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To: mishedlo who wrote (109866)3/24/2010 8:45:43 AM
From: DebtBomb  Respond to of 116555
 
Home loan demand down 2nd week as rates rise

REUTERS/Mario Anzuoni
On Wednesday March 24, 2010, 7:39 am EDT
By Julie Haviv

NEW YORK (Reuters) - U.S. mortgage applications fell for a second straight week, with demand for home loan refinancing sinking to its lowest level in a month as interest rates jumped, data from an industry group showed on Wednesday.

Demand for purchase loans, a tentative early indicator of home sales, edged higher, but activity was down from a year earlier, further evidence that the housing market has hit a lull after showing signs of a recovery late last year.

The Mortgage Bankers Association said its seasonally adjusted index of mortgage applications, which includes both purchase and refinance loans, for the week ended March 19, decreased 4.2 percent.

The four-week moving average of mortgage applications, which smooths the volatile weekly figures, was up 1.9 percent.

Harsh winter weather has taken a hefty toll on home sales, while stricter lending standards, higher fees, and declining incomes have made it tougher on borrowers.

Michael Moskowitz, president of Equity Now, a direct lender based in New York that does business in nine states, said unemployment and underemployment are also weighing on sales.

"There is a lot of nervousness right now and people are uncertain about their financial future," he said. "If you do not have a job, looking to buy a home is not high on your priority list."

Another huge obstacle is that many mortgages are "underwater," he said. Negative equity, when the amount owed on a mortgage exceeds the current value of the home, has been one of the biggest banes of homeowners, making many unqualified for home loan refinancing and preventing some from selling.

The MBA's seasonally adjusted purchase index increased 2.7 percent, while its seasonally adjusted index of refinancing applications decreased 7.1 percent, reaching its lowest level since the week ended February 19.

The MBA said borrowing costs on 30-year fixed-rate mortgages, excluding fees, averaged 5.01 percent, up 0.10 percentage point from the previous week. Interest rates were also above the year-ago level of 4.63 percent.

An all-time low of 4.61 percent was set in the week ended March 27, 2009, based on a weekly survey conducted since 1990.

The MBA said fixed 15-year mortgage rates averaged 4.33 percent, up from 4.24 percent the previous week. Rates on one-year ARMs were unchanged at 6.75 percent.

The lowest mortgage rates in decades and high affordability helped the hard-hit U.S. housing market find some footing in 2009 after a three-year slump. Late last year, home sales were strong as consumers came out in droves to take advantage of the federal government's first-time home buyer tax credit, which was originally set to end November 30.

The Obama administration extended the $8,000 first-time home buyer tax credit, added a $6,500 credit for home owners buying a new residence, and increased income limits. Eligible borrowers must sign contracts by April 30 and close loans by June 30.

Recent data on new and existing home sales indicate the incentive may have played out. The National Association of Realtors on Tuesday said sales of previously owned U.S. homes fell for a third straight month in February.

More key insight into the state of the U.S. housing market will emerge on Wednesday when the Commerce Department releases February new home sales data.
finance.yahoo.com



To: mishedlo who wrote (109866)3/24/2010 5:40:33 PM
From: riversides3 Recommendations  Read Replies (4) | Respond to of 116555
 
To all modern Sons of Liberty: THIS is your time. Break their windows. Break them NOW.

sipseystreetirregulars.blogspot.com

Sons of Liberty burn and sack the house of the Massachusetts lieutenant governor, Thomas Hutchinson.

To all free Americans who still hold dear the Founders' vision of a constitutional Republic and who wish to remain free --

Nancy Pelosi's Intolerable Act is within days of passage by devious means so corrupt and twisted that even members of her own party recoil in disgust.

This act will order all of us to play or pay, and if we do not wish to, we will be fined.

If we refuse to pay the fine out of principle, we will be jailed.

If we resist arrest, we will be killed.

They will send the Internal Revenue Service and other federal police to do this in thousands of small Wacos, if that is what it takes to force us to submit.

This arrogant elite pretends that this oppression is for our own good, while everyone else understands that this is about their selfish, insatiable appetite for control over our liberty, our money, our property and our lives.

