Moore Mortgage Solutions

    In the first two parts of this series, I talked about setting up emergency funds and reviewing your homeowners’ policy.

    In this last part, I would like to talk to about protecting our personal and private documents.

    Losing a home to a fire or flood can only be termed as overwhelming. The amount of trauma and stress that would occur has to be enormous. And I, for one, I can’t imagine losing my own home.

    But for me, what would be even most-trying and very time-consuming would be to replace all of our important documents. And even if they are in a safe or a safety deposit box, that is not always the safest place. In a fire or in a flash flood, you may only have seconds to grab items and a bank can be ripped from its foundation by a tornado.

    I offer that maybe we should be scanning our important documents such as our driver’s licenses, our birth certificates, marriage licenses, wills, power of attorney, medical directives, and even our passports and uploading onto a secured storage website as an alternative and additional method to safe guard those important papers.

    While uploading your documents - don’t forget your personal photographs, your photographs of your most precious items, and just as important---your medical records.

    This secured website should have two servers in two different parts of the country. This insures that if one part of the country has a disaster, your documents will still be safe.

    Also someone in your family besides yourself should have knowledge on how to get into this site. And that person should be from out of the area. This will allow you to have that person access those documents if you can’t do so yourself or if something should happen to you.

    I do hope none of us will be personally confronted with any type of disaster. But by reviewing yearly,--- your emergency money funds, your homeowners’ insurance policy and uploading your documents onto a secure storage website, we can lessen the traumatic upheaval that would occur in our lives.

    The Marine Corp has a saying that involves 7 Ps—prior proper planning prevents piss poor performance. I’d like to change that a bit to say…prior proper planning prevents precarious problematic predicaments.

    This ends this three part series. In the meantime, if you wish to talk to me about how to set up these funds through the equity of your home, how better to protect your home, and how to protect your important documents, please feel free to call or email me.

    Until then, make every day an inspired day!

Betsy Moore

206-331-2749

betsy@mooremortgagesolutions.com

    Today the Federal Reserve cut the Fed Funds Rate by another .50%. This now makes the Fed Fund Rate at 3.0%. And they took the Discount Rate down to 3.5%. The Discount Rate is the rate that member banks can borrow from the Federal Reserve.

    In their statement today, the Fed stated that the financial markets remain under considerable stress, and credit has tightened further for some businesses and households. Moreover, recent information indicates a deepening of the housing contraction as well as some softening in labor markets.

    Also, the Committee expects inflation to moderate in the coming quarters.

    What does this mean to you? Short term interest rates will go down. This will affect your credit cards, your home equity lines of credit, and new car loans lowering your overall interest on them.

    The market of late has been volatile as traders try to find the best place to invest money. But remember as money flows out of the bond market, interest rates on mortgages go up.

    Even though it has been a volatile market, this is still a good time to buy a home in the Seattle/Tacoma area. And it is also a good time to refinance your present mortgage as rates are the lowest they’ve been in the last three years.

    If you have any questions about the market, would like to take about the possibility of refinancing your present home mortgage, or get approved to buy a new home, please do not hesitate to contact me.

    Until then, make every day an inspired one!

Betsy Moore

    In a surprise move at 8am EST, the Fed cut the Fed Funds Rate by .75%. The Fed Fund Rate is now 3.5%. And the Fed also cut the Discount Rate to 4.0%. This is the rate that member banks can borrow from the Federal Reserve.

    The reasoning behind this is that stocks were being sold off sharply around the world yesterday. And s the market opened this morning, stocks dipped at one point to their lowest levels since January 2000.

    What does this mean to Mortgage Bonds? This morning’s sell off caused the Mortgage Bonds to trade higher reaching their best levels since June 2005. Translated, mortgage rates are at their lowest level since June 2005. But because of the volatility of the markets, this can turn causing the Mortgage Bonds to drop and mortgage interest rates to go back up.

    Remember as money flows into stock market, they are taken out of the bond market. And in turn causes mortgage rates to go up.

    What is a consumer to do? If you have a home mortgage, now is the time to look at refinancing your present mortgage. And if you have a negative amortization rate mortgage, again now is the time to look at refinancing or get a strategy together to off-set the recast period.

    As an added note, the market is still expecting the Fed is cut the Fed Funds Rate an additional .50% during their regular scheduled meeting next week.

    If you have any questions about the market, would like to talk about the possibility of refinancing your home mortgage, or get approved to buy a new home, please do not hesitate to contact me.

    Until then, make every day an inspired one!

Betsy Moore

betsy@mooremortgagesolutions.com