Changing mortgage types (from an adjustable rate to fixed rate, for example)

Changing the mortgage term (from a 30-year to a 15-year, for example)

College Education (investing in yourself or your children’s future)

Consolidating debt (creating immediate cash flow for savings)

Home Renovation (increasing the value of the home)

Tapping home equity (while avoiding a second mortgage)

The old rule-of-thumb was to refinance when mortgage rates had dropped 2% below your current loan. But waiting around for mortgage rates to drop two percent can wind up costing you time and money in the long run.

For some homeowners, refinancing to a new interest rate as little as half a percentage point less than your current rate could be enough for substantial savings.  “But wait, the value of my home has dropped in value so much, that I owe more than what my property is worth.”  That was a quote that was mentioned from another client.  Since the mortgage meltdown, the government has provided a few programs that allow a person to refinance without an appraisal.

How can you tell if refinancing makes sense for your situation? Lets take a look at the case study below:

As we see here a client was thinking about refinancing and had really good rate of 4.625% for 15 years, but also had a home equity line of credit that was at prime for 30 years.  They were halfway through their first mortage and had only 8 years left to pay it off.  But the home equity line of credit would remain and they would be paying on it for many years thereafter. Their goal was to retire in about 12 years, however the home equity line of credit wasn’t quite fitting into their plans.

After a careful analysis of their finances and looking at their short and long-term goals, I created a plan that would enable them to keep their existing payment stategy and still be on track to pay off their home loan in 12 years.  With a new 15 year mortgage the savings they created of $237 a month by adding the savings and paying towards their principal they would achieve the following result below:

They were ecstatic at the outcome, however they were a little concerned about being disciplined enough to pay the savings down every month. 

Here is what I recommended to them. First, open a separate bank account that would just pay the mortgage only.  Also, have the additional $237 be taken out of their personal checking or savings account and have it be directly deposited into the account where the mortgage is being paid from. 

Instruct the mortgage company to take out the mortgage payment plus the $237 a month to go towards the principal.  This way they will continue to go on as normal and not even think about it. If you or someone you know may need a quick analysis of their existing mortgage, don’t hesitate to contact me.

As your Mortgage Advisor, I want to continue to help you:

Make truly informed decisions.

Reduce the hundreds of thousands of dollars you could waste over a lifetime on the wrong debt or poorly structured debt.

Make better decisions that can bring on retirement sooner and more securely.

Improve your tax benefits.

Make your financial dreams a reality.

If you have found this information useful please pass this along to a friend or someone you care about.

Until next time…

Geoffrey Bolen
Your Mortgage Advisor For Life
Primary Residential Mortgage, Inc.
Phone: 301-588-4701 x84 | Fax: 301-588-4709
Email: gbolen@primeres.com

P.S. It’s my intentions to continue building lifelong relationships one client at a time and remain your personal mortgage advisor for life. If you know of a friend, family member, or coworker who is looking for financial options, either through purchasing or refinancing a home. Be sure to send me an e-mail, I know someone. Your referrals are the greatest compliment I can receive.

Greece is not the only country experiencing these problems.  Other countries like Portugal, Spain, Italy and even talks of Hungary, are having mounting debt issues. 

The growing concern had spread to many investors that were investing into Greece and the Euro and in turn withdrew their holdings and started to invest here in the United States as a safe haven.  Not in stocks mind you, but actually treasuries, bonds and mortgage backed securities (mortgage bonds).  When more people invest in mortgage backed securities the price goes higher and the interest rate goes lower. Therefore it causes a reaction to long term interest rates as it starts to fall. 

How long will this last? Who knows. As long as there is continued problems in Europe, the falling Euro and low inflation, then we will see low mortgage rates for at least a little while. With the increased volitility in the marketplace, anything can happen.

With 30 year mortgage rates in the mid 4’s and 15 year mortgages in the upper 3’s this would be a great opportunity to refinance your existing mortgage if your loan balance is less than $729,750 or less.  And if you are looking to make a purchase, one couldn’t pick a better time to buy with these low rates and low prices of real estate.

Even if your home has dropped in value there are a few programs that do not even require an appraisal and you can still take advantage of these low rates (while they last).  Whatever your situation is call me so we can discuss a strategy to not only reduce your rate but even reduce the term of your mortgage so that your home will be paid in full many years earlier.  Or, if you know of someone who is looking for a better loan strategy, don’t keep me a secret.  I will be more than happy to assist them with the best loan strategy for their needs.

