Posted By Dana Delworth on December 23, 2008

Hap and Anne Townes of Brentwood are sending phone cards to wounded men and women at Walter Reed Army Medical Center.

“This is our way of saying thank you and merry Christmas. We pray for them and hope they will enjoy a phone visit with the people they love.”

In case you’re interested, the address is: Walter Reed Army Medical Center, Soldier Family Assistance Center, Building 2, Third Floor, Room 3-G04, Washington, D.C., 20307.

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Posted By Dana Delworth on December 17, 2008

Fed rate cut won’t help consumers instantly

Banks may not pass savings to borrowers

In a radical move, the Federal Reserve slashed its key interest rate to a record low on Tuesday and vowed to use all the weapons at its disposal — including injecting millions of dollars into the nation’s banking system — to fight the worsening recession, which has dragged down consumer prices and home construction.

For the first time, the Fed created a target range for its funds rate, putting it at zero to 0.25 percent. That was a dramatic reduction from the previous rate, which was an already low 1 percent. The federal funds rate is the interest that banks charge each other for overnight loans.

The amount of the cut surprised economists, many of whom were predicting the Fed would cut the rate in half, to 0.5 percent. A few thought the Fed could opt for an even more forceful action.

Still, the move isn’t expected to have any significant immediate effect on mortgage and other consumer-finance rates, or to prop up sagging consumer confidence, said economists David Penn at Middle Tennessee State University and Bill Fox at the University of Tennessee in Knoxville.

“How soon it might turn up in consumer loans is uncertain,” Penn said. “This is what it costs banks to borrow from other banks on short terms, but the question is whether they will pass the savings on to consumer and business borrowers.”

What the move does, though, is show that “the Fed is trying to aggressively head off this downturn,” he said. “But it’s more psychological than anything at this point.”

The problem with the economy isn’t high interest rates, but the fact that “banks are unwilling to lend, and borrowers are unwilling to borrow,” Fox said, adding that the Fed rate cut will not change that.

While a cut in the funds rate normally would bring down some bank lending rates, particularly for short-term loans, it won’t have much effect on mortgage rates, said Scott Ractliffe, president of the Tennessee Mortgage Bank ers Association and senior vice president at Pinnacle Financial Partners in Nashville.

“Mortgages are long term,” he said. “We rarely see an immediate impact from a Fed rate change.”

Even though banks will benefit from the lower rates, they don’t have much incentive to lower their own interest rates, Ractliffe said.

Mortgage rates are already low — averaging just over 5 percent for 30-year terms, but “they need to be lower to bring more buyers into the marketplace,” MTSU’s Penn said. “What we really need is something to boost confidence out there, and settling the auto-sector issue might help, as would some relief on foreclosures.”

A Fed program announced late last month to buy $600 billion in debt and mortgage-backed securities from mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac is largely credited with having helped push mortgage rates down.

Fed studies other tools

With the Fed’s key rate dropping to rock-bottom levels, the central bank is moving into uncharted territory.

The move “will go down in the annals of Fed history,” declared Stephen Stanley, chief economist at RBS Greenwich Capital.

“I nominate this one to be called the ‘Who Could Ask for Anything More?’ statement. The Fed is throwing everything in its arsenal.”

Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke and his colleagues made clear that the central bank isn’t running out of ammunition to fight the worst financial crisis since the 1930s. It is exploring using tools — other than rate cuts — to revive the economy.

“The Fed will employ all available tools to promote the resumption of sustainable economic growth,” the Fed said.

On Wall Street, that pledge sent stocks soaring. The Dow Jones industrial average rose nearly 360 points to close at 8,924.

Earlier Tuesday government reports showed that consumer prices fell by a record 1.7 percent in November, while homebuilding plunged by the most in a quarter-century, underscoring the economy’s weakening state.

Falling prices for goods and services at first might sound like a good thing. But if prices keep spiraling downward, they can lead to deflation and wreak economic havoc.

That gave the Fed another reason to lower rates, which would protect against this risk.

“It’s good news,” UT’s Fox said of the rate cut. “But I just don’t think it changes anything dramatically,” especially for the average consumer.

“If my problem is that no bank will lend to me, this doesn’t change anything,” he said. “And if you’re buying a house, it’s not going to have any effect.”

