There’s a couple of things I want to talk about today. First, which I was surprised to hear, in church on Sunday one of our regular standing prayer petitions was about the mortgage crisis. We were asked to pray for all the people involved. I guess what surprised me was the fact that this has been so far reaching. I remember last year hearing that the financial markets overseas, in particular the Nikkei, had fallen as a result of what was going on over here. I think that was the first indication to me, after working in Sub-prime for 18 years, how far reaching this thing is. Being a very grounded Catholic it blows me away that this may start infiltrating America’s pulpits. That should tell us how big this thing is.

The other thing that blew me away was something that Robert Ashby talked about in his post this morning. That Bear Stearns was sold for $2 a share or $236 million to JP Morgan. Last week they were worth over $3 billion or about $35 a share and $160 a share just a year ago!

Some analysts are concerned about how JP Morgan could have done it’s due diligence in 3 days. And whether or not the shareholders, of which apparently 1/3 are employees, will go for the deal. Some think they may have gotten more had Bear decided on bankruptcy.

The other thing analysts want to know is what is going to be the bottom line of the total mortgage mess. Right now we’re at $200 billion and some analysts say we’re probably at rock bottom now. Still others say it’s going to go to $400 billion and others say $600 billion before it’s all over. But what’s clear is that we’ll need 2-3 more quarters of earnings results before it’s determined what the total bottom line losses will be.

I’m too young to remember the details of the savings and loan crises but this is got to be getting close. I’ve mentioned in previous posts that close to 100,000 have lost their jobs as a result of this not to mention the people who are going to lose their homes or give them back (which I wrote about last week.)

As I’ve said before, the one’s who are in it for the long haul are the one’s who will survive. We have a tremendous opportunity right now to help as many people as possible either buy and finance a home (buyer’s market) or refinance existing mortgages to get them out of their current problem loan. Let’s make sure, regardless of what the media is saying, that we focus on the opportunities. There are some great opportunities for marketing here. We could do seminars for homeowners explaining what we as experts see their options as, or seminars for Realtors to show them how we’re positioned for success and where we see the opportunities.

Finally, I wanted to let everyone know about a couple of new products I have on the horizon. One is going to be a free download PDF of a tele-seminar I did a couple of weeks ago with Steve Beecham of Hometown Mortgage in Alpharetta, GA. Steve has consistently been in the top 5 of producing mortgage brokers in the state for several years, and continues to do so in this market. He shares some of his secrets on the call which will be transcribed into the PDF. Look for that in a couple of weeks.

The other product I’ve just released is a DVD titled “Secrets of Sales Power” can be found on the right side of this page and the big news is a 90 Day coaching program that I’ll be launching in a few weeks. I’ll keep you posted as we get closer.

There certainly is a lot to be concerned about and a lot to pray for. Let’s go forward with the optimism and hope that we can serve our areas and be beacons of light for this great business.