The Mortgage Messenger

The April Case-Shiller Home Prices Indices showed a monthly increase in home prices for the first time in eight months. For a real recovery we will need to see several months of increasing home prices, large enough to shift the annual momentum to the positive side. Nationally, housing faces a lon...

What is a title search? A title search is intended to provide a buyer with basic information about the real estate he or she wants to purchase. Among other things, the title search will ensure that no one other than the seller has any ownership interest in the property. What is a title defect? A ...

We’re all familiar with the old saying, “Hope for the best, plan for the worst.” Living in Connecticut we’ve been pretty lucky as far as disasters go. We need to start preparing now for the unexpected because of recent storms in our area. Springfield, MA borders Connecticut and they recently got ...

With the cost of obtaining an FHA loan increasing all of the time this is a great new product for our buyers. There is no upfront mortgage insurance like there is on FHA loans which is now 1% of the loan amount. This product offers lower monthly mortgage insurance as well. It also allows for fina...

As seen in a recent post on the KCM Blog: Each quarter, Fannie Mae releases their National Housing Survey. They survey the American public on a multitude of questions concerning today’s housing market. We like to pull out some of the findings we deem most interesting each time it is released. Her...

For the past 12 years, the average homeowner’s net worth has been 31 to 46 times that of an average renter. The portion of a person’s income used for housing was 34%. It is now cheaper to buy than rent in nearly ¾ of American cities. At the end of 2010 the medium home price in the Northeast was $...

Purchasing a short Sale or Foreclosed property can be frustrating and time consuming. The reward would be a great house at a great price. In the next months you will see more foreclosures and short sales listed for sale. The banks who own the foreclosed properties are more organized and on top of...

Buying or financing a home is a major decision for anyone. We all look to family and friends for referrals but we have to ask our selves if they had a similar transaction. Did they buy in the same geographical area? Has the market changed since they did their transaction? Are my personal circumst...

Spring means it’s time for change, and oftentimes, people interested in shopping for a new home start to do their homework as the warm weather creeps in with its promise of brighter days ahead. Thinking about buying a home or selling yours for a different model or location? Here are four financia...

If you read the paper, watch the news or listen to the radio, chances are you’ve heard about the total collapse of the US housing market. What was a steady buzz has become a roar that can be very difficult to ignore. But ignore the rhetoric we must, because it simply isn’t factual. With the relea...