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Posted By Dana Delworth on December 12, 2008

She’s one of the big reasons I love the Atomic Age, and you can walk through East Nashville on any given day and see dozens of women who have been influenced by her style from half a century ago.

Safe passage, BP.

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Posted By Dana Delworth on December 9, 2008

You know what?  It’s my company and it doesn’t always have to be about real estate and title matters.

I felt like doing this.  So there.  Basically, I realized this past weekend that I had make a serious tactical error.  There was a wonderful annual event - The Lockeland Springs Christmas Tour of Homes - that is a great way to spend a few hours every year.  I put a half-page ad in there for our little operation with that caricature that I have on everything in it.  It’s a cute drawing.  I like it.

Thing is, in a fit of pique with my hair, I had the majority of it hacked off about ten days ago, radically - not unlike Mia Farrow going from willowy hippie to boylady in one scene in Rosemary’s Baby, actually.  My hair is turning gray in places and I decided to punish it by putting in permanent time out.

At any rate, it’s only while I’m standing in the middle of a house, shilling the brand that I’ve realized is me, when I realize that I look absolutely nothing at all like the little cartoon of the Danalady in my ad.  The only thing that looked like me in the first place was my mane of hair and a pair of vintage glasses, and I zapped half that equation.  Silly me.

Larger epiphany ahead:  I now realize that like middle-aged women who have tonsorial impulse control problems are, if you want to force something into an analogy, also like title companies.  They can change the packaging all they want - new logo, website, office, whatever - but the guts are the same.  I’m very lucky that people that work with me are not surface oriented, because they’ve seen me change companies, marketing strategies, and offices way too many times. 

Bottom line, if you’re reading; appearances change.  Sometimes it’s funny.  Sometimes it’s interesting.  Sometimes you should think more about your ad space when you’re getting a haircut.   I’m so thankful that I get to do business with people who like all of the packaging.

(the image is from www.nataliedee.com and she is brilliant.)

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Posted By Dana Delworth on December 8, 2008

Lower rates spark wave of refinancing

Mortgage bankers find selves busy as people rush to save

Homeowners have been giving thanks for more than just turkey during the last two weeks.

 As a result, area mortgage brokers and bankers said their offices have been busy handling a deluge of refinancing, as people try to take advantage of mortgage rates that haven’t been this low since January. Realtors have been using the low interest rates to try to prompt people into buying homes, as many of them worry about job security and the chaotic economic news.

People such as Jason Bach, a financial planner in Brentwood, figured out that it would save him hundreds of dollars per month to refinance his home, so he did on Tuesday.

He went from a 30-year, fixed-rate mortgage at 6.5 percent into one at 5.37 percent. Even though the refinancing cost him $4,000, it will take him less than a year to pay that off in savings. “That’s a no-brainer,” he said.

Although he doesn’t think refinancing will be a good deal for all people, the stock market’s dismal performance lately and job losses mean more people are turning to other sources of cash.

“In order for me to really help clients, I’m going to have to help them find some money,” Bach said. “With as many things going on, people might not realize how much rates have dropped.”

He said homeowners need to factor in the cost of the refinancing and their monthly
savings before determining whether to refinance.

Mortgage rates have been extremely volatile this year. But average rates for a 30-year, fixed-rate mortgage have remained below 6 percent through last week, landing Friday at an average of 5.57 percent fixed for 30 years with a fee of a quarter of a point, according to financial news publisher HSH Associates in New Jersey. The average 15-year, fixed-rate mortgage stood at 5.44 percent.

On a $200,000 mortgage, a drop in interest from 6.5 percent to 5.5 percent would save a homeowner $128 per month, or $1,536 per year.

“In this economy, where people are trying to pinch their pennies wherever they can, that’s a lot,” said Scott Ractliffe, a senior vice president at Pinnacle Financial Partners and president of the Tennessee Mortgage Bankers Association.

With rumors circulating last week that the Treasury may lower mortgagerates to 4.5 percent, people have been calling Ractliffe’s office wondering if they should wait for rates to go even lower.

“It’s a gamble either way,” he tells them.

