My Views and Opinions

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) — Mortgage rates fell during the past week, pushed lower from the uncertainty stemming from the bank bailout plan unveiled Tuesday.

The average 30-year fixed mortgage rate fell to 5.34% from 5.70% for the week ended Feb. 11, according to Bankrate.com.

The average 15-year fixed rate mortgage sank to 5.03% from 5.31%, and the average jumbo 30-year fixed rate slipped to 6.98% from 7.12%.

Adjustable rate mortgages also dropped over the past week, with the average 1-year ARM falling to 5.67% from 5.73% and the 5/1 ARM sinking to 5.37% from 5.5%.

Mortgage rates edged off the six-week high set the week of Feb. 4, helped by investor skepticism of Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner’s plan to attack the financial meltdown. Jittery investors sold stocks and bought Treasurys, lowering the yields and pulling down mortgage rates, according to Greg McBride, senior financial analyst at Bankrate.com.

“We’re going to continue to see volatility in mortgage rates between 5% and 6%. There’s a tug of war between the Fed and the Treasury trying to push rates lower, and the volume of government debt issuances that pushes rates higher,” McBride said.

Bankrate.com’s national weekly mortgage survey is conducted each Wednesday from data provided by the top 10 banks and thrifts in the top 10 markets.

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) — The Obama administration is looking at subsidizing the mortgage payments of struggling borrowers before they default, according to sources familiar with the discussions.

If it comes to pass, the program would blaze a new trail in the federal government’s foreclosure prevention initiatives. Until now, the efforts have focused on helping those already behind in their payments through interest-rate reductions and other loan modifications. The Bush administration had not committed any money to helping borrowers.

Obama, however, has pledged to spend at least $50 billion to help borrowers in trouble. Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner said Tuesday that the administration would release its plan within a few weeks. He and Housing Secretary Shaun Donovan have been meeting with banks, housing advocates and trade organizations this week to listen to their foreclosure prevention proposals.

Details remain scarce, but at this point the subsidy plan entails having struggling homeowners take an affordability test and undergo a re-appraisal to see if they are eligible. The subsidy would allow servicers to adjust the loan terms without having the mortgage’s investors take a loss, which should make them more open to the loan modification. (more…)

RISMEDIA, February 13, 2009-In my work as a Law of Attraction business coach I meet with people every day who have dreams of creating success in their business. Sadly, most of them are saying the same thing, “I hate marketing, I just want to do what I’m good at without having to market myself. ” The truth about getting more clients is that it’s not that difficult, it just requires following some simple steps.

• FOCUS: How do you get to where you want to be unless you know where you are going? I always teach my clients a visualization technique in which they imagine where they want to be professionally in one year from today. How much money do you want to be earning? How many hours a week do you want to work? What kind of clients do you want to work with?

• STRATEGIES: Once you’re clear about where you want to be, you need to create strategies to get there. I tell people, “If you already knew what strategies to use, you’d probably already be there.” Strategies help you to chunk big visions into tangible, bite size action steps.

• ACCOUNTABILITY: How accountable are you to yourself? Most people I meet in business for themselves find it far too easy to slide in keeping their agreements with themselves. The magical thing about coaching is that when you have a witness to your accountability, you are much more likely to do what you said you’d do. Just knowing that someone cares and will ask you every week, “How did that action step go?” is huge incentive to staying on track.

• DISCOVERY: As a former psychologist, one of my passions is helping people discover how they block them themselves and get in their own way of success. What I find is that everyone needs to reprogram some self-limiting beliefs, like “I don’t have what it takes to succeed” or “I don’t deserve to have a lot of money”. Another block is that most people suffer from subconscious sabotaging strategies, like procrastination. These need to be reversed. Finally, everyone I’ve ever met has a monstrous, overly developed inner critic, which I call the Gremlin. In discovery you learn to identify the voice of you Gremlin and learn to tame it way down. (more…)