Today Is The Day

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Today is The Day

“Marriage is a life journey. It is good to travel together with the person you love.”

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On August 8th, 1967—two young people got married. They were both 20 years young. 47 years later, they are not only together, but are still deeply in love with one another. Their life together was never an easy affair—with two emigrations alongside an entourage of two children, and a mother. Finally after leaving every material possession behind, they eventually settled in San Francisco.

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Following years of studying, fulfilling their educational dreams and making a living doing menial work, both of them started a mortgage company. Now 29 years later, their company Pacific Bay Financial Corporation, is still in business employing many of the same people who have been with the company for over 20 years. Those were not easy years and the mortgage business had and still has many challenges.

But as the saying goes, “What will not kill us, will make us stronger.”

In case you haven’t guessed it, I am writing about my beautiful wife Elfa, and your humble servant (Yes, throughout the years I’ve learned how to be more humble.)

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Last year, I started writing a book, “Marriage Solutions For Smart People”, but I decided to stop my project. I realized that our personal experience is very difficult to export and to teach. Nevertheless, if I could pinpoint one quality in a successful relationship (not only in marriage), it is to CARE, and yes, of course to LOVE.

However, these two don’t always go together.

Life is all about sharing. Despite our biological, physical, genetic, geographical, religious, educational, spiritual, even political differences, we can be attractive to one another, but only to an extent. If you start a relationship with the common objective to create and build a family and to LEARN how to do it (How many years did it take you to learn how to do whatever you do to make a living?), many years later you might still be together while enjoying the results of your life’s journey.

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Since my prescriptions don’t always work, I will finish with a story about a couple who were celebrating their 50th wedding anniversary. A lot of friends and relatives gathered together for this remarkable event. One of the guests—a family attorney noticed that the husband was sitting alone not looking happy.

“What is wrong?” the attorney asked the husband.

“Do you remember 25 years ago, I told you that I wanted to kill my wife, and you told me that I will get 25 years for murder?”, the husband asked. “Well, today I would be a free man!”

P.S.

For our 47th anniversary, we celebrated in Carmel-by-the-Sea. We’ve been here many times, and it is always enjoyable to come back, stroll the streets, visit stores and galleries, and just relax together and smell the roses—which I photograph all the time.

Please enjoy some of my images. You can see more of my flowers in our office, and of course on Twitter and Facebook. You can find more stories about our personal life in my book, “The Mortgage Game: The 5 C’s and How to Connect Them”.

Manny & Elfa ~

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Cheers,

Manny<br /><br /> Signature

Mortgage Solutions For You!

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Less Than 7 Years After a Foreclosure

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Clients found a home with four bedrooms in the area close to good schools. They wanted to make an offer, but we were facing a number of obstacles.
  1. They had a foreclosure less than 7 years ago.
  2. They bought their current home less than 2 years ago and were planning to keep it until October, to avoid paying any taxes.
  3. Their current home, which has three bedrooms, was financed with an FHA loan.
  4. General Rule: Borrowers need to pay off their FHA loan BEFORE getting a new one.
  5. The client started a new job.
  6. The wife is 6 months pregnant.
  7. Most of the down payment is a gift from parents.
  8. They needed to be able to qualify for two mortgages with two mortgage insurances.
  9. The real estate agent is acting as both buyers’ and sellers’ agent.
  10. There are two other offers and the real estate agent never worked with our company and recommended her clients use her mortgage lender.
  11. The credit report did not show the foreclosure, but the lender found out about it from other sources.
  12. After we found a lender who could do this complex transaction, the clients applied for a loan with another lender who “promised a better deal”.
  13. They did the same thing to us two years ago.
  14. When they found out that their lender could not deliver, they came back to us.
  15. The real estate agent needed to secure an extension for the contract.
  16. We told the real estate agent that we had never lost a sales transaction over our entire 30-year long career. We knew we would pull this one through as well.

Whom Do You Know That Might Benefit From Our Tailored Mortgage Solutions?

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Spotlight

Date: Thursday: August 7, 2014  
Address: 33 Arroyo Drive, South San Francisco, CA 94080  Time: 6:30pm to 8:30pm 
RSVP on  Meetup.com  OR  Facebook  OR email  [email protected]

Does The Past Repeat Itself?

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 DOES THE PAST REPEAT ITSELF?

“The only purpose to remember the past is to create a better future.”

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Recently a friend from Mongolia told me about the Mongolian National Festival, called Naadam, and has a celebration that takes place in Golden Gate Park in San Francisco. I was intrigued. Growing up in Riga, Latvia, Mongolia was commonly known as one of the countries with a very deep connection to the former Soviet socialist way of life. I have seen performances of the national dances in very colorful dresses and this time I wanted to photograph the festivities.

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Mongolia is a relatively small country of 2.9 million people. But in 1206, it was known as the Mongol Empire, which under the ruthless leadership of Genghis Khan, and then later by his grandson, dominated large parts of Asia and Europe. After the collapse of the Yuan Dynasty in 1368, the Empire crumbled. The Mongols returned to earlier patterns of internal strife. Today, one third of the population maintains its nomadic life, which was very well documented in the beautiful movies “The Story of the Weeping Camel”, “The Cave of the Yellow Dog”, and others.

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A few years ago, our daughter Alona went on a trip to the wilderness of Mongolia on horseback. It was a life changing experience.

Throughout the world history, many countries tried to create Empires by capturing other territories. The Assyrians, Babylonians, Greeks, Romans, Tatar-Mongolians, Spaniards, Portugese, and of course the British. The United States limited its role to the consolidation of the areas, which is what are now the 50 states. As we have seen during the world history, boundaries changed, as well as political and religious affiliations after many conflicts and wars. What we see happening now in Syria and Iraq, which was once part of the Great Babylonian Empire is a good example of how people who do not have common interests and have different religious interpretations can destroy a country and kill each other.

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We cannot forget the past, but can we learn from it? Karl Marx once remarked,

“History repeats itself, first as tragedy, second as farce”.

P.S.

The Naadam celebrations gave me the opportunity to photograph and connect with some of the participants. (Those of my generation spoke excellent Russian.) Though I did not stay to watch the traditional wrestlers, I tried to capture traditional costumes worn by women, men, and adorable children.

Do Not Keep Me As A Secret!
Smile And Please SHARE It With A Friend!

Cheers,

Manny Signature