Mortgage industry observers expect rates to stay low for the next several months, however. Keith T. Gumbinger with HSH expects rates on a 30-year, fixed-rate mortgage to be in the low to upper middle
5 percent range for the next couple of months.

‘Folks are moving ahead’

The refinance boom has been good news for battered mortgage brokers and bankers, whose business has been slowing for more than a year. November and December are typically slow for mortgage deals.

But not so far this year.

“We’re almost seeing the seasonality of the holidays taken out of the holidays,” Ractliffe said. “I think folks are moving ahead. They don’t want to wait until spring to see what the rates will do.”

The national Mortgage Bankers Association reported last week that refinance activity, in the form of an index, tripled Thanksgiving week from the previous week.

“It puts a lot of smiles on faces,” said Tim Ferguson, vice president of the mortgage division at Regions Bank in Nashville.

He said mortgage bankers who planned to take the day after Thanksgiving off came into work because of all the work.

Dan Crockett, the president, chief executive officer and chairman of Franklin American Mortgage Co. in Franklin, said his mortgage volume slowed from $1.6 billion in August to $1.3 billion in November, in keeping with the seasonal slowdown this time of year. But low interest rates in the last week of November helped push up refinancing to nearly half his total loan volume, compared with about 30 percent in August.

Home purchases also increased during Thanksgiving week from the week before, but not as much as refinancing, according to the Mortgage Bankers Association. The purchase index was up 37 percent.

Realtors are hoping that low rates will spur home sales in the months ahead.

“I’ve been calling people this morning when I saw interest rates dropped,” said Eddie Cox, a Crye-Leike agent in Hendersonville. “My wheels are turning. Who is going to come to the market? This is going to make houses more affordable.”

But borrowers are wary of the negative news, which has put a damper on sales. The latest Friday was a Labor Department report saying 533,000 jobs were lost in November, the biggest job loss in 34 years.

Jane Campbell, an agent with Keller Williams Realty in Brentwood, points out that a 1 percentage point drop in interest rates is like a 10 percent discount on a home.

“Unfortunately, they’re hearing the news about the economy every day,” she said. “People are wondering, ‘Am I going to have my job?’ “

The fears are leading people to refinance from 15-year mortgages into 30-year mortgages, hoping to hold onto more of their cash, said Tim Davis, the vice president of marketing for Titan Home Loans in Nashville.

“People are saying, ‘I’m not sure what 2009 holds for me, so let’s get a reduction in payment,’ ” he said.

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Posted By Dana Delworth on December 5, 2008

Washington’s New Tack: Helping Homeowners

 

By EDMUND L. ANDREWS, New York Times

Published: December 4, 2008

WASHINGTON — After pouring vast amounts of money into financial institutions of almost every type, and having little to show for it, the Bush administration and the Federal Reserve are suddenly taking a new look at ordinary homeowners.

Ben S. Bernanke, chairman of the Federal Reserve, warned on Thursday that the soaring number of foreclosures threatened the economy. He then proposed some ideas — government-engineered loan modifications, and more taxpayer money to help people refinance — to keep people in their homes.

“The public policy case for reducing preventable foreclosures does not rely solely on the desire to help people who are in trouble,” Mr. Bernanke said. “More needs to be done.”

At the Treasury Department, meanwhile, top officials continued to work on a plan to bolster the housing market by subsidizing 30-year home mortgages with rates as low as 4.5 percent — a level that home buyers have not seen since the early 1960s.

Both actions highlighted how economic policy makers have come almost full circle. Since the financial crisis began last summer, both the Fed and the Treasury had focused almost exclusively on patching up the financial system — propping up banks, Wall Street firms, money market funds and issuers of commercial debt.

But the new focus on helping individuals could create a bitter split between those who want to buy homes and those who already own them. It has already opened up a rift between the real estate industry, which wants to increase sales, and the banking industry, which wants to get out from under staggering volumes of troubled mortgages.

Under a plan that top Treasury officials are weighing, the Treasury Department would underwrite tens of billions of dollars worth of 30-year, fixed-rate mortgages at rates far lower than most Americans have ever seen.

According to Bankrate.com, the 30-year, fixed-rate mortgages fell on Thursday to 5.58 percent, down from 5.76 percent last week. The 10-year Treasury note fell to 2.55 percent late Thursday, a new low.

