Posted: 13 Oct 2010 08:26 AM PDT

Ronald Parms of Highland Village, Texas leaves the Housing Service Room after seeking help to refinance his home at the National Urban League's Economic Empowerment Tour in Dallas, Texas June 13, 2009.

Credit: Reuters/Jessica Rinaldi

By Linda Stern

WASHINGTON | Wed Oct 13, 2010 11:48am EDT

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Mortgage rates have been bouncing along at record lows, tempting anyone who owns a house to get a better loan.

You may even be salivating over the idea of grabbing a 15-year mortgage at 3.76 percent interest, or locking in 30 years at 4.32 percent -- today's rates, according to BankRate.com.

Easier said than done.

Those rates are dangling out there like tasty fruit, but they are harder to harvest than you might think. Even employed homeowners with equity to spare are finding the refi market tough to crack because of new, tight lending standards.

The lenders "realize they are giving you a very cheap loan, so they want to make sure they aren't going to lose more than they have to," says Farnoosh Torabi, an expert with Credit.com. "I have darned good credit, and my own refinance still took four months," she added.

So, be prepared to hurry up and wait for that low-cost loan. Here are some steps you can take to push your refi to closing:

-- Clean up your credit. Before you even go rate shopping, get copies of your free credit reports from all three credit reporting bureaus at AnnualCreditReport.com (www.annualcreditreport.com).

Check for mistakes and have them fixed. Then go to MyFico (www.myfico.com) and pay $15.95 for your FICO credit score. It's the one most lenders pay attention to. You will need a score of 740 or better to get the best rates, says Keith Gumbinger of HSH.com (www.hsh.com).

If your credit score isn't what it should be, you can improve it in a hurry by paying off credit card balances, even if you have to withdraw money from your rainy day fund or borrow some money from your parents (or your kids).

-- Line up all of your ducks. "Get ready to give up your first born," joked Rick Allen, of mortgage comparison site MortgageMarvel.com (mortgagemarvel.com).

"They are going to want all the documentation, sometimes to the point of being ridiculous." No-doc "handshake" loans don't really exist anymore.

Self-employed people can get mortgages, if they can demonstrate two years of increasing earnings or a steady income. You will need 1099 forms, tax returns and W-2s to prove you can afford your mortgage. You may also have to provide copies of your property tax bills and assessments, as well as proof that you have adequate insurance on the home.

-- Watch the appraisal carefully. Homeowners in many parts of the country are having problems because the housing market has been so slow that appraisers cannot find enough recent sales of comparable homes to enable them to value yours correctly. If you can find good comparables, give them to your lender or mortgage broker before the appraisal is done.

If the appraisal comes back unreasonably low, challenge it. Your lender may be willing to have the property reappraised. You could buy your own appraisal to bolster your appeal, but that won't come cheap, and your lender probably won't take it anyway, Allen says.

-- Consider FHA financing. If you have equity in your home, but not very much, consider taking an FHA loan. They can be written for as much as 96.5 percent of your home's value. But that will cost you -- FHA loans carry extra mortgage insurance premiums that will show up every month in your mortgage payment. If you are not planning to borrow more than 80 percent of your home's value, you should be able to get a conventional loan.

Oct 13, 2010 2:44pm EDT

3.76! God, who knew? We refinanced 16 months ago to a 15-year, 4.5%. That was absolutely the best deal going at the time. We lopped off 8 years of payments by going from our old 30 year to a 15 year. We didn't have any trouble refinancing at the time (we stayed with the same bank, so maybe that's why.) I wonder how hard it would be now? And would it be worth it? The very idea of going through all that paperwork again gives me the shudders.

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Personal Finance: Emerging markets merit a look - Philadelphia Daily News

Posted: 03 Oct 2010 12:02 AM PDT

Posted on Sun, Oct. 3, 2010

Where in the world does an investor make money when 70 percent of the U.S. economy is based on consumers, and many of them, along with Europeans, will be licking their financial wounds instead of spending through much of this decade?

Professional investors are turning to emerging-market stocks and funds that invest in fast-growing areas of Asia, Latin America, and Africa. While emerging stocks historically have crashed more than U.S. stocks during financial stress, recently they've seemed more resilient. Analysts say they will grow faster than the lethargic equities investors will find in the United States, Europe, and Japan.

Emerging countries make up 37 percent of the globe's gross domestic product. Goldman Sachs Group Inc. recently estimated that as countries such as China, India, and Brazil continue their growth spurts, today's emerging economies will make up 49 percent of global GDP by 2020 and 59 percent by 2030.

Although investors have turned their backs on U.S. stocks this year, "the cult of equity appears to be alive and well in emerging markets," said Citigroup Inc. analyst Geoffrey Dennis.

This year's flows into global emerging-market funds have totaled about $40 billion, with gains of about 6 percent, compared with 3 percent in the Standard & Poor's 500 index.

Turnabout from 1999

That is a change from 1999, when investors put $300 billion into U.S. stock funds and just $5 billion into emerging markets after the Asian financial crisis of 1997-98.

Now, the case for emerging markets has been bolstered by analysts such as Goldman Sachs strategist David Kostin, who recently urged professional money managers to invest more outside developed countries. He expects the market value of emerging markets to climb to $80 trillion from $14 trillion over the next 20 years, while developed markets increase to $66 trillion from $30 trillion. By 2030, he said, the market value of China stocks will reach $41 trillion, exceeding the projected $34 trillion in the United States.

GDP growth of emerging-market economies is likely to be twice the 4 percent growth rate in developed countries, he said. Recently, the U.S. economy has been expanding about 1.5 percent. IHS Global Insight Inc. estimates the Asia-Pacific region is expanding at 6.5 percent, though that will likely slow to 4.9 percent next year.

The fate of emerging markets cannot be separated entirely from the United States and Europe because developed countries are big customers for products and natural resources. In 2008, as the United States struggled and stocks plunged 38 percent, emerging markets lost export opportunities, and stocks dropped about 50 percent. Still, UBS AG analyst Jonathan Anderson argues that the growth rate of emerging nations has been and will be about 4 percentage points stronger than that of mature countries.

What to do about it?

The question for investors seeking emerging-market growth is how to partake. Some analysts argue that investing in an emerging-market fund is somewhat counterproductive because large firms depend on the United States and other developed nations to be huge customers. So they argue that buying shares in a large U.S. company that sells a lot in emerging economies can make sense.

"The U.S. is very much in malaise," said Eric Schoenstein, manager of the Jensen Fund. He recently added exposure in his U.S. mutual fund to large firms like Colgate-Palmolive Co. and Coca-Cola Co. that produce consumer goods and equipment for infrastructure construction, seeking companies that do a third to a half of their business in the emerging world.

David Semple, director of international equity for Van Eck Global, suggests the most direct approach: Invest in small companies based in emerging markets that cater to local customers rather than selling to the United States and other developed countries.

Those interested in this approach can pick emerging-market small-company funds. They can examine the funds at www.morningstar.com/.

Gail MarksJarvis is a personal-finance columnist for the Chicago Tribune. E-mail her at gmarksjarvis@tribune.com.

KAIT-Jonesboro, AR-News, weather, sports, classifieds-Personal Finance - Kait 8

Posted: 30 Sep 2010 11:29 PM PDT

Short on cash? There's no need to cut back on Rx

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Contemplating a career change? You can do it!

Produced for Devry - Did you know that most people change their careers several times over the course of their lifetime? Recruiter and job search expert, Kimberly Bishop, talks about high-growth career fields, and how to get started, and how to gain the right experience.

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Personal Finance

Wednesday, October 13, 2010