Melbourne Florida Homes for Sale

http://tour.previsite.com/61B1D0B3-3F44-E228-60C8-5F346DE04273

I am hosting an OPEN HOUSE today from 1 to 5 pm at
326 Pine Ridge Lane, Melbourne, FL 32940!!

Bring your swim suit and let’s make it a pool party!! Directions: From Wickham Rd go West on St. Andrews Blvd. Take the second left which is Country Walk Street and enter the community Country Walk. Follow to the third right which is Pine Ridge Lane. Follow around to the cul-de-sac.

Virtual tour available here – check it out!!: http://tour.previsite.com/42D118D2-B740-C989-0A91-2B2D8A8EF0E3

Taxpayers want bailed-out banks to make loans and goose the economy. But given the depths of the economic mess, that’s the last thing the banks should do.

By David Weidner, MarketWatch
Banks need to stop the charade, ignore the political and public pressure and admit they’re not lending.

It’s not because they don’t want to, but because it’s bad business.

Don’t think so? Take this pop quiz. Bank of America (BAC, news, msgs) posted smashing first-quarter profits and its chief executive, Ken Lewis, said the Charlotte, N.C., company is lending as if the good times never ended. So, in the bank’s conference call, which of the following statements did Lewis make?

A. “Credit is bad, and we believe credit is going to get worse before it will eventually stabilize and improve.”

B. “Even our internal economists are a little at odds as to the timing (of the recovery), with some seeing recovery earlier (than year’s-end).”

C. “We believe unemployment won’t peak until next year at somewhere in the high single digits.”

D. All of the above.

E. None of the above.

For a CEO whose bank is lending as if it’s 2006, you might be surprised that the Lewis who proclaims to be bullish on loans is bearish on the economy. The answer is D.

There’s only one problem. No bank CEO can reconcile more lending with a deteriorating economy — especially one in which economic conditions are the worst they’ve been in generations. But that’s exactly the claim the bank chief is making.

Lewis described a deep recession that’s going to be here for months. Still, Bank of America touts that it’s “helping” homeowners and small businesses with new loans. It claims to have added 45,000 customers and provided them credit. The reality, however, is less impressive: Bank of America loaned $183 billion during the quarter, up just 1.6% from the last quarter of 2008, when lending took a big dive industrywide.

This isn’t to single out Bank of America. All of the major big banks, including Wells Fargo (WFC, news, msgs), JPMorgan Chase (JPM, news, msgs) and Citigroup (C, news, msgs) have been doing the credit double-talk that goes something like this: These are terrible conditions to be lending in, but we’re lending in them without risk.

If those claims sound a little too good to be true, it’s because they are. Almost all the big banks that have taken cash from the Troubled Asset Relief Program have curtailed lending, according to The Wall Street Journal.

One of the intentions behind TARP was for it to be a kind of stimulus program made through the banks. After plugging holes on each bank’s balance sheet, the TARP cash was supposed to flow into new mortgages, auto loans, credit card lines and corporate lending. Six months later, it’s fair to say TARP money has helped prop up some banks, but it hasn’t flowed into the consumer credit markets the way the framers intended.

Now, critics have argued that the banks should be loaning this money to help stimulate the economy. Companies need credit to expand and hire, they say, and consumers need credit to buy products and help feed the economy.

In almost any other economy, this would be true, but not at a time when an overextension of credit created the recession we are fighting.

Credit cycles, by definition, are periods where banks overextend credit and then pull back to correct the imbalance. If the government forces banks to lend to at-risk borrowers, we’re going to aggravate an already dire credit picture and require more government intervention.

You can easily see how lending to home buyers not worthy of credit would fuel the nation’s housing woes and create more housing problems, but what about the loans most people assume are helpful to the economy: small-business loans?

It turns out that existing small-business loans are defaulting at an alarming rate. More than 4.4% of small-business loans were in 30-day default, up from 3.48% a year ago. And 1.29% were delinquent 90 days, up from 1.04% a year earlier, while 0.63% were 180 days delinquent, double the rate a year ago, according to PayNet, a small-business payment network.

It doesn’t matter what type of loan; lending into an economic downturn is an invitation to trouble.

Some of the biggest US banks posted first-quarter profits that skeptics assert are based more on accounting gimmicks than healthy operations. Are the earnings legitimate? (April 22)The steep rise in defaults and nonperforming loans suggests that the economy will make it hard for banks to simultaneously set aside reserves and lend more money out. Small businesses will lay off workers before they start missing loan payments, and the unemployed can’t pay off their credit cards and car loan payments.

Taxpayers fuming about the banks’ unwillingness to loan government money into the system might reconsider, given that the banks are actually being prudent with taxpayer cash. Now that banks have been backstopped by the Federal Reserve and Treasury Department, they have less incentive to scrutinize credit. The risk of bad loans has been shouldered by Washington.

Banks have made a lot of missteps in the financial crisis — overreaching with credit, misusing taxpayer cash, imposing punitive interest costs on consumers, being insensitive — but reining in credit is not one of them.

So, when Lewis and his counterparts at competing banks brag about how much lending they’re doing, take it with a grain of salt. In most cases, this is posturing by CEOs looking to fend off criticism they’re not doing enough to help the economy.

What critics fail to acknowledge is that we all benefit from banks adhering to lending standards. When that doesn’t happen, we get financial collapses that compare to the darkest times in our history.

I have started to Tweet and you can be a follower!!

You can find me at http://twitter.com/JasonKoivu

OPEN HOUSE TODAY!! Sunday, April 19,2009!! 2-5pm
334 Patrick Circle, Melbourne, FL 32901

DIRECTIONS: From US 192, travel North on Airport Blvd and make a left onto Patrick Circle. The home will be number 334 on the right.

