Victor Montalvo Bilingual Realtor Sí, hablo español

SAVE THE DATE!!!!!

2009 NAHREP AUSTIN BOARD INSTALLATION

And Christmas Gala!

Ron Urias - 2009 NAHREP AUSTIN PRESIDENT

Date: DECEMBER 2, 2008

"Home is Where the Heart is"

"El Hogar es donde esta el Corazon"

Our Gala this year will benefit St. Vincent de Paul Society.

Start collecting clothes, non-perishable food, toys, toiletries, etc..

Bring to Gala! $$$ accepted too!

We'll have live dancing music by Frank Gomez!

Tickets: $40.00 each

For more information contact:

Installation Chair, Gracie Ruiz: gruiz@independencetitle.com or 512-293-3709 or 512-279-1986

or

President Elect, Ron Urias: rurias@farmersagent.com or 512-448-0844.

The American Nightmare is a new book written by veteran housing counselors Sylvia Alvarez and Walter Walker Jr. that offers distressed homeowners tips and strategies to prevent, survive and overcome foreclosure.

The purpose of the book is to inform homeowners about their options, show them what actions to take and the possible ways they can avoid foreclosure simply by understanding the process.

The book, which is sponsored by the National Association of Hispanic Real Estate Professionals and Freddie Mac, will be distributed at nonprofit counseling events and is available for purchase for $14.95 at www.NAHREP.org.

Researchers estimate that as many as HALF of all borrowers who go into foreclosure never took action soon enough. We're only half way through this crisis. Homeowners must learn what their options are and take advantage of the resources available to them.

Homeowners that are behind on their mortgage payments should consult a HUD certified housing counselor immediately to get advice. Don't procrastinate!

Background Facts

Latinos are expected to lose between $76 billion and $98 billion in personal wealth during the foreclosure crisis (United for a Fair Economy)

About one in 12 mortgages made to Latinos in 2005 and 2006 will end up in foreclosure. (Center for Responsible Lending)

Nationally 3.3 million mortgages may default in 2007, 2008 and more than 2 million homeowners may lose their home (Moody's Economy)

Latinos fail to seek help with foreclosure due to denial, fear, shame, language barriers and lack of information (Neighborworks America)

CONSUMER TIPS

Options If You Are In Default

•1. Contact the Lender/Servicer first and make a good faith effort to resolve the problem.

•2. Before you call the lender, go over your current bills and tally up your income.

•3. Prioritize what needs to be paid, and when.

•4. Eliminate any excess, and reduce your expenses so that you are in a position to show the Lender/Servicer you have taken stock of your situation and are making a good faith effort to reduce spending.

•5. Be ready to share a plan with your lender on how you plan to make good on your promise to repay.

Don't Become a Victim of Predators!

Beware of schemes that promise to save you from foreclosure. Your mortgage default is public record. Predators have devised creative schemes to get bulk cash out of distressed homeowners!

•1. Never sign documents without fully comprehending what is contained in them.

•2. Avoid any offer to sell your home with an option to buy it back. Selling your home means giving up your rights as a homeowner.

•3. Beware of advertised offers to save your home from foreclosure or personal solicitations that promise to help you avoid it.

•4. Never ever send an application or processing fee to a lender or servicer that advertises "Bad credit, no credit, no problem" and directs you to a toll free number or a call for help.

•5. Don't do business with firms soliciting loans via door-to-door sales or even mass mailings.

Obama, McCain both courting minority group.

Long regarded as the slumbering giant in American politics - a commentary on their underachievement and their potential as an electoral force - Latinos are now finding themselves the focus of intense interest in the presidential campaigns.

Never before have presidential candidates paid Latino voters so much attention, said Luis Fraga, a political scientist at the University of Washington and an expert on Hispanic outreach in presidential elections beginning with John F. Kennedy in 1960.

Despite being the country's biggest and fastest-growing minority group, being 15 percent of the U.S. population, Latinos make up just 9 percent of eligible voters, according to the Pew Hispanic Center.

But their concentration and growth in a handful of hotly contested states - Florida, Nevada, Colorado and New Mexico among them - lead some analysts to think their votes could tip the election one way or the other. Those four states alone count for 46 of the 270 electoral votes needed to elect a president.

"Make no mistake about it: The Latino community holds this election in its hands," Sen. Barack Obama, the Democratic presidential nominee, told the National Council of La Raza, a Hispanic civil rights organization, at its national convention this summer.

Ironically, those hands are not in Texas, even though its Hispanic population - an estimated 8.4 million - is the second largest in the nation. Because most analysts say Texas is safely in the Republican column, neither Obama nor Sen. John McCain, the Republican presidential nominee, is targeting that vote here.

Elsewhere, the Obama campaign is spending $20 million to court Latino voters, an amount it says is unprecedented in presidential campaigns. Fraga said he thinks that for the first time since 2000, Democrats might outspend Republicans on Latino outreach. Beyond the requisite advertising blitz, the Obama campaign is registering voters in heavily Latino neighborhoods, a task usually undertaken by nonprofit and volunteer groups.

McCain's campaign declined to disclose how much it is spending, but, like Obama's, it is making explicit appeals to Latinos, targeting them in bilingual TV and radio spots, hoping to at least come close to the inroads President Bush made with Hispanic voters in 2004. Bush garnered 40 percent of Latino votes then, nearly doubling Sen. Bob Dole's numbers eight years earlier.

