March pending home sales climb 5.1% – MarketWatch

March pending home sales climb 5.1% – MarketWatch.

As I have been saying for the last couple of years – Any good news is worth rejoicing about. We are out of the recession, but we need growth!

Keep it up America!

Best to you,

Blair

The importance of Strategic Partnerships in business success | Reata Ranch Real Estate

The following is a good article from a someone I would recommend in a heartbeat for your real estate needs.

The importance of Strategic Partnerships in business success | Reata Ranch Real Estate.

Notice that I and my company are mentioned in the article? 🙂

Best to you,

Blair

America’s Housing Choice – Help Today’s Owners or Future Buyers – NYTimes.com

Articles you can use – by the guys at Upgrade My Credit

Housing Choice – Help Today’s Owners or Future Buyers – NYTimes.com.

This is a very good question. Should we just let the housing market crash and let the chips fall where they may?

Read the article and let me know what you think?

Blair

Economic news: Obama calls for passage of bill to help small businesses, jobs – USATODAY.com

Obama calls for passage of bill to help small businesses, jobs – USATODAY.com.

Brought to you by Upgrade My Credit Team.

Check us out at http://www.upgrademycredit.com

Personal Finance Tip: “think about tomorrow”

Fleetwood Mac, in their 1976 song “Don’t Stop,” urged listeners not to stop “thinking about tomorrow” because it would“soon be here.” Fleetwood Mac’s top five albums alone have sold over 55 million copies. Needless to say, over the years, Mick Fleetwood made a ton of money. However, during all that time, he really didn’t “think about tomorrow.” As fast as the money came in, it went out. By 1984, he was bankrupt.

How does all this relate to you? If you’re like most people, you can probably spend money without thinking about it, but you can’t save money without thinking about it. For Mick Fleetwood, that certainly was the case. Saving isn’t a natural event. It must be planned.

Planning and budgeting require control. Financial planning involves looking into the future, facing financial reality and the sacrifices that it brings, and taking action. Financial restraint isn’t as much fun as spending with reckless abandon, but it’s a lot more fun than winding up broke. The fact is that the rewards of taking financial control are worth the sacrifices. Just ask Mick Fleetwood- he has finally started “thinking about tomorrow.”

Important: Protecting Your Credit

Protecting Your Credit

Once you have obtained excellent credit, it is necessary for you to protect it.

This means being careful with your credit, debit, and ATM cards, as well as your account and personal identification numbers (PIN).

Carry only the cards you expect to use, and keep the others in a safe place. Maintain a list of account and telephone numbers of the companies that issued your cards. Then, if the cards are lost or stolen, you can notify the companies quickly. If your notification is received before the cards are used, you have no legal responsibility for the bills; if it is received after the cards are used, your legal responsibility is $50 for each card.

Be cautious about giving anyone your account numbers, especially over the telephone when someone calls you. Save sales receipts to compare with your bill, and when you discard documents with account numbers on them, be certain that the numbers can’t be read.

Identity theft can happen anywhere to anyone. In line at the store, online at home or when you’re buying your morning coffee. If your identity is stolen, you can spend hundreds of hours cleaning up your credit and struggling to get back your good name. That’s because stolen identities are used up to 30 times, with most victims only discovering the theft after they’ve been turned down for a loan or contacted by a collection agency. You may already be a victim, many times over, and not even know it. Not with Identity Theft Protection offered by Soaring Financial, LLC and Upgrade My Credit.

Give us a call or email if you have questions about how to protect your credit and identity.

Best to you,

Blair – Upgrade My Credit

The 3 Most Important Numbers in 2010

Upgrade My Credit bringing the best of credit, debt management, and personal finance news and information to you.

article reprint:

2009 was a historical year in the world of consumer credit. We saw property values decline, lenders stop lending, credit card issuers crank up their abusive behavior, a new Federal law passed and a historically high number of credit related lawsuits. The following is a brief synopsis of 2009 and what consumer should do to put themselves in the best possible position for 2010.

Many of us received a letter (or letters) from our credit card issuers with similar messages;

· Your credit line has been lowered to reflect your spending

· Your account has been closed because we believe your card is being used in a manner inconsistent with your Cardmember agreement

· Given the size of your credit line and the way you have historically used your account, we have adjusted your credit line

· We are increasing the Annual Percentage Rates (APR) on your account to 25.49%

· A new service charge of $10 per month will be applied to your account

2009 was surely the year of the credit card issuers reign of terror against their cardholders. According to various surveys at least 35% of the population acknowledged experiencing some sort of adverse change to the terms of their credit card account. And, according to two FICO studies the median score for consumer who saw their credit limits involuntarily reduced was 770, which means that credit line decrease really didnt have anything to do with elevated credit risk.

