With the constant change in our industry, economy, and culture I have to say I spend plenty of time on the web.  Pretty much every aspect of my job involves some need associated with the good ol’ WWW.  Much of my time is consumed by communicating via email, updating blogs (conradventi.com, blog.ventiscafe.com, and my family blog), and keeping up with friends, family, and business associates on social networks such as Facebook.  The new way of online communication, also known as Web 2.0, allows business or people like myself to communicate with clients in an interactive fashion.  Blogs are good examples of Web 2.0.

A good amount of my time is also consumed with research.  I spend time on lender and bank websites researching product guidelines as change is more prevalent than ever.  The constant flow of information on news websites also makes the WWW a primary resource for up to date stories.  Many recent headlines have been focused on the economy and Obama’s new administration.  After the approval of Obama’s new American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, I quickly turned to Google to help me find details of the new programs for home owners.

With the simple search of “American Recovery and Reinvestment Act” on Google I found several great resources.  A couple of the top links lead me to whitehouse.gov and recovery.gov.  I had stumbled upon whitehouse.gov in recent weeks and found it a fairly good resource for Obama’s new plans that I may have missed on the Nightly News on any given day.  As I spend a little more time reading about the new programs it didn’t take me long to thinking about the effectiveness of whitehouse.gov and some of the other new information websites for the recent programs.  I’m definitely not saying that I agree with everything that’s being pushed by Obama’s new administration, but I do think his web presence is absolutely amazing. 

I continued to think about Obama’s web presence when I was updating my blog with a new website makinghomeaffordable.gov.  As I thought about Obama’s new “social network”, if you will, Facebook came to my mind.  I remembered seeing plenty of advertisements on Facebook looking for support of his campaign for who knows how long.  So I quickly tabbed Firefox over to Facebook and searched for Barack Obama.  I was amazed to see that he has nearly 6 million supporters on Facebook.

Education is a primary goal of my business plan.  I love having the opportunity to provide my friends, family, and clients with information regarding home ownership and more.  As we continue to work through this economic downturn as a country I will do my best to provide helpful resources here at conradventi.com.  Although I don’t agree with all that’s being proposed by the new adminstration, I will continue to turn to whitehouse.gov for a reference for anything new coming in the works.

If you have a moment take a look at whitehouse.gov, you’re bound to have some questions about programs that have come up in recent weeks.

As I mentioned a few weeks ago, President Obama’s American Recovery and Reinvestment Act included a new program for struggling home owners.  The existing modification program for those who are delinquent is still available, but now there is a program geared towards those who have continued to be responsible with their mortgages, but simply don’t have the equity in their home to take advantage of today’s low interest rates.

The website financialstability.gov has been around since the signing of the new bill, but the Obama Administration has yet again expanded what I’m calling the “Government 2.0″ efforts with the new website makinghomeaffordable.gov.  This website allows home owners to check eligibility for the new program and offers a handful of other helpful tools.

Although the program will only help a select group of Americans with Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac loans the website will likely be a good resource for those who are struggling.

As with any real estate or mortgage related questions, I am here for you.  If you have any questions regarding any of these new programs or about your current financing scenario please don’t hesitate to contact me.