Guardian Mortgage moved up the ranks of local lenders this year according to the Dallas Business Journal!

DBJ (http://www.bizjournals.com/dallas/) publishes their "Top 25" lists for a wide range of business categories every year and a snippet of the 2012 list is included below.

Last year Guardian was #10 and this year we're #8!

See the Entire List of DBJ’s 2012 Largest North Texas Residential Mortgage Lenders

Read More: https://app.e2ma.net/app/view:CampaignPublic/id:1360940.7775729062/rid:a9e58ead034207120e0c408dae501a2b

The following link is a nice flow-chart with active links to 23 federal laws that pay a part in a residential transaction from the National Association of REALTORS®.

http://realtormag.realtor.org/law-and-ethics/feature/article/2012/02/23-federal-laws-apply-real-estate-sales?cid=WR02212012:42785&ed_rid=2309352

There are many ways to illustrate a region’s success in attracting and retaining corporate citizens.

For Dallas-Fort Worth, the best way to paint that picture is through the onslaught of recent accolades: best cities to live and do business in, best region for new college grads, fourth-largest metro and a leading job creator in the country.

Read More: http://www.bizjournals.com/houston/print-edition/2011/10/28/d-fw-tested-and-proven.html?page=all

Texas homes continued to hold their value as sales jumped up in the third quarter of 2011.

For the period of July through September 2011, the volume of single-family home sales in Texas was 58,019, nearly 18% more than the same quarter in 2010. Real estate prices remained flat in the third quarter with the median price statically unchanged from Q3-2010 at $151,800 and the average price down less than one percent to $197,833, according to the latest Texas Quarterly Housing Report issued by the Texas Association of REALTORS®.

Read More: http://www.texasrealestate.com/web/2/25/

Remember the federal tax credit programs offering $7,500 and, later, $8,000 to first-time home buyers? The credits were designed to deliver a jolt to the reeling housing industry. And they did: More than 4 million people applied for and have received nearly $30 billion worth of credits.

Most of them, according to the Internal Revenue Service, went to people who legitimately qualified for the credits. But a series of audits has documented foul-ups by the IRS, ranging from credits granted to prison inmates and dead people, fraud schemes involving claimants who never bought a house and even credits for purported home purchases by teenagers and kids as young as 3 years old.

Read More: http://www.washingtonpost.com/realestate/audit-finds-that-dead-people-were-among-beneficiaries-of-homebuyer-tax-credit/2011/10/31/gIQAF9BFmM_story.html

Freddie Mac vendors sold fewer REO properties in the third quarter than they did earlier in the year as nonperforming loans continue to climb.

More than 25,300 repossessed homes held by Freddie Mac sold in the third quarter, down 13.5% from the nearly 30,000 in the previous three months. It was also a 17% decline from the record-setting 31,600 sold in the first quarter.

Read more: http://tinyurl.com/3dukdc4

Mortgage rates sagged this week as ongoing concerns about the European debt crisis had investors fleeing to the relative safety of mortgage-backed securities that fund most U.S. home loans.

Rates on 30-year fixed-rate mortgages averaged 4 percent

Read More:  http://tinyurl.com/6en79y3

After falling to a 13-year low during the second quarter, the homeownership rate posted a highly unexpected rise in the third quarter, according to a Census Bureau report

Read More: http://tinyurl.com/3txfhr4

If you've been on the fence about homeownership, now is the time to take a leap! Don't let the negative press deter you from one of life's greatest joys.

Take a look at five short and sweet reasons that homeownership is great!

1. Equity. When you pay rent, you never see that money again. It is lining the landlord's pocket.

Read More:  http://tinyurl.com/3mk279w