The mortgage bank that I work for, Alpine Mortgage Planning, has issued a challenge to the Eugene/Springfield area to bring in a Million Dollars ($1,000,000) in First Time Home Buyer Tax Credits as part of the Stimulus package. You can check out the challenge here.

All of this means that the loan advisors teaming with their Realtor partners will be working to bring the dream of homeownership to at least 125 first time home buyers between now and November 30, 2009, the date the tax credit expires.

Check out the http://www.alpinemilliondollarstimuluschallenge.com/ website for information about upcoming seminars for new home buyers. Down Payment Assistance programs will also be addressed during the seminars, helping prospective home owners get the money together for the down payment.

If you have any questions about the seminars, or to start the process, give me a call at 541-342-7576/541-221-3455 Cell or e-mail me.

Interestingly, while doing some web surfing trying to find out who my competition is in the blog-o-sphere, I wasn't entirely pleased with who was out there. I wanted to know who else was writing about the place I call home and who was writing about lending, mortgages and loans. It is interesting what I found. Like this site, for example. Neighborhood Expert Online is a place where you can come and find someone that is actually in your Neighborhood to help you with whatever you need. Granted, the availability is kind of limited right now, but it is a fairly new site and as such, will take some time for the various neighborhoods to be represented in the various fields. Right now, I want to focus on the Eugene/Springfield Oregon Neighborhood.

Who are these guys?

As an veteran searcher, I use Google a lot to search to see who is writing what about my area and my field. By doing that, I found the this blog called roost. It is an interesting blog and has some good information about Eugene but I have no idea who writes it or where they are or if they really know about the Eugene/Springfield Market. There is no information on the home page about who the blog is done by. On my blog sites, I am very firm about who and where I am.

Now you know who this is

A different site talks about 48 hours in Eugene. Now, Nancy D. Brown is the writer of this and she is obviously a good travel writer. She also has her name and contact information on her website. I think she is a pretty good writer too and appears to really like traveling.

Excellent Local Information

Then there is this article about planting more trees in Eugene. This is obviously by and about Eugene. Again, a nice piece that has the right local information attached. This is what I like to see when I am looking for local information. Take a look at this local information that I posted on my website. Again, plenty of acknowledgement as to who and where I am on the site.

Local Expertise

Now, how about my field of expertise? When I posted about First Time Homebuyers, you know who I am and how to get in touch with me. It isn’t a website designed to gather names so that they can be sold. That is so much different that this site, that says it is information for Oregon, but is actually another of the “contact” gather sites. Fill out the form and someone will contact you. that someone has probably purchased your name and will probably be one of several that will call, none of them necessarily knowing anything about the local area.

I believe you should chose to work with someone local to your area that knows the area. Otherwise you are taking your chances with one of the “no name” contact gather sites. Personally, I prefer to work with people that know what they are doing and know my area.

Window Live Writer

Now I am sure that the experience bloggers out there already know about this or else they are very comfortable writing in HTML. However, since I think HTML is a little harder to learn than Klingon and just a bit easier than Romulan, I found this a very helpful product. It is called Windows Live Writer and you can write with it using just normal word time action and not worry about the extra HTML code that Word seems to throw into a post just for grins.

Download and Use

You can download Writer here and it is really easy to use. You can add hyperlinks like I am doing, you can ad photos and you can add maps and tables like this one.  So far, I have tied Writer to my three blogs, Eugene Loan Guy, FHA Loans Oregon and No Money Down OR WA CA. The absolute nice thing about this is with the other multi user platforms, I can copy my HTML code from my blog and paste it right into the create blog form, like I am doing with this on Active Rain. Unfortunately, as you can see, it doesn't work on A/R. Must be some code stripper in A/R's program that makes it not work, but take a look at what I did on wannanetwork with the same post. Of course, I don’t even have to do that with Positive Real Estate Professionals, because it automatically picks up my new posts and transfers them right into my Blog post on PREP. That is a super benefit.

Easy Code – No Training

I can use the same HTML code and move it into my other multi user platform, MyFHAMortgageBlog and make any necessary changes once it is posted. What a great way to get around HTML and get the maximum SEO at the same time. So, if you haven’t tried Windows Live Writer and you are not proficient in HTML, I suggest you give it a try. I have used some of the editing possibilities with Writer on this post, just to show you what can be done. As you can see, you can align left, center, justify or align right. Pictures are easy too, including this sepia tone.

About the author: Fred Chamberlin is a Senior Mortgage Consultant with Alpine Mortgage Planning, Eugene OR and the author of three blogs, Eugene Loan Guy, FHA Loans Oregon and No Money Down OR WA CA. He is also a contributing member of Positive Real Estate Professionals and My FHA Mortgage Blog.

For those that think loan officers and bankers are just hard hearted meanies that just want your money, take a look at this video about a bank loan officer in Spokane Washington helping a whole family find safety in an unsafe world.

I recently posted that Secretary of HUD, Shaun Donovan, had announced that FHA was going to allow the $8,000 Tax Credit to be used as down payment, or "monetized" and got a lot of flack from the "experts" in the field that it had been withdrawn and that there was no way this was going to happen. At the time, I knew that the announcement was premature, but knowing what I believed was going on behind the scenes, was pretty certain that this actually would come about.

Today, a new "Mortgagee Letter" from HUD was published that announces the same program and gives some of the guidelines. Granted, the ability to use the money is still a bit of planning away, but this proves that the program will be in existance and that HUD really does want to see people have acces to this money for their down payment. Now, spread the word. By the time your clients find their home, have everything in place to buy it, the program will have the kinks worked out.....at least I hope it will. Unfortunately, being the government doing the job on this, they seem to have made it very strange. It appears that the buyer will still have to come up with the 3.5% down and use the tax credit for closing costs or additonal down payment. Stand by for details as all of this works out>

About the author: Fred Chamberlin is a Senior Mortgage Consultant with Alpine Mortgage Planning, Eugene OR and the author of three blogs, Eugene Loan Guy, FHA Loans Oregon and No Money Down OR WA CA. He is also a contributing member of Positive Real Estate Professionals and My FHA Mortgage Blog.

