government assistance mortgage

Does Your Hometown Rank On Money Magazine’s Top 100 Places To Live in 2008?

July 29, 2008

Move to Plymouth, Minnesota, says Money Magazine in its 2008 100 Best Places To Live survey. According to the report, the Twin Cities satellite has all of the makings of a desirable home town: Affordable homes Excellent schools Low crime Lots of jobs Abundant “outdoor life” The top 5 cities as listed by Money Magazine […]

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Looking Back And Looking Ahead : July 28, 2008

July 28, 2008

On the wave of a two-day rally, mortgage rates improved last week overall.  This despite a Friday reversal that had caused rates to tick higher just before weekend house-hunting began. And, like so many other weeks this year, last week’s mortgage market activity was defined by its quick-moving interest rates. At least one major mortgage […]

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Why Are Home Buyers Coming Back To The Market Now? There’s Suddenly Good Value In Real Estate.

July 25, 2008

Statistics won’t always tell the whole story, but they often provide good perspective. The graph at right shows Existing Home Sales data going back three years.  An “existing home” is one that can’t be called new construction; a “used home”, so to speak. Note the steep decline from 2005 through late-2007. Since November, however, Existing […]

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Freddie Mac’s SEC Filing : The 2 Sentences That Matter In A 1,394-Page Document

July 24, 2008

Sometimes, the hardest part about news is knowing where to find it. In its filing with the SEC last week, Freddie Mac stated that it will “pursue increases” to its middleman fee.  This would likely make mortgages more expensive for every conforming borrower in the country. The exact verbiage from the filing is extremely opaque and […]

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How Hurricanes Change Home Affordability

July 23, 2008

After falling 7 cents per gallon over the last 7 days, gas prices are being pressured higher today as Hurricane Dolly barrels through the Gulf of Mexico. The first landfall hurricane of the season is expected to flood the southern Texas coast and cause minor disruptions to the nation’s oil supplies. Versus Hurricane Katrina in […]

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The Inflation Calculator Checks Whether Your Income Is Keeping Pace With The “Cost of Life”

July 22, 2008

The phrase “Consumer Price Index” can be intimidating and unclear to Americans.  It’s an economic term, after all, and not a part of everyday American language. It even has its own abbreviation to add to the confusion — CPI. So, when a layperson hears that “CPI is rising”, it’s not always clear what it means. The […]

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Looking Back And Looking Ahead : July 21, 2008

July 21, 2008

Mortgage rates soared last week as mortgage markets experienced a 4-day freefall. By the end of the trading week, conforming mortgage rates had jumped by as much as 0.500 percent. The spike in rates can’t be pinned on any one factor, but 3 contributing factors include: The lingering impact of high energy prices on inflation […]

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Mandatory FHA Loan Fees Increase For Some, Fall For Others

July 18, 2008

For the first time in its history, the FHA changed its funding fees and mortgage insurance structure this week.  FHA-insured home loans are now subject to a risk-based pricing adjustment, as shown by the table above. Because of risk-based pricing, FHA home loans are now more expensive for borrowers with less-than-ideal credit profiles, and less expensive borrowers […]

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Mortgage Rates Spike On Highest Cost Of Living Index Since 1991

July 17, 2008

Another day, another piece of inflationary data. June’s Consumer Price Index showed a 5 percent year-over-year increase in what is now the largest annual Cost of Living increase for Americans in 17 years. This is bad news for both home buyers and homeowners in want of a new mortgage because rising costs are inflationary and […]

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10 Cities That May Be Signaling That The Worst Of Housing May Already Be Over

July 16, 2008

Last week, Forbes Magazine published a Top 10 list that should grab the attention of housing market bottom-feeders. The Top 10 list of Increasingly Affordable U.S. Housing Markets shows that falling home prices and steady mortgage rates are providing a support floor in some of the country’s most beat-up regions. The report’s methodology is simple: […]

