So today’s headline is that home sales have plunged 27% from June to July according the National Association of Realtors – and this seems dramatic and perhaps even surprising.  Though, this is an artificial drama being put on by people trying to get ratings.  It should be by no means surprising, and frankly shouldn’t have [...]

30 Year Conventional rates have come up by 1/8 of a point to 4.375%, but FHA and 15 Conventional have remained unchanged. Here’s where we stand: 30 Year Fixed, Conventional: 4.375% 30 Year Fixed, FHA: 4.25% 15 Year Fixed: 3.75% We’re still incredibly low – right now is a prime time to leverage these rates [...]

July was an interesting month for King County real estate… the statistics are dramatic and perhaps a bit confusing.  Let’s dive in: Median Home Price Up 4.1% to 8.7% Prices were up dramatically from June to July for condos, houses and all homes.  This dramatic rise in median prices was echoed with rises in average [...]

The Federal Reserve took action recently to ban Yield Spread Premiums (YSP) in mortgage lending.  YSP is a bonus paid by the mortgage lender to the mortgage broker in exchange for the broker getting the borrower to accept a loan with a higher interest rate. How YSP Can Be Good… YSP can be used ethically [...]

On Monday, the Federal Reserve released a 930 page document that finalizes many of the new rules and regulations that are included in the financial reform package – among the many changes is a proposed rule that would allow potential mortgage borrowers to cancel their mortgage application within 3 days and receive a refund of [...]

Bankrate.com release the 2010 edition of their annual survey of closing costs, where they requested a good faith estimate for a $200,000 from a variety of lenders in a major metro area in each of 49 states, as well as two areas in California (Los Angeles & San Francisco). New York, Texas, Utah and California [...]

Windermere recently released an analysis of the extraordinary affordability created by the combination of today’s mortgage interest rates and home prices. Prices Down 13% to 24% In this analysis, they looked at more than 100 homes that sold in July 2010 – that also sold in sometime between 2006-2008 and compared the sales prices.  They [...]

More economists are forecasting future growth of housing prices in the next fews years… this time it’s the Chief Economist at Fiserv (a financial services technology firm) David Stiff who is predicting the bottoming of prices in late 2010 with an average climb in prices of 7.2% between late 2010 and early 2014. Fiserv and [...]

Mortgage rates have  come down again and are at historical lows – they haven’t been lower since the 1950′s. Here’s where we stand: 30 Year Fixed, Conventional: 4.25% 30 Year Fixed, FHA: 4.25% 15 Year Fixed: 3.75% Looks for upcoming articles in the next few days on how these low rates are continuing to improve [...]

The National Association of Realtors (NAR) released their latest data on pending home sales today showing that pending contracts, a forward looking indicator of sales, have slowed in June by 2.6% over levels in May.  The slowing was expected as the impact of the expiration of the home buyer tax credit takes full effect. Looking [...]