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In August, home builders broke ground on the fewest number of homes since January 1991.

It was the 16th straight month in which Housing Starts declined.

But, although the press labels these statistics indicative of a recession, home sellers nationwide quietly applaud them.

With fewer new homes coming on the market, home sellers are finding [...]

For the third consecutive meeting, the Federal Open Market Committee left the Fed Funds Rate unchanged at 2.000 percent.

Of interest to mortgage rate shoppers, the FOMC led its press release with comments about the health of the financial and labor markets, calling them “strained” and “weakened”, respectively. The relative weakness in both of these [...]

Yesterday, the stock market suffered its largest one-day point loss since September 17, 2001, and its sixth-largest point loss in history.

Not everyone got punished, however. Two groups of people, in particular, welcomed yesterday’s losses:

Home buyers out shopping for a mortgage
Homeowners that snoozed through last week’s mortgage rate drop

See, as the stock market dropped [...]

In a week overdone with market-altering news, conforming mortgage rates shed a quarter-percent overall last week. It was the third straight week in which rates improved.

The biggest story, by far, was the government’s takeover of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

The two quasi-government agencies were nationalized into bona fide government agencies, converted mortgage-backed [...]

On all principal + interest home loans, the first few years of payments include a lot more money going to interest than to principal.

This is because mortgage repayment schedules are front-loaded with interest, meaning large-volume principal reduction won’t occur until late in the mortgage’s lifecycle.

Comparing products at a 6% mortgage rate, did you know [...]

Conforming mortgages are limited by loan size, based on “typical” housing costs around the country. Since 1980, as home prices have increased, so have conforming loan limits.

The current conforming limit on a single-unit property is $417,000.

Earlier this year, as part of the Economic Stimulus Act of 2008, Congress authorized conforming loan limits increase in [...]

What's Going On w/ Fannie & Freddie?

September 10, 2008

In a nut shell, The US Treasury Department, led by Hank Paulson, stepped in this weekend to bailout Fannie Mae [...]

In its last act as a semi-independent company, Fannie Mae altered mortgage guidelines for real estate investors last Friday. It was Fannie’s 22nd update this year.

The first part of the guideline change limits the number of properties owned by any one person.

Fannie Mae will now decline any mortgage application for a second home [...]

When comparing two investments with equal risk, a rational person will choose the investment with a higher rate of return.

This behavior is called Risk Aversion and is a basic tenet of personal investing.

An off-shoot of Risk Aversion is that a rational person will only invest in an instrument of greater risk if the returns are [...]

Mortgage markets improved last week on Hurricane Gustav’s less-than-expected damages and a strengthening U.S. dollar.

Even factoring in Friday’s 0.125 percent run-up on most mortgage products, rates improved overall.

It’s the second straight week in which mortgage rates improved.

But for all the news that we could dissect from last week, it should be [...]