Mortgage and Real Estate Insight

A string of positive economic reports on the housing market over the past few weeks show the hangover from the first-time homebuyer tax credit is easing and demand for housing is slowly increasing. New home sales for August were of their lows from July and existing home sales rose a better than e...

Mortgage rates actually rose a bit this week for the first time in a couple of months. After bottoming out earlier in the week on renewed global economic fears, a string of positive economic reports had stocks rallying in the second half of the week creating a sell-off in US Treasuries. After fal...

After a week of miserable news on the housing market, including last Friday’s report that show May new home sales fell 33% and existing home sales off 2%, we got some much needed good news on Tuesday which showed a modest gain in home prices nationwide. The S&P Case-Schiller Home Price Index of t...

Mortgage rates remained at or near historical lows over the past week with benchmark thirty-year, fixed-rate at 4.75% with no pints and the fifteen-year, fixed-rate at 4.25%.Rates on FHA, VA and Rural Development loans are also all under 5.00%. Rate shave been held at bay by the usual suspects – ...

With more and more Realtors and customers expressing concern regarding the potential effects the Deepwater Horizon oil spill could have on our local real estate market, I thought I would offer up my two cents and what I have been telling anyone interested enough to listen. While I will not attemp...

Despite bouncing off their lows for May, mortgage rates remain below 5% with the benchmark thirty-year, fixed-rate coming in at 4.875% with no points and the fifteen-year, fixed-rate right at 4.25% with no points. A steep drop in the yield on the ten year Treasury note over the past several weeks...

It is hard to believe but the sweeping regulation governing real estate appraisals known as the Home Valuation Code of Conduct or HVCC is already one year old. The controversial rule negotiated by New York state Attorney General Andrew Cuomo, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac along with their regulator ...

The National Association of Homebuilders reported this week that their “Housing Market Index”, a survey among its members to quantify builder sentiment about the housing market, rose three points in May to 22. While this is still well below the 50 mark which indicates builders feel optimistic abo...

As a flood of first-time homebuyers rushed to take advantage of the $8,000 tax credit the Rural Development program has been strained to the limit with a year’s allocation of funds expected to be depleted sometime tomorrow. There has been little interest in Congress to extend funding and it now a...

Breaking a four month string of declines, new home sales jumped 26.9% in March for the best improvement in a single month in forty-seven years. Sales were up in every region of the U.S. but were particularly strong in the South where sales of new homes increased by 43.5%. The report on new home s...