Until next time…

Geoffrey Bolen
Your Mortgage Advisor For Life
Primary Residential Mortgage, Inc.
Phone: 301-588-4701 x84 | Fax: 301-588-4709
Email: gbolen@primeres.com

Question:

Answer: Both stripping and removal are pretty radical solutions. Wet-sand big blobs of paint using water-resistant sandpaper on a hand-sanding block and a plastic spray bottle. Keep misting the surfaces down as you work, and use a garden hose to rinse pigment off nearby siding. You don’t want pigment-tinted runoff to dry in place and stain the siding. For large areas, use a random-orbit sander and stearate-coated (paint-stripping) sandpaper. Empty the sander’s dust bag frequently and consider hooking the sander to a shop vacuum to keep airborne debris to a minimum.

For areas that are truly in bad shape, stripping might save you some time over sanding. Remember to protect adjacent siding using painter’s tape (the blue, green and purple types) sold at paint stores and home centers. Don’t use tan-colored masking tape; that stuff is only good for household (nonpainting) applications. Spread dropcloths on pavements or over shrubbery to protect them from falling gobs of goo. Stripper will take you just so far, though. You’ll have to scrape softened paint off curved surfaces and out of corners, so get yourself a selection of flat and contoured scrapers.

Many amateur painters overlook the following: A stripped surface usually needs to be neutralized and rinsed after the stripping is done; otherwise, the residual chemicals can discolor the paint and interfere with its bond. The manufacturer of the stripping chemicals will recommend a specific neutralizer, which could range from a mild acidic solution to a quick wipe with a clean cloth moistened with paint thinner. Finally, check with the town about how to dispose of the gunk that you strip off the trim. With a house that age, it’s unlikely it contains lead, but you may need to dispose of stripped paint as hazardous waste.

Stripping-Safety Toolkit

Paint stripping is already hard and dirty work; don’t make it worse by not protecting yourself.

Eyes
Old paint is brittle, and chips can fly off a scraper, so wear safety glasses. Make that goggles if you’re working overhead or using paint stripper that can splash.

Hands
Wear work gloves for handling scrapers and sandpaper. When working with paint stripper, you’ll need chemical-resistant gloves—don’t use the dishwashing variety.

Lungs
A dust mask or respirator should have an R95 rating; a better mask will have a P100, especially necessary if there’s lead in the removed paint. Wear a cartridge respirator rated for organic vapors when using paint stripper.

If you have found this information useful please pass this along and if you come across any other stories like this one please feel free to share it with me.

Until next time…

Geoffrey Bolen
Your Mortgage Advisor For Life
Primary Residential Mortgage, Inc.
Phone: 301-588-4701 x84 | Fax: 301-588-4709
Email: gbolen@primeres.com

Still not convinced? Here are the details.

Dishes will not get any cleaner if you pre-rinse them.  Modern dishwashers and detergents have come a long way in the past couple of decades. “You will not improve your wash performance one bit by pre-rinsing,” says John Dries, a mechanical engineer and owner of Dries Engineering, an appliance design consulting company. He points out that heavily soiled dishes are used in pre-market “wash tests,” not pre-rinsed dishes.

In most cases, all you need to do is scrape your plates over a trashcan to get rid of bones or chunks of food. One caveat: It’s a good idea to pre-soak pans or dishes that have something really burned on them. Pre-rinsing doesn’t help in this situation. Use the dishwasher’s rinse cycle if you’re not going to run your dishwasher immediately and are worried about the smell of sour food. 

How about older dishwashers? “People with any age dishwasher can feel comfortable knowing they don’t need to pre-wash dishes before washing them in the dishwasher,” says Jill Notini, a spokesperson for the Association of Home Appliance Manufacturers. 

Pre-rinsing is a complete waste of time, water, energy, and money. 
With pre-rinsing you’re essentially washing your dishes twice. Rinsing your dishes while letting the water run can waste gallons of water. Consider this: An energy-efficient dishwasher uses up to 5 gallons of water to wash an entire load of dishes. Washing dishes by hand while letting the water run can use up to 27 gallons.

The same is true for electricity if you pre-rinse with warm or hot water. “You use more electricity rinsing dishes off in the sink than the dishwasher uses to wash the whole load,” says Mike Edwards, a senior design engineer at Bosch Home Appliances.

Instead of pre-rinsing the dishes, spend your time on something that will make a difference: Loading the dishwasher correctly. Experts say a properly loaded dishwasher can significantly impact how clean your dishes turn out. “The biggest impediment in washing is due to poor loading,” says Edwards. Get tips from Consumer Reports and a video from Bosch.

Rinsing dishes before loading the dishwasher can do more harm than good.
Today’s advanced detergents are designed to attack food particles left on dishes. “If there isn’t food soil, they tend to attack glasses,” says Edwards. “Some glasses are more susceptible to this kind of attacking than others.

” The detergent etches small pits in glasses that you can’t see with the naked eye, but the glass appears cloudy, according to Edwards. The process is called “etching” and causes permanent damage. This is different than temporary hard water stains, which can also result in the cloudy appearance of glassware. 

