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Welcome to LIBORATED
By Paul Wylie, Founder, LIBORATED.COMTM
January 27, 2009
Welcome to LIBORATED, the Web site dedicated to what many have called the world’s most important financial gauge: the LIBOR, aka the London Interbank Offered Rate. As the founder of a top 1% nationwide mortgage company, a real estate owner and an investor, I agree with that assessment. LIBOR is the most widely used benchmark in an increasingly complex and interdependent global market. Over $300 trillion in worldwide loans, bonds, and other financial instruments are pegged to LIBOR figures. The proactive investor, the informed borrower, the wise businessperson, and the committed wealth builder all stand to benefit by watching and understanding LIBOR.
Within the LIBORATED Web site, you will find resources and data regarding LIBOR—its origins, significance, and applications. Access to information always comes before access to capital; in short, learn all you can before you borrow or invest. I have insisted on the learning component for my clients and myself when starting any transaction or endeavor. Much of today’s mortgage meltdown and financial crisis is blamed on a lack of upfront information, whether it’s a homebuyer who didn’t understand the characteristics of an adjustable rate loan or an institutional investor who didn’t grasp the components of a mortgage-backed security. When consumers and professionals create an environment of education and disclosure, options become clearer, risk is better perceived, and outcomes trend more favorably. This environment facilitates financial liberation, and with us more specifically focused on the LIBOR, creates a condition of being LIBORATED.
LIBORATED is designed to be part of your learning curve, whether you’re buying a primary residence, seeking investment properties, expanding your enterprise with a business loan, or furthering your education with a student loan. LIBOR-based loans can be an ideal means of leverage, risk management, and controlling cash flow. Remember that LIBOR-based loans are adjustable or hybrids that are fixed for a period of time and then adjust. Payments can vary. Within certain timeframes and market conditions, such adjustable rates can be advantageous, especially when it comes to conserving monthly cash flow. There are tradeoffs for these benefits, namely rates that can climb when the LIBOR index climbs, typically the result of an unsteady market where banks are charging higher interest for loans to each other. We have a questionnaire within the LIBOR site to help you determine if you are a good candidate for a LIBOR-based loan strategy. If you find that you’re not, by all means choose the type of loan that suits your lifestyle, financial obligations, and debt philosophy. However, if a LIBOR-based loan makes sense to you, you are doing yourself a disservice by not exploring the possibilities.
LIBORATED is not here to convince you of anything or sell you anything (although, feel free to investigate the offerings of our distinguished advertisers and our commerce partner, Amazon.com). The site is no substitute for the counsel and expertise of a loan officer, real estate agent, financial planner, or attorney. We are an information source, a data aggregator, an eye-opener. We are one destination along the way to an important decision that requires an important amount of money. We are LIBORATED.com, the Web site dedicated to LIBOR, the world’s most important financial gauge. Find out why that number is important to you.
Paul Wylie is a mortgage and real estate industry entrepreneur, consultant, and author with more than 25 years of experience. Paul founded Metrocities Mortgage in 1989, a “top 50” lender that grew from six employees and $125 million in annual loan production to 1400 employees and over $10 billion in loan production across the country by 2005.