This 2 bedroom, 2 bathroom home has an office. The home has a large backyard and could make a great rental for Florida Tech students, Holmes Regional employees, Harris Corporation and many other businesses that are nearby. Home has quick access to US 192 and not far from the river and beaches.

I have to say that first-time home buyers definitely could not have better opportunities than now to buy. I thought before the boom in 2003/2004 that the “Golden Hour” was then. However, rates are low, homes are highly affordable in our market and there are so many incentives and programs to help these people buy.

So, if you are one of those first-timers that are on the fence and unsure because of all the negative press out there about our financial system collapsing; JUMP OFF THE FENCE!! It is a great time to buy in Brevard if you are prepared for homeownership.

If you are one of those that is shopping and is unaware of the programs available, just send me a message here on the website and I could help guide you through. I would love to give you the information you need to make a decision that will affect the rest of your life.

Open House TODAY from 1 pm to 5 pm
326 Pine Ridge Lane, Melbourne, FL 32940

Charming 2 bed, 2 bath home located on a quiet cul-de-sac in Country Walk. The home is right by Suntree Country Club. The home features front screened patio, enclosed/walled pool, pool bath, tall ceilings and is well maintained.

DIRECTIONS: From Wickham Rd go west on St. Andrews Blvd. The second left is Country Walk. Enter the community and follow straight to the third right which is Pine Ridge Lane. Follow the signs around to 326 Pine Ridge Lane.

Dow jumps 246 on Wells Fargo’s record profit!
By Charley Blaine and Elizabeth Strott

Stocks finished a holiday-shortened week with a fifth straight weekly gain after a better-than-expected forecast from banking giant Wells Fargo (WFC, news, msgs) set off a big rally today.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average ($INDU) had gained 246 points, or 3.1%, to 8,083. The Standard & Poor’s 500 Index ($INX) was up 31 points, or 3.8%, to 857.

The Nasdaq Composite Index ($COMPX) had added 62 points, or 3.9%, to 1,653, and the Nasdaq-100 Index ($NDX.X), which tracks the largest Nasdaq stocks, was up 40 points, or 3%, to 1,340.

The last time the U.S. stock market had five straight weeks of gains was in September and early October 2007 — just as the market was hitting is all-time highs.

Wells Fargo, the fourth-largest U.S. banking company, said it expects record first-quarter profits — $3 billion or 55 cents a share. Wall Street had expected 26 cents a share. Pushing the profit gain has been raising business in mortgage refinancing.

Meanwhile, The New York Times reported today that officials examining the banking industry say the group seems to be in better shape than many people think. But the report said, however, that many of the largest American lenders, despite all those bailouts, probably need to be bailed out again.

The Wells Fargo news — and stress test report — sent the stock up a whopping 31.3% to $19.54, its biggest one-day gain since July 2008. The report fueled a huge rally in financial stocks. The S&P financial exchange traded fund — technically the Select Sector SPDR-Financial (XLF, news, msgs) ETF — was up 10.2% to $10.15.

Bank of America (BAC, news, msgs) was the leader among the 30 Dow stocks, rising 37% to $9.67.

American Express (AXP, news, msgs), JPMorgan Chase (JPM, news, msgs) and Citigroup (C, news, msgs) ranked right behind Bank of America.

American Express was up 19.7% to $18.84. JPMorgan Chase was up 20% to $32.84, and Citigroup was up 13.4% to $3.04.

“The worst is behind us,” Alan Gayle, senior investment strategist at RidgeWorth Capital Management in Richmond, Va., told Bloomberg News. “We’re working our way through the credit crisis, and that’s why the market is cheering.”

With today’s rally,the Dow regained all of its losses from Monday and particularly on Tuesday, when it fell 186 points. The finish will give the blue-chip index a 67-point gain on the week, or 0.8%.

The Dow is down 7.9% for the year, with the S&P 500 off 5.2%. The Nasdaq is up 4.8%, with the Nasdaq-100 up 10.6%.

The market rally that began on March 10 has now pushed the major indexes up 23% or more.

The Brevard County Housing Authority is a great resource for anyone that is buying a home in Brevard County. They have information to a variety of housing programs as far as affordability, down payment assistance and even the latest plans for neighborhood stabilization.

For more information you can visit their website at http://www.brevardcounty.us/Human_Services/

There is a lot of good information available there! Good luck with your home search!!

Spring Clean Your House in a Weekend – Spring cleaning is a job few people enjoy. With a strategy, you can get it over and done with in a weekend.

Get Ready…Get Set – Walk through each room in your house with paper and pen; list what you need to do. Take stock of cleaning supplies and equipment. Buy items you need. Call a charity organization and schedule a time after your cleaning weekend for them to pick up items and clothes you want to give away.

Go! – Get up early Saturday morning and have family members strip bed linens (including mattress pads) and remove curtains that need cleaning. Begin washing. Keep laundry moving from washer to dryer every 30 minutes.

Smarter Cleaning – Think gravity. Clean from top to bottom; that’s the direction the dirt goes.
Vacuum instead of dusting or sweeping whenever possible. It’s quicker and usually more thorough.
Use time-saving cleaning wipes.

Don’t get distracted. If you find a magazine you’ve been looking for under a bed, don’t stop to read it.
Don’t clean anything that’s not dirty. For example, wipe smudges off a door without cleaning the entire door.

Work around a room instead of crisscrossing it so you don’t have to carry supplies and equipment back and forth.

Source: Housekeepingchannel.com