Of course this abusive behavior lead to the passage of the Credit Card Responsibility, Accountability and Disclosure Act of 2009, or CARD Act for short. This act provides the following rights to cardholders, among others…

· A guaranteed 21 day grace period on payments

· 45 days advance notice of any interest rate increases

· Tough rules around issuing credit cards to consumers who are under 21 years old

· Restrictions on when card issuers can increase your interest rates, and a method whereby consumers can earn back their lower rates by making their payments on time

· Clearer disclosure of account terms before an account is opened

· Restrictions on over limit fees. If a consumer has not “opted in” to allow a credit card issuer to approve a transaction that puts you in an over limit positions, they have to either decline the transaction or not charge you the over limit fee

· No additional fees because of the method of payment

· No more double cycle billing, the method of using the prior months balance to determine interest charges for the current month

· Application of payments above the minimum now have to be applied to the balance with the highest interest rate

· Gift cards wont be able to expire for at least five years. And inactivity fees on gift cards will be banned

Unfortunately 2009 continued to produce decreased property values, which means no equity or worse, negative equity. And while consumers are comfortable with negative equity in their auto loans, they are not used to negative equity in their homes. Your home is your largest investment and it has historically increased in value. This leads to wealth building, a sizable tax deduction, and access to capital in order to send children to college, pay down credit card debt or fund home improvements.

The loss of home equity also lead to a significant number of home equity lines (HELOCs) being cancelled by lenders. A HELOC had always been a secured loan, secured by the perceived value in your home. But, with the home values dropping many HELOCS became huge unsecured lines of credit and many lenders simply werent comfortable with the lines any longer. The problem with the cancellations is that most consumers were never notified that their equity lines had been cancelled and didnt find out until they wrote a check from the line, a large check in many cases, which bounced.

2009 was also a banner year for attorneys involved in credit related litigation, specifically Fair Debt Collection Practices Act and Fair Credit Reporting Act lawsuits. The total number of these lawsuits filed in 2009 was over 8,000, which is more than any other previous year. Most experts predict similar numbers in 2010 because collectors are continuing aggressive collection tactics and more and more consumers are using the law to get legitimate errors removed from their credit reports.

In most years past filing a lawsuit to get something erroneous removed from your credit reports was an expensive and lesser-pursued strategy. But, with lenders increasing their minimum credit score requirements spending the money in order to have credit score-damaging errors corrected or removed actually is a newly smart investment.

So what should I do in 2010 in order to position myself in the best place? You can find yourself almost completely exempt from the credit crunch by doing two things; getting out of credit card debt and increasing your credit scores. By getting yourself out of credit card debt it allows you to escape the abusive treatment by lenders. Remember, things like interest rate and minimum payment increases only matter if you carry a balance. Getting out of and staying out of credit card debt puts you in a very enviable position. This is old advice that has taken on a new level of importance.

A second byproduct of getting out of credit card debt is the significant benefit to your credit scores. Debt makes up a whopping 30% of the points in your FICO® scores, which places it a close second behind whether or not you have negative information on your credit reports. And as many people have learned the hard way, the minimum score requirements to not only qualify but also qualify at the best interest rates have become more difficult to satisfy.

This means higher FICO scores equals approvals where in the past a higher FICO score meant an approval with the best rates.

The author, Mark Kane received his Masters from the University of Chicago, undergraduate from UMass, and has 20 years experience in personal finance He has been an entrepreneur for the past 11 years, and is an expert in credit restoration. he

Protect Against Identity Theft in 2010

Upgrade My Credit brings you a very useful article on Identity Theft. Read and heed.

First published by Nancy Huddleston 12/27/2009 – 10:45am

By Kerry Meagher, Community Voices

This is the time for celebrating family. Let’s all do that to the fullest. But let’s also be careful.

To help keep your season festive and safe, I would like to give you some ideas on how to protect your family from the fastest growing crime in the United States, identity theft. There is nothing that can prevent identity theft completely, because our information is in too many places, such as databases of schools, hospitals, clinics, lenders, employers, government. Since January 2005, over 300 million records in the U.S. have been compromised. But there are some things that you can do to reduce the risk or lessen the damages of identity theft.

+ Don’t give any nonpublic information, such as credit card information, during an unsolicited phone call, no matter how legitimate the call seems;

+ Don’t respond to requests via an e-mail to get nonpublic information, even if it is sent to you by a Web site of a trusted company such as your bank. The bad guys are great at making Web sites that look exactly like your bank’s site;

+ Never e-mail any nonpublic information unless it is encrypted. Any e-mail can be caught by the bad guys during transmission;

+ Keep your virus protection and firewalls as up to date as possible. Without this, the bad guys can sometimes put a Trojan Horse system on your computer that tracks all of your keystrokes, such as keystrokes for online banking;

+ When traveling, don’t use a computer that is not yours for any credit transactions, as many are compromised by a Trojan Horse which tracks keystrokes;

+ Get a good crosscut shredder and shred any item that has any nonpublic information before putting in recycle or the trash. Dumpster diving is alive and well in Minnesota;

+ Don’t put any information in an unsecured mailbox which could be the basis for identity theft. Putting up the red flag up on your mailbox is like telling the thief to come and get your information;

+ If an expected bill doesn’t arrive, contact the company sending the bill. Identity thieves sometimes change an address for a period of time to get your nonpublic information;
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+ If you receive a debt collection letter, arrest warrant for DWI or other criminal issues, IRS notice of taxes on unpaid income you don’t know about, or something that does not make sense in any matter which affects you or your family, investigate thoroughly and call the police or an attorney. It could mean you are an identity theft victim;

+ If your children get unsolicited credit offers, investigate. It may indicate your child is the victim of identity theft. No child should have a credit record unless the parent opened it;

+ Check your credit report often. If a thief opens an account using your credit, there are two victims, you and the bank or creditor who granted the credit. If you don’t report to the creditor that the account is fraudulent within 60 days, even if you don’t know about the debt, under federal law you may be responsible for the debt.

