m sure you’ve heard through the grapevine all the recent changes that are going to be implemented with FHA loans. Basically now, regardless of consumers’ credit score and down payment, people will start seeing an increase in the amount that they are going to finance (UFMIP). About a year ago, the higher the score, the less UFMIP they would have to pay (risk-based adjustments), but not now.

Another thing that may sway less “qualified buyers” in the door is the reduction in seller contributions. More often times than not, 6% was WAY more than enough needed to help a buyer absorb and finance some of the costs, but just like everything in the mortgage industry, a few bad apples spoil it for all. Mortgage lenders were jacking up fees, telling Realtors, “Yo we need that full 6% if you wanna close this deal!” and look where we’re at now.

RESPA
With all these new RESPA laws that have started off the year with a BANG, what is happening is a huge staffing spike for mortgage companies. Mortgage lenders are creating compliance departments so they don’t get wacked by RESPA, and title companies are having a complete overhaul of their title software to stay in compliance as well. Who do you think is going to be picking up the tab for this? Consumers.

Feds Purchase Program
So now everything is going pretty damn good with rates, and I’d think you’d agree. Well a major reason rates are so low is because the economy is still in the dumps and the Fed is buying up MBS (Mortgage Backed Securities). MBS is what control mortgage rates in case you didn’t know. Well this is not going to go on forever, and what is going to happen is the Fed is going to stop buying pools of BILLIONS OF DOLLARS of these securities? This week, the Fed’s buying was $0.4BB less than previous weeks, so we are already starting to see the reduction of their commitment and investment towards the MBS market.

Equity Markets
The stock market has been on a downward spiral for a long enough time already. People have been watching their money go “bye-bye” for the last few years, but signs of a market recovery are already on the horizon.

Usually when equity market’s do bad, mortgage rates do good, and vice versa.

The reason behind this is that money managers either invest in stocks or bonds. When stocks are being sold off, the money is then parked into bonds, which improves bond prices and causes interest rates to decline.

The same applies for stocks. If stocks are in favor, money is pulled from bonds, causing bond prices to drop and interest rates to rise.

Bottom Line for 2010 - be prepared for higher mortgage costs.