Downgrade helping rates?
If the United States loses its triple-A credit rating, mortgage rates will spike -- or so you were told.
Economists repeatedly warned Congress of a supposed catastrophe for interest rates in the event of a downgrade of the U.S. credit rating. But guess what? After Standard & Poor's downgraded the U.S. debt rating late Friday, mortgage
Is your landlord a hedge fund?
There's a new type of landlord in town. Instead of the typical mom or pop next-door who will come over to fix the leaking toilet at a moment's notice, your rent collector could be someone you never meet: a faceless investment company in a town far, far away.
There are a number of players snapping up foreclosed
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Tagged foreclosed, homes, investors, landlord, Mortgages, properties
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Jobs report bad for rates
The situation isn't as bad as you thought. That's the message today's jobs report sends to investors who had braced for more bad news this morning.
The employment report turned out better than economists expected. The U.S. economy added about 117,000 new jobs in July, well above the 46,000 jobs added in June. Economists had expected
Where are the refinancers?
Mortgage brokers say since rates plummeted this week, they have been swamped with calls from borrowers who want to refinance. But many of these calls don't have a happy ending.
Why? Because millions of borrowers can't refinance. Nearly one in four homeowners is underwater, meaning the borrower owes more on the mortgage than what the house
Can low rates last?
Now that President Barack Obama has averted the first-ever U.S. default by signing off on a higher U.S. debt ceiling, the country is returning its focus to the sluggish economic and housing recovery. A consequence of plummeting Treasury yields surrounding the default uncertainty has been lower mortgage rates -- average 30-year-fixed mortgage rates are well
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Tagged Debt, homebuyer, mortgage rates, Mortgages
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Foreclosures for rent
The sluggish housing recovery is prompting President Barack Obama to consider ways to take foreclosed properties off the market and rent them until prices stabilize. According to an article in the Wall Street Journal, home prices nationally were 7.4 percent lower in May than they were a year earlier, but when distressed and foreclosed properties are
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Tagged foreclosed homes, foreclosures, home prices, Mortgages, rent
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Second wave of foreclosures?
While we continue to closely monitor the toll that residential foreclosures are taking on our home values, the long-feared second wave of economic trouble from all those deserted strip malls, office parks and industrial complexes across the land has so far failed to materialize.
For more than a year, analysts have been predicting that a tsunami
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Tagged commercial property, foreclosures, home values, Mortgages
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USDA loans get more expensive
If you plan to buy a home or refinance your mortgage with a U.S. Department of Agriculture, or USDA, loan, you had better act soon.
These loans, which are one of the few options for low-cost, no down payment mortgages, are about to get more expensive.
Borrowers have until Sept. 30 to close on USDA mortgages if they
Jumbo loans going fast
Average jumbo mortgage rates are lower than they have been in years, driving high-end home sales. But the deals won't last long.
"Jumbo mortgage rates, currently averaging 5.17 percent, are near record lows and the spread between jumbo and conforming mortgage rates has narrowed to approximately one-half percentage point," says Greg McBride, CFA, senior financial analyst at
Mortgage tax break ‘in play’
Tick. Tick. Ticktickticktickticktickticktick.
That might be the sound of the fast-approaching deadline for the federal government to raise the national debt ceiling prior to a default on the government's obligations.
Homeowners, homebuyers and home sellers might well wonder what that has to do with real estate, housing or mortgages; however, one possible answer is the mortgage interest
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Tagged debt ceiling, MID, mortgage deduction, Mortgages
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