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Square footage of a home is a matter of debate — a homeowner measures it one way, a real estate agent another way, and an appraiser a third way.

The local tax assessor has his own method, too.

So, who is right?

Until 2003, they all were! That’s when the NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF REALTORS® Appraisal [...]

An interesting feature of interest only loans is that your payment is re-calculated each month based on how much money you are borrowing.

The industry term for the re-calculation is “recasting”.

When an extra principal payment is made on an interest only loan, the new loan payment is calculated as:

(Outstanding Loan Size) * (Annual Interest [...]

The American Consumer keeps spending.

This morning, the monthly Retail Sales report showed a larger-than-expected jump. Even after stripping out elevated gas prices, the sales increase was more than double the expected amount.

The economy surges ahead, fueled by everyday spending, and this does not bode well for the future of mortgage [...]

If you ever wanted proof that mortgage rates react to global events, the past four days are it.

Worldwide, investors are shunning the United States mortgage market in search of higher returns elsewhere.

The more they sell, the worse mortgage rates get.

The latest catalyst for extra supply: speculation about a Bank of Japan interest rate [...]

After a semi-calm start, last week ended terribly for mortgage rate shoppers highlighted (lowlighted?) by Thursday’s mortgage bond market crash.

The drubbing Thursday was the worst day for the bond market in three years and is one of the reasons why the conforming and jumbo 30-year fixed mortgage is up 0.625% since late-April.

Conforming and [...]

Yesterday was the single worst day for mortgage rates in more than four years.

Because so few homeowners understand how mortgage rates are determined, a day like yesterday may have little context.

So, let’s try to put it in perspective.

If somebody told you that the stock market crashed, you’d [...]

This is just a quick reminder to ignore national news stories about real estate. It may sound like strange advice, but real estate is a highly local phenomenon.

The “national scene” is comprised of data from:

50 states, with
More than 30,000 incorporated cities, and with
An innumerable number of neighborhoods

It also combines data from:

Single family [...]

Behold the power of the English language.

With just five words, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke rattled markets yesterday.

In discussing how housing has slumped (and may continue to slump), Bernanke cited that weakness in the sector should not hold the rest of the economy back.

This is departure from earlier this year. [...]

Have you ever wondered how much your coffee habit is costing you?

Courtesy of software developer Hugh Chou, use the Coffee Calculator to calculate how much you pay for coffee each year, and how much money you forgo in savings because of it.

Did you know: If you buy a $1.87 grande drip coffee from Starbucks [...]

Another week, another vicious rise in mortgage rates. There just wasn’t enough “bad” news to reverse the market’s recent trend to the upside.

There were three notable pieces of news from last week:

The Fed’s May meeting minutes revealed a genuine concern that inflation is not slowing as anticipated
The employment report showed that employers are still [...]