It’s your money, know where it’s going 

This week’s Save Thousands! with Robert Palmer show was all about being mindful of where your money’s going.

It’s a hot button issue I can’t ignore - big banks charging their customers to basically bank with them. This scheme is all about making big banks more profit.  It was once thought creating a mega bank would be beneficial, but instead of growing organically, bigger banks are just buying up smaller banks. This has created master banks with way too much power and overhead to take care of customers.

I’m a huge fan of community banks. My advice to people who are unhappy is to switch banks. There are smaller banks out there that will do right by consumers - you just need to call around and figure out which bank is best for you. Don’t always assume because a bank is claiming to not charge fees, that it is a scam. There are innovators out there, and they will save you thousands.

Moving on to mortgages, as of October 1 it is harder to get an FHA loan. Just a couple days ago you could get an FHA loan on a house up to $350,000 and only have to put 3.5% down. Now you can only take this loan out for houses up to $271,000. Here in Orlando alone that takes about 30% of people out of the housing market because they can’t afford the down payment.

The limit was set up a couple of years ago, and set to expire October 1, 2011. Congress unfortunately let the limit expire. The key to getting us out of this economic mess is housing and now there’s even less being done to help get more people into homes.

Recently, I saw a story that 20 South Floridians were indicted in a home equity loan fraud case. This particular situation involved the real estate agent, the appraiser, the mortgage brokers, the title agent and the banker. This news does not surprise me. There is so much money to be made in real estate schemes, but everyone has to be in on it for it to work.

This is just another reason why it is so important to shop around. When you trust someone to make decisions for you, for example you let your mortgage broker suggest an appraiser, you lose power. When you shop around and find the best deal for your situation, you will save thousands.

Tune in Sunday at 11 am on WDBO 580 AM or WHTQ 96.5 FM and learn how to Save Thousands! Our new FM signal means people as far north as Palm Coast, as far south as Vero Beach and as far west as Dade City and Ocala can now tune in and Save Thousands!