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Fannie And Freddie Are Yesterday’s News, Says The Market

July 15, 2008

Mortgage markets have turned their attention back to the U.S. economy this morning, causing yesterday’s rate improvements to unwind a bit. Rates had fallen Monday after the Federal Reserve and U.S. Treasury’s joint announcement in support of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.  Today, it’s the data that is taking center stage. Most notably, the U.S. […]

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Looking Back And Looking Ahead : July 14, 2008

July 14, 2008

Mortgage rates fell slightly in a week that included a bank failure, more oil price spikes, and questions about the health of the nations’ mortgage market. Rates would have fallen more if not for a late-Friday sell-off that added 0.125 percent to most products. As financial markets fell under stress, most people missed the strong […]

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How Is The Economy Doing? It Depends Who You Ask.

July 11, 2008

“Economic uncertainty” is turning into a 2008 buzzword and there’s good reasons why. On the one hand, there are precursors to inflation in the economy: Rising oil costs Rising food prices Higher Cost of Living On the other hand, there are precursors to recession in the economy, too: Mounting job losses Less access to credit […]

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Foreclosure Rates Are Falling (Despite What You See In The Headlines)

July 10, 2008

According to RealtyTrac, the rate of foreclosures across the U.S. is slowing.  Versus May, June foreclosures fell at a 3 percent clip. 25 states showed improvement month-over-month, led by many of the same areas that had fueled foreclosure activity in 2007. A sampling of RealtyTrac’s data includes: California : Foreclosures down 4.54 percent Georgia : […]

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The “Sheep Effect” On Your Housing Payment

July 9, 2008

A noon-hour, mortgage-bond rally rendered homes more affordable for Americans Tuesday. It was the second straight day on which this happened. On both days, the action was swift. The speed at which Monday’s and Tuesday’s respective rallies tore through mortgage markets illustrates how deep the uncertainty that surrounds the U.S. economy really is. One reason […]

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Why July May Be The Best Time To Write A Purchase Contract In 2008

July 8, 2008

It’s a terrific time to buy a home, but not because homes happen to be affordable. It’s a terrific time to buy because the variety of mortgage products available to home buyers looks poised to shrink. Monday, Alt-A mortgage lender IndyMac Bank stopped accepting mortgage applications and it’s likely that other Alt-A lenders will likely […]

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Looking Back And Looking Ahead : July 7, 2008

July 7, 2008

Last week was fairly uneventful in the mortgage markets, with rates slightly edging lower across the board and without much data to influence trading. Even Thursday morning’s hotly-anticipated jobs report was met with lukewarm interest; many traders had already left for the weekend. Mortgage rates just drifted — a little up and little down, but mostly unchanged. […]

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How Job Losses In The Economy Are Helping Home Affordability

July 3, 2008

On the first Friday of each month, the Bureau of Labor Statistics releases its Non-Farm Payrolls report. More commonly, it’s called the “jobs report”. The jobs report is a sector-by-sector look into the U.S. economy and whether businesses are hiring — or firing — workers.  This is one of the reasons why its release is so […]

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Are Sub-Prime Mortgage Problems Finally On Their Way Out?

July 2, 2008

In the summer of 2005, sub-prime mortgage lending was at its peak.  Rates were relatively low and lending guidelines were relatively loose. At the time, the “standard” sub-prime mortgage product was the 3/27 ARM. The 3/27 had a few basic traits: A fixed, 3-year “starter rate” Every six months thereafter, the mortgage rate changed The […]

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Why Mortgage Rates Could Fall Because Of Midwestern Farmers

July 1, 2008

As flood waters ran through Iowa and other Midwestern states, the nation’s corn supply was thought to be in danger. Prices spiked in the wake of the floods, adding to the already-peaking grocery bills that many Americans are now bearing. But yesterday, in a surprise report, the Agriculture Department said that many farmers had over-planted corn […]

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