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Phoenix Home Prices Holding Steady

August 20, 2009

An article in this morning’s Arizona Republic had some good news for home prices in Phoenix. According to the article written by J.Craig Anderson:
After a record-breaking 27 months of decline in the Valley’s median home price, some of the most influential local real-estate analysts predict that home values finally have hit the bottom of the [...]

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Why Home Buyers Should Worry About Falling Housing Starts And Why Sellers Should Cheer Them

April 19, 2009

With respect to housing data, news is rarely positive or negative on a universal level. There’s always two perspectives to consider, after all.

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Are Home Values Rising Or Falling? The Answer Depends On Who You Ask.

April 2, 2009

A report published Tuesday showed that home values fell nearly 3 percent in January 2009 versus the month prior and by 19 percent from last year. On the surface, data from the study looks like more bad news for housing

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Conforming Fixed Rate Mortgages Are Now Priced Better Than Comparable ARMs

December 11, 2008

It’s the age-old question for home buyers in need of a mortgage: Which is better: Fixed or ARM? Historically, the answer has hinged on a homebuyer’s desire to meet one of two mutually-exclusive mortgage financing goals: Get low mortgage payments for better cash flow Get long-term payment stability for better budget planning But because of government intervention and lingering questions about the economy, fixed-rate mortgages are now pricing cheaper than their adjustable-rate counterparts.

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How November’s 533,000 Jobs Lost Is Helping Mortgage Rates Improve

December 5, 2008

According to the government, American businesses are cutting staff at an accelerated pace, most recently paring 533,000 jobs this past November.
It’s the largest one-month decline since December 1974 and raises the year-to-date job losses to 1.9 million workers.
However, there is a silver lining in the data for all Americans — both employed and unemployed. [...]

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The Truth About Those "4.500 Percent Mortgage Rates" You Keep Hearing About

December 4, 2008

Business television is abuzz this morning with talk of “four-point-five percent mortgage rates”; the clip above ran on NBC Today. The news stems from a leaked story that the U.S. Treasury will intervene in the mortgage market, lowering rates a full percentage point below their current levels

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Looking Back And Looking Ahead : November 24, 2008

November 25, 2008

As the stock market retraced to its 1997 level, mortgage markets improved last week — but not by much.
Mortgage rates closed out the week slightly lower, but the week wasn’t without fireworks.

Calls of deflation grew louder
The automakers left Washington without a bailout
Citigroup’s stock price fell to the equivalent of its ATM fee

Separately, each of these [...]

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Plunging Housing Starts Is Bad News For Spring 2009 Home Buyers

November 20, 2008

When it comes to housing data, there are always two questions to consider:

How does this impact buyers?
How does this impact sellers?

This is why housing data is rarely positive or negative on a universal level — one group of Americans is going to see benefit.
Today, it’s home sellers.
From the government, we learn that Housing Starts fell [...]

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Weak Employment Data May Boost The Affordability Of Homes

November 15, 2008

On the first Friday of every month, the Bureau of Labor Statistics releases its Non-Farm Payrolls report. More commonly, it’s called the “jobs report” and the October’s data is trending with the rest of 2008.
After shedding another 240,000 jobs last month, the economy has now put 1.2 million Americans out of work this year [...]

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Planning To Buy A Home In 2009? Expect A Tougher Mortgage Road Ahead.

November 15, 2008

The Federal Reserve confirmed what most of us already knew — getting qualified for a “prime mortgage” is increasingly more difficult.
In a quarterly survey of 84 banks, 75 percent of respondent banks tightened mortgage guidelines over the last 3 months for the most qualified of home loan applicants.
“Prime” is a vague term when it comes [...]

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Looking Back And Looking Ahead : November 3, 2008

November 3, 2008

As global credit markets deteriorated in October, mortgage markets displayed an unnerving amount of volatility.
Last week was no different.
But, unlike in previous weeks in which rates improved on some days and worsened on others, mortgage rates were mostly higher last week, finishing the month on a surge.
The biggest reason why mortgage rates rose last week [...]

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How The Presidential Election May Impact Mortgage Rates

November 2, 2008

More than a handful would-be home buyers stayed on the sidelines this year, waiting for Election Day to pass.
The prevailing thought was that once the new President-Elect was identified, credit markets will systemically unfreeze and housing markets will return to normal.
If history is a guide, this is an unlikely scenario.
Election Day doesn’t figure to alter [...]

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Foreclosures Fell 12 Percent in September 2008

October 23, 2008

According to foreclosure-tracking service RealtyTrac, the foreclosure rate is falling nationwide.
Versus August, foreclosures fell by 12 percent in September 2008 as more than half of the states showed month-over-month improvement.
Most interesting in the data is that several states that led the foreclosure boom in 2007 now appear to be leading the charge out of it.
For [...]

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The Rising Cost Of A Small Downpayment

October 17, 2008

Private Mortgage Insurance (PMI) is a mortgage lender’s insurance policy against highly-leveraged homeowners.  It’s typically required when homeowner equity is less than 20 percent at the time of closing.
With PMI defaults up 40 percent over last year, though, private mortgage insurers are taking big losses.
They’re also taking outsized steps to prevent additional claims going [...]

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Foreclosures Fell 12 Percent in September 2008

October 10, 2008

According to foreclosure-tracking service RealtyTrac, the foreclosure rate is falling nationwide.
Versus August, foreclosures fell by 12 percent in September 2008 as more than half of the states showed month-over-month improvement.
Most interesting in the data is that several states that led the foreclosure boom in 2007 now appear to be leading the charge out of it.
For [...]

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Pending Home Sales Shows That More Buyers May Be Shopping For Homes Than You Thought

October 9, 2008

Buyers are returning to the housing market.
Each month, The National Association of REALTORS® tracks homes under contract to sell, but whose closing has not yet happened.  It calls them “pending sales” and publishes a monthly report to quantify them.
The Pending Home Sales report is important because it’s meant to predict future home sales [...]

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Some People Were Thrilled To Watch The Stock Market Fall Below 10,000

October 7, 2008

Monday, the Dow Jones Industrial Average closed below the psychologically-important 10,000 level for the first time since 2004.
Despite the milestone-marker breach, however, there was a large group of Americans with reason to cheer.  As stocks sold off, mortgage markets rallied to the benefit of home buyers and mortgage rates shoppers everywhere.
Conforming mortgages [...]

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Falling Home Supplies Are Bad News For Home Buyers (But Good News For Home Sellers)

September 25, 2008

The August Existing Home Sales report was released Wednesday, showing a decline in the number of homes sold nationwide, and a reduction in the median sales price.
Not surprisingly, the media singled these two statistics out, playing them as a big negative.
They’re not.
The decline in sales wasn’t good, but it wasn’t terrible, either [...]

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What Happens To Mortgage Rates When Crude Oil Adds $25 In One Day

September 23, 2008

Crude oil prices jumped $25 at one point Monday, ending the day up by 16 percent.
This is an unwelcome development for home buyers because the same market forces that pushed up oil prices had a similar impact on mortgage rates.
It all comes down to the U.S. dollar.
Because both crude oil and mortgage-backed bonds [...]

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How To Lower Your Mortgage Rate Every Time The Market Dips

September 19, 2008

Getting a great, low mortgage rate is often a combination of luck and preparation.
Consider what happened in conforming mortgages this week:

Monday, mortgage rates plunged to their lowest levels of the year
Tuesday, they bounced back in full
Wednesday, they clicked higher by a eighth-percent
Thursday, they clicked higher by another eighth-percent

And so, here we on are Friday, [...]

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