Gulf Coast Associates' Blog: Opinion

I almost fell out of my chair today when I got notification of this new policy by the credit reporting agencies. Seems the government's financial regulators have given their blessing to the "Big Three" credit reporting bureaus – Equifax, Experian and TransUnion to enact new guidelines that will allow mortgage lenders to report mortgage loan modifications as a negative credit line item on the borrowers' credit report. The agencies will designate the loan modifications to show as "partial payment status," which in turn can lower an individual's credit score by 50 points or more.

With thousands of folks seeking payment relief by doing a loan modification, such a move will surely push many of these borrowers into the poor risk category pool. Just exactly how…

Who says conservatives won't do anything about health care. Surely not Florida Republican Governor Charlie Crist. He succeeded in getting his new and innovative health insurance reform plan through the state legislature that even the Democrats are having a hard time finding anything to complain about. With the State of Florida having nearly 21% of its population being uninsured, the "Cover Florida" plan should help uninsured Floridians by offering a variety of affordable health care insurance coverage plans.

The reform allows insurance providers to sell no-frills policies exempted from the more than 50 mandates Florida currently imposes. Those mandates were put in place without any regard for how much they cost consumers. The big problem is that with…

Upon reaching this milestone here on REW blogs, I thought it would be good opportunity to point out the positives it has afforded me and my company by giving some kudos to everyone involved in making our first 100 posts here so successful.

Of course, I have to begin with Morgan and the folks at REW for providing this great platform. There is no doubt that it is a wonderful tool for helping all of its users to spread tons of great stuff about the real estate and mortgage industries, but it is also a wonderful place to learn about how best to use the blogosphere to disseminate helpful information to all of our clients.

Having never blogged before, I was a total novice when I began using our REW blog. By following the advice of both the REW team and the…

I can hardly put into words (at least not publicly) of how sick I am of some of the mortgage and real estate crowd who are taking the new government rate freeze plan as another opportunity to bash President Bush and the Investors who hold the paper on those loans. What a bunch of sad sacks they all are. Anyone with half a brain can see right through their so called criticisms and understand that all they are really doing is showing their true partisan agenda. And just what is that agenda? Simple, blame the Bush administration for everything that happens. How politically correct they all are. Then, just to show how progressively minded they are too, they bash the greedy investors, who are going to lose money no matter what happens as we move forward.

Now,…