Ilyce's Views You Can Use

This week is data-heavy so markets will finally get to focus on fundamentals instead of fear. For the past two weeks, uncertainty about the economy has led to psychologically-driven mortgage interest rate movements.  Rising defaults devalue mortgage holdings and many investors are now expecting t...

Today is my birthday, so I'm at home today. What I decided to do is find out all I can about August 24th. In my search, I've come across excite.com's Daily Notables. You should check it out. Here's what they had to offer me: **events that happened this day in history **events that happened this d...

In light of today's New Homes Sales data and Monday's forthcoming Existing Homes Sales report, let's review a term that real estate professionals use to describe housing inventory. Absorption Rate is a real estate term for the length of time required to sell all of a given stock in a given area. ...

What: Every month Koffee Talk hosts a really fun and friendly networking happy hour that benefits a worthy cause.This month, your $10 donation at the door ($5 in advance) will go to help Jim Bouder who was struck by a drunk driver. Click here for newsclip. Join 50-80 other Baltimore professionals...

With tomorrow morning's New Home Sales report, markets will get a look at the number of newly-constructed homes sold in July.  The figure is expected to be in the 825,000 range.  This is lower than June's 834,000 figure. But -- as always -- there is more to the story. When the Census Bureau repor...

 Suddenly, Private Mortgage Insurance is back in vogue.  If only by default.  The story background is well-documented in this Bankrate.com article from 2002.  The article is five years old, but it still raises some salient points. What the article doesn't highlight is that second mortgages such a...

What: The annual Maryland State Fair is one of the biggest events in the region that each year attracts upwards of half a million visitors over its 11-day run. Originally a livestock show, the event now includes live entertainment, music, exhibitions and circus acts. A great family day out, visi...

Friday, the Federal Reserve lowered its Discount Rate by 0.50% in an effort to preserve liquidity among our nation's banks.  This has nothing to do with mortgage rates that people like you and I get for our homes.  Well, not directly at least. The Discount Rate is the rate at which banks borrow m...

WHAT:  StarFest will be a unique activity featuring entertainment, games, giveaways and encouragement for young people as they prepare to return to school. In essence, StarFest will serve as a communal “block party” that will cross racial, economical, and societal barriers to create community bon...

How do people get what they want? Easy. First they have to know what they want, and visualize it. In your case, you want to buy a house. So we need for you to create the goal that you will buy a house. And to make it even better, you will buy this house in the next 6 months. Experts tell us that...