“Your detergent amount needs to be based on the amount of food soil in the dishwasher,” says Edwards who also points out that those who have soft water should use less detergent than those who have hard water.
Article written by Lori Bongiorno, Environmental Jounalist

If you have found this information useful please pass this along and if you come across any other stories like this one please feel free to share it with me.

Until next time…

Geoffrey Bolen
Your Mortgage Advisor For Life
Primary Residential Mortgage, Inc.
Phone: 301-588-4701 x84 | Fax: 301-588-4709
Email: gbolen@primeres.com

Here are some of the biggest safety risks for children during the summer and otherwise — and what you can do to minimize them.

1. Suffocation and strangulation. This pair is the leading cause of unintentional-injury deaths in children under age 1, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

How to reduce the risk: Make sure your infant has a sleeping environment free of pillows and soft bedding, and put him or her to sleep on his back in a crib, rather than in a bed with adults. Also position the baby far away from loose or hanging cords.

Parents should use cribs with four fixed sides, rather than those with sides that drop down. With the latter, parts can more easily break, deform or detach, opening up spaces where youngsters can become entrapped and suffocate, according to the Consumer Product Safety Commission and Consumer Reports. Drop-side cribs have been responsible for 32 infant and toddler deaths in the past nine years, according to the Consumer Product Safety Commission, which has recalled 7 million such cribs since 2005. Parents who use a drop-side crib should check the plastic slides regularly and tighten the hardware if necessary, said Don Mays, senior director for product safety at Consumer Reports. “If there’s any missing or broken hardware, get rid of the crib,” he said. “Don’t try to fix it yourself.”

2. Drowning. Among children ages 1 to 4, drowning is nearly tied with motor-vehicle accidents as the leading cause of death. Incidents frequently revolve around swimming pools and bathtubs.

How to reduce the risk: Never leave a child unattended in a bathtub or allow a kid to swim without supervision. Avoid making or answering phone calls; that’s the biggest distraction for parents when children are in a bath or pool, sometimes with fatal results, Sacchetti said. Home swimming pools should have a fence that wraps around all four sides of the pool instead of having one side open to the house, he said. Having four-sided fencing plus a separate pool-entrance gate can greatly reduce the
likelihood of a child falling in and drowning. Swimming lessons for kids over six months old can be fun, but parents shouldn’t get a false sense of security because there’s no such thing as drown-proofing your child, Gardner said. “I would recommend touch supervision under the age of three or four,” he said, which means you’re supervising your child in the pool or lake and they’re only a hand reach away.

3. Motor-vehicle crashes. Car accidents are the leading cause of death among children over one year old, according to the CDC. And they account for as many as two-thirds of deaths among teenagers and young adults age 15 to 24.

How to reduce the risk: Using age-appropriate car seats is critical to boosting a small child’s chances of surviving a crash, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. Infants from birth to at least age 1 and 20 pounds should ride facing backward in a car seat placed in the back seat. After that, children should ride in the back seat using forward-facing toddler seats and then booster seats until regular seat belts fit properly — usually not until age 8 or when they’re 4 feet 9 inches tall, the NHTSA said. Parents can have their car-seat installation checked by a professional for free. The NHTSA’s website lists car-safety experts by area.

4. Other car-related accidents. Nearly 42% of the non-traffic fatalities in children under age 15 between 2004 and 2008 happened because drivers backed over kids, who often were in the vehicles’ blind spots, according to Kids and Cars, a nonprofit that tracks such accidents. More than 18% of non-traffic deaths occurred because children got heatstroke after being left in cars. Other risks include power-window strangulation, trunk entrapment and vehicles that are accidentally set in motion.

How to reduce the risk: Teach children not to play in or around cars and supervise them carefully around vehicles. Make sure kids aren’t around before pressing the gas pedal. It doesn’t take long for a child left in a car to overheat and die. So drivers should put a stuffed animal in the front seat or a briefcase or purse in the back seat so they don’t forget about the child in the back seat. “It can get very hot, lethally hot, very quickly, and children should never be allowed to be alone in a car ever, even for a moment,” Gardner said.

5. Head injuries. Brain injuries remain among the most devastating for patients.

How to reduce the risk: Always use the proper car seat or seat belts. Make sure kids wear sport-specific helmets when they’re playing sports or riding bicycles or skateboards. A child’s aversion to helmets is no excuse for not wearing them, Sacchetti said. “Your responsibility is to be their parent, not their friend,” he said. “The one thing you can’t do is sacrifice their safety to make them like you.”
Article written by: Kristen Gerencher, MarketWatch

If you have found this information useful please pass this along and if you come across any other stories like this one please feel free to share it with me.

Until next time…

Geoffrey Bolen
Your Mortgage Advisor For Life
Primary Residential Mortgage, Inc.
Phone: 301-588-4701 x84 | Fax: 301-588-4709
Email: gbolen@primeres.com