+ To see issues, rights and responsibilities regarding identity theft, go to FTC.gov.

There are protection plans available to protect you against identity theft, but you want to make sure the protection has restoration and covers all areas of identity theft. Restoration is important because a victim of identity theft often has a very hard time convincing the police officer, revenue agent, creditor and others that the victim is not the perpetrator.

Think of convincing a department store manager that it wasn’t you that purchased the computer or HDTV when the thief has used your name, Social Security number, mother’s maiden name, and other information that proves you are you. Identity theft protection plans need to help in all areas of identity theft, not just financial, because some of the worst sorts of identity theft do not involve credit or banking.

Think of convincing the police officer, employer or prospective employer it wasn’t you that was arrested for drug dealing or other crimes when all information indicates it was you, or convincing the insurance company that it wasn’t you who tested positive for HIV when it was your insurance information used, or convincing an IRS agent it wasn’t you that did the work for which income taxes are owed when your Social Security number was used.

With almost 10 million victims a year, we are at risk, but being aware can make a difference. Have a wonderful holiday season, and be safe.

(Kerry Meagher is an attorney who is also a certified identity theft risk management specialist.)

Source URL:
http://www.savagepacer.com/news/opinions/community-voices-don-t-get-caught-those-who-want-be-you-112

Does Credit Repair Work?

By Blake Kinsing

As a well known finance and credit guru I am commonly asked if credit repair really works. Credit repair can be an extremely effective tool if performed the right way.

Be careful who you choose because many credit repair companies collect money from consumers for credit repair services, but the services they perform are nothing more than mailing the credit bureaus simple dispute letters.

Some companies perform minimal disputes only, for example it might be disputed that the item really does not belong to the consumer or that the consumer never really went late on the derogatory item. The hope is that the creditor will not respond to the dispute and the items will be removed off the credit report as a result. These types of credit disputes depend on creditor ignorance or human error to be effective.

Over the last few years the credit bureaus have gotten smart to these credit repair methods. To counter them the bureaus now use complicated computer systems named E-Oscar and OCR.

The credit bureaus E-Oscar and OCR computers locate letters which appear to come from credit repair companies then respond to those disputes calling them frivolous. The credit bureaus E-Oscar computer then processes the dispute electronically nearly eliminating human error.

The credit bureau computers now render these older types of disputes minimally effective. Some items will get removed to simply be put back on the report a little later, and typically the only accounts that will be permanently removed are older accounts which have minimal effect on the credit score.

BUT, all hope is not lost

REAL credit repair is actually extremely effective, but it also is time consuming. Accounts need to be disputed in a methodological manner and the most effective disputes are done direct to the creditor themselves.

There are hundreds of consumer protection laws such as FACTA, The Fair Debt Collection Practices Act, HIPPA, The Fair Credit Billing Act, and many more which can be used to get your negative credit items removed from your report.

Many creditors completely ignore and violate multiple state and Federal laws with the hopes that you do not possess the knowledge or time to be able to challenge them.

Truthfully, most consumers do not possess the legal knowledge to defend themselves. You would have to spend endless hours learning all of the hundreds of consumer laws to know enough to challenge your creditors successfully.

But, using these creditor Federal law violations as leverage to force the creditor to delete the negative items is a VERY effective tactic to use to repair your credit. Credit companies who use this tactic and participate in direct creditor disputing typically see deletion rates of 70% or higher.

The drawback is in order to delete your negative accounts; you will spend endless hours learning how to dispute your own credit items. Or you can find a highly recommended professional credit repair company to do it for you. But make sure you find a very reputable credit company.

Or you can visit online credit forums and start learning how to go at it alone. Whatever you decide to do, DON’T decide to do NOTHING at all. Bad credit is estimated to cost an individual consumer over $1,000,000 in a 30 year time period.

Strong dispute methods could remove most of your negative credit items, and this could be the difference between you just struggling living paycheck to paycheck or living your dram life.

Get started today with fixing your own credit, or hire a professional. Whichever you chose get started now on rebuilding your credit profile and your financial security.

Article Source

Articlelife.info, 2009, articles and press releases

Feel free to give us a call for a free credit evaluation. Upgrade My Credit 817-886-0302 . You’ll be glad you did.

-Blair

Lend America Halts Production, Layoffs Imminent

News Flash: Lend America Halts Production, Layoffs Imminent

Lend America, the embattled Long Island-based FHA lender, said it has halted all loan production, a move that comes less than 24 hours after the government ordered the non-bank to cease underwriting and funding government-backed products.

More fallout!

Just an FYI by Blair at Upgrade My Credit