Patch Tuesday: Did you watch Oprah yesterday?

[somdrenter]

Originally Posted by StrawberryGal

Southern Maryland do not have that problem because we have military bases that will keep the jobs here for everyone who want to live in Southern Maryland. Patuxent River is the main job factory for St. Mary's County

Along with the number of jobs, you must also take into account income. When average home prices are at or over 4x average family income, something must come along and fill the void left behind by toxic mortgages and loose lending to keep prices propped up.

[smilin]

Originally Posted by StrawberryGal

Thanks for the transcript. Yesterday on Oprah's show, Susan told the audiences to pay off the credit cards balances off first before paying down the mortgage and/or equity loans. Credit Cards have higher interest rates and you will not see one cents back from them if your products you purchase get broken, trashed, or sold.

Also, credit cards is what make your credit scores. It tell the sellers of what kind of person you are. Are you on time with paying your bills or are you always late? Are you someone that we can trust to do our business with or not? Credit Scores are very important to have. You have to use your common sense and brain to make sure you don't screw up your credit cards bills or buying fancy "toys" and useless things.

Once you pay off your credit cards balance, you can work on paying off your vehicles payments, then your home mortgage to pay it off faster than if you pay the requirement payments. For example, if you throw in $20 or more with your requirement payments a month in the payment to apply toward to principle, you are reducing the years you have left to pay off the balance in full.

Suzy Orman is right on as far as keeping your credit score up there.
However, listen to some of the stuff Patchy is saying: buying a home is a continuing exercise in maintenance that you have to keep in mind.
Most, if not all mortgages include your Principle,Interest, Taxes,Insurance, this is called PITI or your mortgage payment. If you buy the home for cash - then you had be pretty good at putting away money for a rainy day to pay for these expense plus normal wear and tear.
The Mortgage meltdown we have today was caused by people deciding that mortgages were great investment vehicles. They told loan companies they would buy the mortgages and package them to investors who then sold them to other investors overseas. The loan people assumed the market would always go up and told the applicants they could get out of their artificial loan and still make money.
Well the market went down, and still is going down.
Interestingly enough, government backed mortgages have had little exposure because their requirements were higher. Today they are coming back as the way to go if you don't have a lot of money to put down on a home.