But the cheap mortgages would be available only for people buying houses, not the roughly 50 million families that already have mortgages and would want to refinance at a lower rate.

As a result, the plan offers no direct relief to the millions of people who face foreclosure because they took out exotic mortgages that they could not afford. Nor would the plan offer any benefit to people who have stayed current on their mortgages and would simply be interested in taking advantage of a lower rate. As envisioned by Treasury officials, homeowners who now pay 6 percent would be watching new neighbors arrive whose monthly payments were almost one-third lower.

“At this point, our view is that such a program may do more harm than good,” said Camden R. Fine, president of the Independent Community Bankers of America, which represents about 8,000 small banks.

“You have thousands of banks that made loans and have them sitting on their books, and whose borrowers have worked their rear ends off to make the payments,” he said. “Those people are going to go to their banks and tell them their neighbor just got a 4.5 percent loan, and the banks aren’t going to be able to help them. They’re going to have extremely angry and disgruntled customers.”

But the National Association of Realtors, whose members want to bolster home sales, is lobbying hard for the idea.

“We believe that the only way to really address the housing situation is to increase sales,” said Lawrence Yun, chief economist for the association. “Home prices will not stabilize until we address the inventory problem, and the only way to bring down the inventory of houses on the market is to bring in a new set of buyers. We think this would do the trick.”

Mr. Yun estimated that a one-year program to provide home buyers with an interest rate of 4.5 percent would cost the government about $50 billion. It would result, he predicted, in about 500,000 home sales — an increase of slightly more than 10 percent over today’s depressed sales rate. If the program were extended to people who simply wanted to refinance, Mr. Yun warned, the government’s cost could easily be 10 times higher.

Neel T. Kashkari, the assistant Treasury secretary who is overseeing the $700 billion bailout plan, publicly confirmed on Thursday that the mortgage plan was under consideration but offered no other details.

People familiar with the discussions said Treasury officials were still debating the exact mechanism for financing the cheap mortgages. The main idea is to allow Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the government-controlled mortgage-finance companies, to buy up and guarantee 30-year, fixed-rate mortgages paying 4.5 percent interest.

The Treasury would provide the money by buying up the mortgage-backed securities from Fannie and Freddie.

The plan closely resembles a proposal developed by Christopher J. Mayer, vice dean at the Columbia Business School.

“This really is the opportunity of a lifetime,” he said. “If you ask someone if this is the time to come into the market, I think anyone who would have bought a house in 2007 and was sitting on the sidelines, or who wants to buy this year or would buy in 2010, would want to take advantage of this.”

Mr. Mayer said long-term Treasury rates are so low right now that the government could actually make a profit on the cheap loans. The Treasury can sell 10-year bonds right now and pay only 2.7 percent a year, far below the 4.5 percent that it would be charging home buyers.

But he said his own preference was to make the mortgages available to existing homeowners as well as home buyers.

“I think there are additional benefits one could have by extending the program for people who refinance,” Mr. Mayer said. “At 4.5 percent, you might be looking at 25 million people who could refinance and the average savings could be $400 to $500 a month.”

In the past, Treasury and Fed officials often pleaded that their rescues of Wall Street were crucial to the well-being of Main Street. But the new Treasury idea would amount to directly helping Main Street.

Meanwhile, Mr. Bernanke all but reversed the rhetoric of recent months by arguing that helping homeowners avoid foreclosure were critical for the whole economy.

“Steps that stabilize the housing market will help stabilize the economy as well,” Mr. Bernanke said. “Reducing the number of preventable foreclosures would not only help families stay in their homes, it would confer much wider benefits.”

   Mr. Bernanke, speaking at a Fed conference on housing, outlined proposals for bolder government action. He suggested that the Treasury subsidize lower fees and interest rates on a new program, Hope for Homeowners, that is intended to help troubled homeowners refinance at much lower rates. At the moment, lenders pay an upfront insurance premium of 3 percent of the loan value and borrowers face fairly high interest rate of 8 percent.

Mr. Bernanke also supported a proposal by the Sheila C. Bair, chairwoman of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, to have the government engineer as many as 1.5 million loan modifications. The Treasury and White House have fought the idea for months.