The Obama campaign is widely hailed for using the Internet to overcome Sen. Hillary Clinton's advantages in name recognition and money. But he and McCain deftly employ the Web to mobilize Latino support and donations. Their campaign Web sites extol the contributions of Latino Americans, using skillfully crafted videos and outlining stances on issues. Each campaign has separate Spanish-language Web sites that can be reached directly from the English-language sites.

The "issues" tab on McCain's site does not list immigration. It does, however, list border security. Some analysts say that reflects one of the challenges facing the Arizona senator: He must appeal to Latino voters on immigration without alienating Republican voters opposed to giving illegal immigrants opportunities to legalize their status, which both McCain and Obama favor.

Both campaigns said they will focus appearances and advertising in the battleground states where Latinos make up heavy shares of the electorates. Though Texas is not considered in play, several Texans play prominent roles in the Obama campaign and its Latino outreach, including former San Antonio Mayor and U.S. Housing Secretary Henry Cisneros, U.S. Rep. Charlie Gonzalez, D-San Antonio, and Federico Peña, a UT School of Law grad who headed the Transportation and Energy departments during the Clinton presidency.

By the state

Colorado, Florida, Nevada and New Mexico went to President Bush in 2004. But the combined margin of victory was little more than half a million votes, and Latino electorates there have continued to grow.

Fraga and other analysts say New Mexico is the red state with the most potential for Democrats to retake. Hispanics make up 38 percent of eligible voters in New Mexico, which cast its electoral votes for Al Gore in 2000 and Bush in 2004 by razor-thin margins - less than 6,000 popular votes in 2004. Bill Richardson, the Latino Democratic governor who sought the presidency this year, was re-elected in 2006, and virtually every state leader is Hispanic.

Colorado and Nevada are also considered highly competitive; a recent poll showed a toss-up in Nevada, with Obama enjoying a strong lead among Latino voters. And there are signs that Democrats could be overtaking the GOP in Colorado. A Democrat won the governorship by a lopsided margin in 2006, and Democrats now control both chambers of the state Legislature. Like Nevada, Colorado has reported significant increases in registrations of Latino voters since 2005.

But perhaps the biggest potential for an Election Day surprise lies in Florida, where the Latino population has been heavily Cuban and Republican for years. Fraga said growing Latino diversity and more second-generation Cubans - who vote Republican less consistently than their parents - combine to give Democrats a fighting chance there.

Winning Florida could be a must for both candidates, particularly McCain.

"There is no successful Republican election strategy that does not include Florida," Fraga said.

Since the 1980s - with the exception of Bush wins in 2000 and 2004 - Republican presidential candidates have won about 20 to 25 percent of Hispanic votes nationwide. If McCain can increase that by just 10 percent in battleground states, as well as raise support among moderate white voters and other key constituencies, he greatly increases his chances of winning, said Fraga, who also heads the Diversity Research Institute at the University of Washington.

"The Latino vote can be critical, sometimes for a Democrat, sometimes for a Republican," he said. "Everybody seems to have gotten that now."

Common themes

The quest for the Latino vote evokes expectations, at least from the pundits' perspective, that candidates can tap into a singular, likeminded force. But the nation's 47 million Hispanics - plus another 4 million in Puerto Rico - comprise a disparate assortment of nationalities, class, politics, gender, income, educational achievement, language, family history and other delineations, not unlike the country as a whole.

While acknowledging that the nation's largest minority is a study in diversity, Hessy Fernandez, McCain's spokeswoman for Hispanic issues, seemed to downplay any challenges that might present.

"Latino issues are American issues," Fernandez said.

That could be the title of the playbook for both campaigns. Though McCain and Obama differ on the issues, both campaigns are filtering their messages through what they see as universal, core values that Latinos share with all Americans. Each also emphasizes issues they say strike a chord with all Hispanics.

Pocketbook issues top the list, said Cuauhtemoc Figueroa, who heads Obama's Latino outreach.

When the economy is down, who suffers the most? It's our community," Figueroa said, adding that the home mortgage crisis, affordable health care, education, the Iraq war and immigration also resonate with Hispanic voters. And although McCain advocates a long-term commitment in Iraq, Latino voters want to know how Obama will end the war, he said.

Fernandez cited a similar list - the war, the economy, education, national security and immigration - issues she says McCain emphasizes in his appeals to all voters.

Fernandez said McCain enjoys an advantage with Hispanic voters as the longtime senator of a border state who received 70 percent of the Latino vote in his 2004 re-election bid. McCain understands the relationships many Latinos have with their countries of origin and has traveled several times to Latin America, she said, while Obama has not.

"McCain knows who Latinos are," Fernandez said. "He understands our principles and our values, that we come to this country to achieve the American dream."

Figueroa acknowledged that many Latinos still don't know Obama and that the campaign's initial focus in battleground states is to introduce the Illinois senator and his bio.

"As the community gets to know Obama, they like him," Figueroa said.

Polling indicates Latinos are indeed warming up to Obama. A nationwide Pew Hispanic Center poll taken in July gave Obama a 66 percent approval rating among registered Latino voters, overwhelming McCain's 23 percent. That marks a sharp turnaround for the Democrat, who lost the Hispanic vote to Sen. Hillary Clinton by almost 2 to 1 in the Democratic primaries. Another recent Pew survey found that more than 75 percent of Latinos who reported voting for Clinton were inclined to vote for Obama, with 8 percent leaning toward McCain.

According to Pew, about 57 percent of Hispanic registered voters call themselves Democrats or say they lean to the Democratic Party; 23 percent align with the GOP. ButFernandez said the McCain campaign is conceding nothing in its pursuit of Latino votes.

Per: Juan Castillo AMERICAN-STATESMAN STAFF