It’s official. There is now a generational group larger than the Boomers that is more powerful in terms of building brands and more technologically savvy than any other cohort group in marketing history. The group calls itself the Millennial Generation, “Millennials” for short, and it is now 80 million strong and counting.

Most of the Boomers involved in the business of planning and building homes and master planed communities haven’t given a lot of thought to this youngest generation of Americans, reasoning that they are too young to have much of an impact on the country’s buying patterns. In fact, they couldn’t be more wrong. More than half—about 40 million of the Millennials are now between 20 and 28 years of age, making decisions about where they live, where they work, and how they— as individuals in a powerful and connected community—are looking at making a mark in this recessionary era. We’ll be talking with Chuck Underwood, author and lecturer on the subject of American generations later this week, so stay tuned for his interview on The Real Story beginning Wednesday.

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The Real Story has been talking with real estate financing expert Thomas Murray Jr. about how home sales are affected by tight money, new appraisal system and stricter borrowing rules. The net effect, says Thomas, is that even after buyers find the home they want at a price they can afford, they are no longer safe in the knowledge that there is a loan out there for them.

We asked him about people working two jobs: how does that look on their loan applications? He says that as long as the job has had at least a two-year duration, and has every indication that it will continue, that the second income IS counted. The self-employed? Thomas thinks that the self-employed listen to too many rumors about being judged as credit risks. If someone who is self-employed is filing tax returns showing a profit, and can prove his or her financial viability for two years prior, then they pass that CIA test (credit, income, assets) that he talked about earlier in the week.

The things that still seem to surprise people are low credit scores. Thomas suggests that people utilize the government ruling that allows one free credit score check per year. Ask questions so you understand how credit agencies look at you, monitor it, and go to work on repairing your score if it is low—he recommends something as simple as keeping a lower balance on one’s credit cards as an effective way to be assessed as a better risk in this risk-averse market.

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What a world: At the same time that Wall Street and consumers are at their most skittish, the only group that seems impervious to the new spirit of risk-aversion is the FHA. In spite of record defaults, the FHA (Federal Housing Authority) continues to make home ownership possible for a lot of folks—including those you might be surprised to see buying homes today. Real estate finance expert Thomas Murray tells The Real Story that the FHA is still offering loans with only 3.5 percent down. To boot, it is making those loans to people with as many as nine co-borrowers (!), credit scores of 620 and bankruptcies as recent as a year ago. If the market can’t stabilize and the value of these newly purchased properties goes down, how likely are these buyers to stay in the homes?

On a better note, Thomas also shares with us today the news that the jumbo loan is returning to the California marketplace. Somewhat of an endangered species for the last year, banks are looking favorably at potential buyers with solid lending histories (prosaically called CIA buyers—for credit, income, assets). Jumbo loans are held on the bank’s books, so scrutiny is tight—but the money is there for those buyers.

Food, one of many common bonds between San Francisco and its Sister City Shanghai, is the topic of conversation tonight (5-9 p.m) at the Asian Art Museum’s Matcha!, a mixer of art, performance, music and conversation that allows visitors to experience the museum in engaging ways.

And what could be more engaging than Shanghai cuisine? Located on the agriculturally rich Yangtze Delta, Shanghai is a region known for its distinctive and assertive food culture. Tonight’s theme is Drunken Dish, featuring three traditional dishes marinated in wine: vegetarian goose with bean curd and rice wine, pickled cucumber in Huang Chiew wine, and the renowned “drunken chicken” with Shaoxing wine.

Demonstrating the preparation of these dishes will be Chef Nei Chia Ji of the Financial District’s popular restaurant Jai Yun and Martin Yan of Yan Can Cook.

Matcha! guests will enjoy small sample bites of these dishes, as well as a cash bar, art projects and DJ. Docent conversations and tours of the Shaghai exhibition (which closes next month) will be conducted.

Tickets are $10 and available at the door. It’s a tasty way to spend a Thursday, and best enjoyed with a jovial crowd.  So bring friends.

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The Real Story is talking to real estate finance expert Thomas Murray Jr. about another roadblock to making a home purchase in today’s market: the appraisal. Last spring, the federal government adopted the HVCC—Home Valuation Code of Conduct, to protect consumers from inflated appraisals and encourage independence in the appraisal community. According to Thomas, who sees hundreds of deals, this remedy has created a much bigger problem, and has fundamentally changed the way that appraisals are made.

The government has created the Appraisal Management Center, which doles out appraisal jobs to the top name on a list of qualified appraisers. The trouble is, there is no specificity in the expertise needed for the appraisal, so someone with a background in equestrian properties can be assigned an urban condo. To boot, there is so little money left in the appraisals process (since the Appraisals Management Center is taking a cut) that many appraisers will take an assignment, whether it matches their experience or not. Who pays? The buyer, upfront, and without recourse. So what happens? Often, the buyer pays and pays for repeated appraisals until they get the one that supports their deal. Asks Thomas:  once more, HOW is this better for the market?

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Talking to Thomas Murray Jr., mortgage lending consultant and principal of his own lending firm, one gets a clear idea of the problems facing buyers today: not only does the buyer need to find the right home and negotiate a price for it, but he or she also has to work hard to get a loan.

Thomas tells The Real Story that not long ago, there was quite literally a loan for every buyer. Now, in this risk-averse environment, loans are scarce for people with less-than-good credit scores. The pendulum has swung the other way from the days of so-called liar loans, and loan packages need to be clean and risk free or the banks won’t touch them. If the originator doesn’t follow all of the guidelines to the letter, they can be held responsible for the losses on a failed loan. So the banks are being much more careful about the loan packages, and more and more deals are not making it through the lending part of the sales process.