You Are the Message; Package Your Personal Brand

Image consultant Gloria Starr said “In every business and personal life situation, appearance counts! Packaging is all about appearance. Will someone like you, trust you, buy from you, hire you, date you or ask to marry you?

Your brand at a glance: The way you package yourself is not a mask to disguise yourself. It is exactly the opposite. Your personal packaging is a way to communicate the substance, the integrity and likeability of you as an individual.

“People are influenced consciously and unconsciously by your appearance, your physical attributes, your accessories, your speaking pattern and grammar and your gestures. You will be evaluated on your business card, your resume, the car you drive, the pen you write with, the clothing you wear, your voice and your posture.

“Polish, poise, posture, presence and positioning all add up to a fabulous presentation of yourself. Always showcase yourself in the best possible way – your personal and professional most appealing and authentic self.

“Learn to stand out in the crowd. Select garments that suggest power. Clean lines, solid colors and accessories that spell success. Build a core wardrobe around two or three basic colors and add accents in a blouse or shirt and your accessories. Cloak yourself in the garments that spell leader.

“Excellent posture adds presence, makes you look thinner and adds to the look of confidence and leadership. Head to toe, your package should express your talents and ability, your winning attributes and charisma.”

http://www.gloriastarr.com

What We’re Hearing Daily

By Paul Muolo
The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. had promised to announce a winning bidder on IndyMac FSB by year-end, which means the agency has slightly more than a week left to cut a final deal. Will it be able to wrap up negotiations by New Year’s Eve? The rumor mill is running overtime in regard to what exactly is going on regard to IndyMac’s resolution. The FDIC is offering little in the way of guidance to the press. At stake is a residential servicing portfolio of $180 billion which is the ninth largest in the nation

MTG Benchmark – 12/17

FNMA – 30 Year 4.5% Sale 102.12 19bp

Reaction to yesterday’s huge gains in Mortgage Backed Securities has been underwhelming this morning. It could be that today represents a reversal of sorts on the gains that have been made by floating to this point.

I am in a locking bias today – watch for my next post on the outcome.

Trying out two really cool services – Ping.fm and Pastebug. Ping.fm allows for posts to multiple services and Pastebug allows copy/paste on iPhone

What We’re Hearing Daily

By Paul Muolo

It’s official: we’re in a recession! (Twelve months and running, apparently.) Historically, recessions usually spell good news for mortgage bankers because the Federal Reserve (in an attempt to work the nation out of the economic morass) usually cuts short-term rates drastically, which is what we saw earlier in the decade under Alan “The Maestro” Greenspan. But short term rates are already at 1% and the mortgage and housing markets (as we all painfully know) are hardly booming. The question on everyone’s mind is this: when will home values stop falling? The key to answering that question is the unemployment rate, not interest rates. This Friday the new monthly employment figures come out, and based on the headlines of the past four weeks don’t be surprised to see the figure north of 7%. As for interest rates, look for the Fed to cut another 50 basis points off the overnight borrowing rate at its next FOMC meeting…

NAR: New Fed plan will drive down interest rates and help stabilize housing

WASHINGTON – Nov. 26, 2008 – Calling it great news for homebuyers, home sellers and the U.S. economy, the National Association of Realtors® (NAR) praised a plan announced yesterday by the Federal Reserve. Under the plan, the Fed will purchase housing-related debts of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, thus freeing up mortgage money on Main Street. The move is one of four points advocated by NAR in a recent Call-to-Action.

“This is one of the key actions we’ve been advocating ever since the Treasury altered its course on how it would use the $700 billion recovery package passed in September,” says NAR President Charles McMillan. “This is great news for homebuyers and sellers, and we applaud the Fed for taking this historic step. Housing recovery is the key to economic recovery in this country and it always has been.”

In a four-point plan submitted to Congress last month, NAR called for the Treasury Department to purchase mortgage-backed securities (MBS) from banks to provide price stabilization for housing. The Fed yesterday said it would purchase mortgage-backed securities from Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and Ginnie Mae for up to $500 billion.

“This will be critical to a housing recovery,” McMillan says.

Lawrence Yun, NAR chief economist, agrees that purchasing the debt obligations of Fannie and Freddie is an important move.

“We commend the Fed decision because it will directly bring down long-term interest rates,” Yun says. “The level of investment should be aggressive enough to bring interest rates down in a meaningful manner. As we’ve seen in past recessions, home sales rise when mortgage interest rates fall.” Yun says that interest rates on 30-year fixed-rate mortgages are too high given the present state of the mortgage market.

“If Fed action brings down mortgage interest rates by even 1 percentage point, it would increase homes sales by 500,000 units,” Yun says. “That should help to draw inventory down and stabilize prices.” Yun says that the U.S. needs higher home sales to absorb inventory and stabilize prices. “Only with stabilization in home prices can we have a healthy housing and economic recovery.”