Finally, Mr. Bernanke proposed that the government share the cost when a mortgage servicer reduces a borrower’s monthly payment. Preventing foreclosures, he said, “should be high on the agenda.”

 

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Posted By Dana Delworth on December 1, 2008

Today is World AIDS day.  Take five minutes of your time - PLEASE - and go to www.worldaidscampaign.org and do some reading.  We all found a lot to be thankful for last week - economic issues notwithstanding.  Let’s ride the crest of that good feeling to pledge to stay informed and help with a crisis that we’ve addressed on this day for the past twenty years.

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Posted By Dana Delworth on November 26, 2008

Preds Lend A Helping Hand At Thanksgiving Time

Jessica Jones | Nashville Predators

Nov 25, 2008, 7:31 PM EST

Despite the gloomy, overcast weather on Monday, Predators forward David Legwand and defenseman Ryan Suter managed to bring a little sunshine to families and charities in need this holiday season.   

Legwand and Suter delivered turkey dinners to families of charity organizations around Nashville. As two of only three American-born players on the Preds roster, they found it very important to provide meals to those who may otherwise not have been able to celebrate Thanksgiving.

“It is neat for us to get out there and pass out turkeys and celebrate Thanksgiving,” said Suter. “There are three Americans on the team—Ortmeyer, Legwand and me—and it was nice for us to get out and celebrate Thanksgiving with the families that were out there in Nashville.”

 

The players made four stops on their delivery route, handing out turkey dinners to Nurses for Newborns—a charity which helps to prevent infant mortality, child abuse and neglect through home-based programs and visits by skilled Registered Nurses—Magdalene House—a program designed to help women with histories of prostitution and drug abuse— Preston Taylor Ministries—a group dedicated to providing hope for children and families living in the Preston Taylor public-housing area—and Mending Hearts—a support system for women recovering from drug and alcohol abuse.

 

50 turkeys were donated by Levy Restaurants, 200 holiday cookies were provided by the Rochelle Center—a support center for people with disabilities—and the Predators Foundation bought “holiday fixings” to accompany the meals.

 

While delivering the turkeys, Legwand and Suter made time to talk with charity members, sign autographs and take pictures. Needless to say, smiles were in abundance.

“It was a fun day of getting out there and spreading Thanksgiving to everyone,” said Suter.

After the deliveries were finished, Legwand and Suter sponsored a Thanksgiving dinner for thirty children from the Vine Hill Boys and Girls Club in the Sommet Center’s suite-level club. The players served the children, visited their tables and took time to talk and sign autographs.

“It was exciting bringing the turkeys and seeing the kids smiling. They lit up and were happy to see us,” said Suter.

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Posted By Dana Delworth on November 24, 2008

The Boulevard Bolt - Thanksgiving Day 2008

Imagine a world where Baptists, Jews, and Episcopalians pause from carving the Thanksgiving turkey and join hands to serve the homeless.

No imagination is necessary—that’s actually what happens each Thanksgiving Day in Nashville as three congregations work together to put on the Boulevard Bolt, a 5-mile race on Belle Meade Boulevard. There is an amazing spirit and sense of cooperation among the volunteers from Immanuel Baptist Church, St. George’s Episcopal Church, and The Temple who “make the Bolt happen each year.”

Since 1994 the Bolt has grown to be one of the largest 5-mile races in the entire country. It has become a family tradition for literally thousands of people who view it as a way to do for others before counting their own blessings. The 2007 Boulevard Bolt attracted over 7,800 entrants and distributed around $150,000 to agencies that serve the homeless in Middle Tennessee.

Information for this years’ events and its beneficiaries can be found at www.thebolt.org.

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Posted By Dana Delworth on November 23, 2008

Alive Hospice in Nashville is looking for grocery store gift card donations to help families of patients pay for Thanksgiving dinners.

 

Donors are encouraged to come to the hospice’s administrative building, 1718 Patterson St., on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday. They should tell the front desk attendant that the gift cards are for Alive Hospice’s families in need and should be given to the volunteer services staff.

 

Questions can be directed to info@alivehospice.org, www.alivehospice.org or Phone: (615) 327-1085.

 

 

 

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