May 10, 2011 Home values showed the sharpest quarterly declines since 2008, falling 3% in the first quarter this year, according to Zillow’s real estate market report. Zillow said national prices were down 8.2% year-over-year to $169,000. Since peaking in June 2006, home values have fallen 29.5%. Out of the 132 markets covered by Zillow, [...]

April 28, 2011 There are lots of “FREE” credit report websites, some with catchy commercials and jingles.  But when you visit their website, you find that one of the conditions for your free report is to sign up for their monthly credit report monitoring service.  The problem is that these services come at a costly [...]

April 1, 2011 As analysts expected, the unemployment rate decreased slightly to 8.8%.  While the employment numbers still have a long road to travel before getting to lower ground, the economy is slowly showing signs of life.  Unfortunately, this comes at the cost of interest rates.  The lower this number goes, the higher the rates [...]

Tuesday, March 8, 2011 The Obama Administration is pushing for closure on the mortgage crisis, and it may be coming at the expense on Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.  These two quasi-corporate government sponsored enterprises are being blamed for much of the mortgage meltdown due to their elasticized credit guidelines throughout the sub-prime gold rush.  [...]

Monday, March 7, 2011 The first Friday of every month always has me on edge.  As I’m watching CNBC at around 7:30 am, I’m tensed up as I await the employment report knowing the results can wreak havoc on the bond market thus moving mortgage rates.  Not that I’m a proponent of a high unemployment [...]

Some call it magic, I call it manipulation.  Somehow barely any jobs were added in January, but the unemployment rate still fell.  That’s almost a full percentage point in two months. In news released this morning, non-farm payrolls rose 36K in January and the unemployment rate stood at 9%. Economists’ estimates were for the economy [...]

The freefall continues.  According to many leading forecasters, home prices are expected to drop further in the first half of this year, then rebound later in the year.  The expectation is that unemployment will slide a bit, sparking purchases in housing.  Forecasters are looking for a 5-8% increase in home sales by the end of [...]

December 20, 2010 Despite the Fed’s announcement last month to purchase $600 Billion in U.S. Treasuries through next June, rates took an unexpected turn for the worse jumping as much as 1 point in four weeks.   The expectations were high that rates would surely fall further, with some predicting the 30 year fixed in the mid-3% range.  [...]

November 10, 2010 One of the worst ways to compare loans, in my opinion, is to shop the “APR” or Annual Percentage Rate.  The APR is an expression of the effective interest rate that will be paid on a loan, taking into account certain one-time fees and standardizing the way the rate is expressed.  While the formula [...]

November 10, 2009 Ever wonder why there is such a disparity from lender to lender when it comes to rates and fees?  It really comes down to two things, marketing and their compensation.  You see, most lenders are compensated by the companies they sell the loans to and therefore the higher the rate, the more [...]