house financing – Obama Administration to Hold Conference to Discuss Housing Finance Solutions

President Obama’s administration has scheduled a “Conference on the Future of Housing Finance” in Washington, DC. The conference will gather housing finance industry industry experts including Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner, HUD secretary Shaun Donovan, and officials from mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to discuss ideas on how to fix the housing finance industry.

Any decisions made during the confidence would not have any immediate impact on homeowners with loans insured by Fannie or Freddie or investors with securities backed by the company’s, but any discussion of change can hinder investors’ confidence in the nearly trillion market of mortgage-backed securities. Despite the fact that the conference is being described as a “first step” towards reform, investors will monitor the discussions closely.

The conference will be divided into several panels who will discuss topics ranging from the impact of reforming housing finance on broader financial markets to the private sector’s role in the mortgage market. Additional panelists invited to participate are Pimco founder Bill Gross, Bank of America Loans president Barbara Desoer, and Moody’s Analytics chief economist Mark Zandi.

Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac play a key role in efforts to stabilize the housing market through programs designed to aid struggling homeowners. Both companies were placed under the governments control in September 2008 due to fears that losses on their books could bankrupt the companies. Together with Ginne Mae, the companies back well over 90 percent of home loans, as the private mortgage industry has come to a screeching halt.  I will keep you guys posted.

This video can be downloaded here: www.ashdenawards.org Grameen Shakti won an Ashden Award for Sustainable Energy in 2006. To find out more visit the link above and check out the Ashden Awards Blog ashdenawards.blogspot.com Grameen Shakti has sold and installed over 65000 solar home-systems (SHS) in rural Bangladesh, and brought major benefits to its users. Nearly 70% of households in Bangladesh are not connected to the electricity grid and depend on kerosene for lighting. This includes most rural areas and extends as far as the fringes of Dhaka. There are plans to extend the grid, but there is little prospect of substantial change in the foreseeable future. By selling SHS, Grameen Shakti has provided lighting, communications (especially mobile phone charging) and TV, and has increased employment opportunities. It is the largest single installer of SHS in Bangladesh. This impressive number of installations has been achieved by enabling users to purchase their systems on micro-credit with affordable terms, tailored to their specific needs. Funding for the micro-credit system comes from the World Bank and GEF via the Infrastructure Development Company Limited (IDCOL) which provides Grameen Shakti with both subsidy and concessional loans. The cash pool from credit repayments will enable Grameen Shakti to continue the scheme when the subsidy, which is being phased out, ceases in 2008. Grameen Shakti has also started a network of technology centres throughout the country to …
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Whether you’re ready to settle into your first home or looking to buy your fifth; are moving cross-country or cross-town, it’s smart to identify which attributes of a new home are most important to you. Be sure to sit down with your real estate agent and discuss your needs and wants for your new house. Here are five topics to think about when buying a home:

1) What You Can’t Live Without

Our lifestyle choices are often reflected in the homes we buy. Are you a motorcycle fanatic? If so, a roomy garage would be important to you. Have a big family? You’ll likely need to buy a home with at least four bedrooms. Perhaps you or your spouse is a gourmet cook. In that case, a well-designed kitchen could be a must for you. Before your real estate agent begins a home buying search for you, he or she will want to know which home attributes you can’t live without.

2) Schools and Family Needs

The quality of school-systems has long been of importance to home-buying families. If you have children or are thinking about having children in your new home, you’ll want to discuss school information and statistics with your real estate agent. Not only is it important to consider the location of your home relative to area schools, but you’ll also want to think about the quality and diversity of local school offerings. Your real estate agent can provide statistics and information about both public and private schools in all the neighborhoods in which you’re considering buying a home.

3) Commuting

For many people, commuting from home to work and back is a necessary evil. A long commute can detract from a home-buyer’s quality of life and the time he or she gets to spend at home. Commuting should be a critical factor in home selection, because in many communities, traffic backups are increasingly common. And today, this phenomenon applies to urban, suburban and even rural areas. If having little or no commute to work is important to you, convey this to your real estate agent.

4) Community Details

Whether you hope to live in a vibrant urban neighborhood, or a charming rural town, the demographics, details and community statistics of a particular area are almost as important a consideration when buying a home as the details of the house itself. Do you want to live in the thick of the action? Prefer to get away from it all? If a particular aspect of a community is important to you-like a defined downtown area, or a strong recreation component-be sure to tell your real estate agent so that he or she can gather community information and keep this consideration at the forefront of your home search.

5) Budget

Of course, the most rigid constraint of a home-buying search is typically the buyer’s budget. Defining budget parameters quickly and early focuses a home search to a particular segment of the market. However, with the creative lending solutions available today, budget constraints are not as rigid as they once were or as many home buyers assume them to be. Many innovative mortgage options are now available to both first-time and veteran home-buyers. Before beginning a home search, you should talk to both your real estate agent and your lender about your finance options and ultimately, your budget.