In its announcement, the Fed said it would purchase up to $100 billion of Fannie, Freddie and Ginnie debt from primary dealers through a series of competitive auctions that will begin next week. Selected asset managers will conduct purchases of up to $500 billion in MBS before year-end. Both the direct obligations and MBS purchases are expected to take place over several quarters.

© 2008 FLORIDA ASSOCIATION OF REALTORS®

Real Estate Market Focus

Emotional Factors Key in Homebuying, Study Finds

By Bradley Finkelstein

PARSIPPANY, NJ – A survey conducted for Coldwell Banker Real Estate LLC found that more than three out of every four persons surveyed said the quality of a home is more important than the square footage.

The survey was driven by the results of a less formal online quiz, which piqued the company’s curiosity as to what are the emotional factors in a home buying decision.

Almost 60% of the respondents said “the feel” of a home was just as important as the price.

First impressions count; the survey found that 12% believed the home was “the one” even before stepping inside. That went up to 51% after the first visit.

Football weekend

What a beautiful weekend! Quite a privilege to get to attend two games in one weekend. Gators played inspired ball in spite of the competition – let’s hope that the Jaguars can do similar.

How Disney Used To Do It (PIC)

What made Disney movies so magic? Perhaps it was how Walt organized the flow of creativity. This chart, “The Ropes At Disney
’s” explains the whole process. You’ll note that it all starts with “Walt”. And his main focus was “Story” and “Direction”.

read more | digg story

How to Handle Being Carded at Checkout with your Credit Cards?

How to Handle Being Carded at Checkout with your Credit Cards?

 

Have you ever been at the grocery store or at the mall when a retailer asks you for your identification? I know this has happened to me hundredes of times in my life. Practically any time I go into a retailer store I am asked.

 

Did you know that Mastercard, Visa, and Discover forbid retailers from requiring an additional form of identification with a signed creditcard? And that American Express strongly discourages the practice? Well, neither did I until I read a recent snippet on privacy in my June issue of Money Magazine.

 

I did not quite trust the article, so I checked out the Mastercard and Visa merchant manuals to verify (text below) and no doubt — it is right there in plain English. To be clear, merchants can ask to see your identification, but with your refusal to provide it, they cannot prevent you from completing the purchase as long as you have a signed valid card. It is within your rights refuse to provide your driverslicense or other identification. Of course, unless this information is required to complete your purchase — say you are shipping an item.

 

Why is this important? Credit card fraud is the biggest reason. If a merchant is able to obtain your credit card number, expiration date, security code (CID), and the address and zip code information — that is more than enough to commit several types of identify theft and / or credit card fraud. By not providing your information on the drivers license, you prevent those critical pieces of information required to commit fraud from getting into the hands of the criminals.

 

You may think, wait a second — how quickly can they remember all of that information, and in many cases — you are right. It is somewhat difficult while you are standing there to capture all of your details. However, all the questionable individual needs to do is remember that 5-digit zip code from your ID. With your credit card swipe – they have everything else they need as most vendors verify the Credit Card number, the expiration date, the CID, and the billing zip code with purchases. 

 

So, the moral of the story is to be careful of who you give your drivers license to and think twice the next time a merchant asks for identification! While there are two schools of thought here, to me it is clear that the overall damage that someone can do with with the complete information is much higher and time consuming that dealing with the loss or charges on one credit card.

 

How serious of a problem is this? Serious enough to the credit cardcompanies that they have setup phone hotlines and in some cases even online forms! For Mastercard you can either call 800-MC-ASSIST or go online here. For Visa, call 800-VISA-911. And finally, for Discover Cards call 800-Discover. In many cases they will either convince the merchants to accept your card without identification or write up the vendor for an agreement violation.

 

From the Mastercard merchant manual on page 48:

 

 

9.11.2 Cardholder Identification A merchant must not refuse to complete a

MasterCard card transaction solely because a cardholder who has complied with the conditions for presentment of a card at the POI refuses to provide additional identification information, except as specifically permitted or required by the Standards. A merchant may require additional identification from the cardholder if the information is required to complete the transaction, such as for shipping purposes. A merchant in a country or region that supports use of the MasterCard Address Verification Service (AVS) may require the cardholder’s ZIP or postal code to complete a cardholder-activated terminal (CAT) transaction, or the cardholder’s address and ZIP or postal code to complete a mail order, phone order, or e-commerce transaction.

 

And from the Rules for Visa Merchants, Page 29.

 

 

Requesting Cardholder ID:

When should you ask a cardholder for an official government ID? Although Visa rules do not preclude merchants from asking for cardholder ID, merchants cannot make an ID a condition of acceptance. Therefore, merchants cannot refuse to complete a purchase transaction because a cardholder refuses to provide ID. Visa believes merchants should not ask for ID as part of their regular card acceptance procedures. Laws in several states also make it illegal for merchants to write a cardholder’s personal information, such as an address or phone number, on a sales receipt.

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