Short Sales, Foreclosures, Deed in Lieu of Foreclosure, is there a difference when talking about credit? According to my credit expert from First American Credco, the answer is no. Please take a minute to look over my post about the effects each will have on your credit and ability to purchase a home in the future. Current home owners that are contemplating a short sale should get some legal advice first.

I hope you will find information that is valuable when deciding the way to go in a bad situation. It is my opinion that Realtors can help their prospective clients by knowing these answers too. Feel free to contact me at 541-342-7576/541-221-3455 Cell with any questions, or e-mail me at eugeneloanguy@gmail.com. I can also recommend my outside blog posts anytime your need specific information about FHA Loans or USDA and VA loans.

Thanks everyone that stopped by one of my three websites to see my new header branding me across platforms. Now, I would like to invite you to visit FHA Loans Oregon and take a look at my three part series in how to chose a loan officer. I think you should find it interesting and give you some material to use when referring your clients to the loan officer that will help them through the rigors of an FHA loan.

Not everyone is a perfect loan officer, and I can guarantee that I am not perfect, but I do guarantee that I am always trying to keep my knowledge current, I have never rested on my experience. Please take a look and feel free to leave me a comment. Since Positive Real Estate Professionals automatically posts to there from my websites, you can read it there also. I am hoping that everyone is having a wonderful Memorial Day weekend. Just remember the reason for this holiday to for the rememberance and honor to our Armed Services and our fallen heros.

Eugene Loan Guy, my outside blog, has a new heading and I have decided to make all of my outside blogs, Eugene Loan Guy,  FHA Loans Oregon and No Money Down OR/WA/CA, similar in appearance with the same heading. For those of you familiar with Oregon, you might recognize the picture in the heading below as being the Three Sisters, located between Bend and Eugene.

I think that having this new heading that is so specific to my area is a great addition to my web presence. I have to thank my webmaster(s), Danny Thornton and Rich Dansereau of RandDArt, took this wonderful picture and transformed it into the heading. I will continue to use the fantastic heading that Marti designed for me here on A/R, but I wanted to make sure that my branding was consistent.

I will eventually use the same blog heading for my posting on Positive Real Estate Professionals. That will give me brand recognition wherever I am posting. I have to also comment on the great things that Danny did with my blogs as far as blog rating. The changes and adjustments for SEO and blog rating has really made a huge difference in the number of visits and business coming from my websites.

It is amazing what can happen when you know the details that bring more searches to you blogsite. Since Eugene Loan Guy has only be in existence for about six months and the other two for just over 3 months, Alexa ratings of under a million are unheard of and mine was just over 200,000 last month for Eugene Loan Guy. Admittedly, it is worse this month (345,969), but that has to do with not making my consistent postings. Please note, Alexa ratings are better low than high.

The biggest problem that most first time home buyers have is coming up with the down payment. I have posted several times in the past various ways to get the down payment together, but it has still been out of the reach of some people. Now, that could change. The First Time Home Buyer Tax Credit is going to be available for the down payment on FHA loans in the near future, according the the Secretary of HUD.

Shaun Donovan, Secretary of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, said that the Federal Housing Administration is going to permit its lenders to allow homeowners to use the $8,000 tax credit as a down payment. According to Secretary Donovan, the FHA's approved lenders will be permitted to “monetize” the tax credit through short-term bridge loans. For the first time, eligible home buyers will be able to access the funds immediately at the closing table.

Needless to say, there are no procedures in place at this moment to take care of the “bridge” loan, but this should be done in a fairly short fashion since HUD wants this to be the new way of doing things. My suggestion is that those that qualify for the First Time Home Buyer Tax Credit on an FHA loan start looking for a home now. The procedures should be in effect by the time the purchase is ready to close…..at least I hope that is the case. This should be a boon to the Real Estate purchase market and start using up some of the excess inventory. That may also mean rising home prices in a short period of time.

FHA Loans, VA Loans, USDA Loans, Conventional Loans, Eugene, Springfield, Oregon, Lane County, $8000 First Time Home Buyer Tax Credit and mortgages. All of these are search terms used to find what you are looking for on the internet. They will give you a list of websites set up to answer questions and direct you to a place to start your loan application process. However, the thing that upsets me is that many of those websites are only mining customers to be sold in lists to people like me….like me, not me.

One of the things about my website that is different than a lot of the ones found in a search is that it gives you information about me. My name is on my website. My phone number is on my website. My e-mail address is on my website. My website is used to give my readers information and, if they think I am the best person to help them, get them in touch with me for the purpose of putting a loan application together. It really irritates me when I go to a website and find all kinds of information but nothing about who did it. No company name, no individual name, no phone number and no email address, just a form to fill out for more information.

Another thing that makes me a bit upset is when I go to one of those websites and I see a blog posting that is one that I wrote. Now, they are good enough (most of the time) to provide a link to the original posting, but it is driving traffic to their website to read information that I wrote. Interesting conundrum, isn’t it?

So, if you want a real person that is in a real place that makes real loans to real customers, give me a try. I am a mortgage professional and I look forward to meeting my customers either in person, by phone or on the internet, but meet we will. I am available for consultation on almost any loan product in Oregon, Washington or California. Government loans (FHA, VA, USDA) are my specialties, but I am competent is conventional loans also. Visit me on my website,  http://eugeneloanguy.com and see if you know it is me.