The majority of the people have made it plain that they do not want this tyrannical transfer of power wrapped in soft lies.

It does not matter.

Pelosi and her ilk apparently do not understand that this Intolerable Act has some folks so angry that they are ready to resist their slow-rolling revolution against the Founders' Republic by force of arms. Why should they? For in the past seventy-five years of being pushed back continually from the free exercise of our God-given rights to life, liberty and property, WE HAVE NEVER SHOVED BACK. Rather, it was we, the law-abiding, who backed up each time, grumbling.

These are collectivists. They do not hear you grumble. They do not, it is apparent after the past year of town halls and Tea Parties and nose-diving opinion polls, hear you SHOUT. They certainly do not hear the soft "snik-snik" of cleaning rods being used on millions of rifle barrels in this country by people who have decided that their backs are to the wall, politics and the courts no longer are sufficient to the task of defending their liberties, and they must make their own arrangements.

The Imperial Democrats do not care what you think. They will not hear you. They are every bit as arrogant and isolated as King George the Third was from the liberty-loving American colonists in 1775.

And yet, if we are to avoid civil war, we must get their attention BEFORE the IRS thug parties descend upon us each in turn -- when we will be forced into dozens of defensive slaughters and then, to end it, forced yet again to call Pelosi and the other architects of this war upon their own people to final account.

We are the law-abiding of this country, yes. We always have been. But when the "law" is distorted and twisted into an unconstitutional means of oppression, backed by the entire weight of the federal Leviathan, it is not "law" at all, but mere illegitimate force.

John Locke said it best:

"Whenever the legislators endeavor to take away and destroy the property of the people, or to reduce them to slavery under arbitrary power, they put themselves into a state of war with the people, who are thereupon absolved from any further obedience."

When the law becomes a deadly tool of tyranny, it is no longer a good thing to be obedient and "law-abiding." It is, in fact, suicidal.

Yet, given the federal mandarins' willful ignorance of our very existence and conviction that we have no opinions that they are bound to respect, is there anything that can be done to prevent civil war?

Yes, there is.

We can emulate the Sons of Liberty of old.

We can break their windows.

These windows are not far away from where you are reading this right now. In virtually every city and county in this land, there is a local headquarters of Pelosi's party -- the Democrat party. These headquarters invariably have windows. When the Sons of Liberty wanted to express their opposition to the actions of the King's ministers, they would gather in front of the homes and offices of his tax-collectors and government officials in Boston or New York and break their windows. Glass was expensive. The King's minions were often the most well-to-do. The Sons of Liberty hit them in their pocketbooks.

Most importantly, however, was the message to the royal functionaries that there are personal consequences for oppressing your fellow citizens. The King is far away, and you are here, among us, the people.

This is the message that modern Sons of Liberty should get across to the Royalists of today. Now. Before we have to resort to rifles to resist their "well intentioned" tyranny.

This is not to say that the GOP (I refuse to call them "Republicans" for that is a misuse of the word) does not bear a large measure of responsibility for the situation we find ourselves in today. However, they have opposed this Intolerable Act. Yet, if we do a thorough job of breaking Democrat windows, I am sure that the GOP will profit from the example.

So, if you wish to send a message that Pelosi and her party cannot fail to hear, break their windows.

Break them NOW.

Break them and run to break again. Break them under cover of night. Break them in broad daylight. Break them and await arrest in willful, principled civil disobedience. Break them with rocks. Break them with slingshots. Break them with baseball bats.

But BREAK THEM.

The time has come to take your life, your liberty and that of your children and grandchildren into your own two hands and ACT.

It is, after all, more humane than shooting them in self defense.

And if we do a proper job, if we break the windows of hundreds, thousands, of Democrat party headquarters across this country, we might just wake up enough of them to make defending ourselves at the muzzle of a rifle unnecessary.

Sons of Liberty, this is your time.

Break their windows.

Break them NOW.

And Nancy, if this be sedition, if this be treason in your eyes, then make the most of it.

Mike Vanderboegh
PO Box 926
Pinson, AL 35126
GeorgeMason1776@aol.com
sipseystreetirregulars.blogspot.com