Borrower Tips
How To Sell Your Home For 17% More, 40% Faster This Spring
Super Bowl Weekend traditionally marks the start of the Spring Buying Season in real estate. Anecdotally, real estate agents will tell you that buyer activity tends to tick higher at this time of the year. Meanwhile, with mortgage rates still trolling near all-time lows and Congress debating a first-time homebuyer tax credit, 2009 may [...]
Move-Up Homebuyers Face New Lending Challenges This Spring
When a homeowner sells his home and decides to buy a new one, there are 3 basic options for the residence — sell it, keep it, or rent it. Unfortunately, no matter which path they choose, move-up homebuyers in need of a new conforming mortgage will find qualifying for a home loan to be more difficult [...]
Could Mortgage Rates Have Already Bottomed Out?
After improving through 11 straight weeks, mortgage rates finally ticked higher last week. This, according to Freddie Mac’s weekly mortgage rate survey. The Freddie Mac survey showed that mandatory mortgage fees rose last week, too. Unfortunately, the bad news for rate shoppers doesn’t stop there. Because Freddie Mac’s rate survey is conducted on Tuesday but its [...]
Mortgage rates rise slightly, but is it a bottom?
After a strong start Monday and Tuesday, mortgage markets suffered alongside stock markets in the latter half of last week, leaving mortgage rates higher on the week overall. Market losses were especially steep Friday and mortgage rates headed into the long weekend on a strong uptick. Regardless, the reasons that mortgage rates rose last [...]
WHEN IS A 5.000 PERCENT MORTGAGE RATE REALLY 3.600 PERCENT?
An oft-touted benefit of homeownership is its tax benefits. However, like most IRS-related items, understanding how the benefits work is not always clear. In general, homeowners are entitled to two home-related tax deductions — one for annual mortgage interest paid, and one for real estate tax bills paid. Not everyone is eligible, though. Some of [...]
New Fannie Mae Loan Fees Target Condo Buyers, Among Others
When conforming mortgages started defaulting en masse in late-2007, mortgage guarantor Fannie Mae created a loss-offsetting, fee-generating scheme dubbed “loan-level pricing adjustments”. The concept was basic: For mortgage applicants with high-risk profiles, collect up-front payments to offset potential long-term losses. Similar to the auto insurance model in which younger drivers pay higher premiums, the riskier [...]
Shopping for a low rate mortgage for your Danville real estate?
HERE’S THE INSIDE SCOOP ON HOW TO DO IT RIGHT! First: make sure you are working with an experienced, professional loan officer. The largest financial transaction of your life is far too important to place into the hands of someone who is not capable of advising you properly and troubleshooting the issues that may arise [...]
Sure, Mortgage Rates Are Lower, But Mandatory Fees Are Not
With respect to mortgage rates, you can’t always believe what you read in the papers. Or what you see. A terrific example is the chart at left. Published by Freddie Mac, it shows the 30-year fixed mortgage’s “going rate” as reported by the nation’s mortgage lenders. On December 30, 2008, that rate was 5.1 percent. But [...]
It’s 2009 : Mortgage Loan Limits Fall As Scheduled In “High-Cost” Danville California
As part of the Economic Stimulus Act of 2008, Congress authorized a conforming loan limit increase in “high-cost” areas around the country. Versus the national conforming loan limit of $417,000, for example, a Danville home buyer could secure a 2008 mortgage for $725,000 and still be within “conforming” guidelines. Effective January 1, however, those limits rolled [...]
The Fed’s Parting Present For 2008 : Low Mortgage Rates
For its last move in an action-filled year, the Federal Reserve announced it will begin buying its pledged $500 billion in mortgage-backed securities next month. For home buyers and mortgage rate shoppers, the timing couldn’t be better. Because December 31 is one of Wall Street’s most thinly-traded days of the year, low volume is exaggerating [...]
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