Time to Clean Yourself Up for the Future!

No more risky real estate loans:

Countrywide Financial Corp., the nation's largest mortgage lender, said it lost $1.2 billion over the summer, as the amount of money it set aside to cover losses from loans gone bad skyrocketed. Angelo Mozilo, the chairman and chief executive of Countrywide, said the changes in the mortgage market over the summer were "unprecedented," and the company is eliminating nearly all but the safest loans from its product menu. It is also in the midst of cutting 12,000 jobs.

For potential mortgage borrowers, the comments paint a sobering picture of the difficulty in getting a new home loan in the coming months. "If your credit scores are low, your access to mortgage money has all but vanished," said Dan Green, a certified mortgage planning specialist and author of TheMortgageReports.com.

Footnote: "This week the local paper published figures for the Bradenton/Sarasota Florida market where we live: The median home sales price has declined by $109,000 since October of 2006, just one year ago."

A young, 20-something financial associate originally from California and now living in Florida said to me 1 1/2 years ago: "Real estate never declines in value." I said: "Let me tell you about Texas 1984-1985, young man." Now I've seen it twice in my 55 year lifetime.

It's time to clean up your financial house if you have too much debt of any kind.