Mortgage rates continue to hover near record lows with the rate on the benchmark thirty year flirting with 4.875% this week. The rate on the fifteen year fixed rate has dipped below 4.50% coming in at 4.375%. Thirty year rates on most government loan programs including FHA. VA and Rural Development have eased to 5%. [...]

Last Friday, President Obama signed a bi-partisan extension to the first-time home buyer tax credit program last week giving prospective buyers through June 30th, 2010 to close on a home and receive the $8,000 credit. In addition, the law contained an expansion of the former program to include homeowners who have occupied their current residence [...]

The National Association of Realtors reported on Monday that the September Pending Home Sales Index jumped 6.1% t0 110.1 after a 6.4% rise in August. The big rise far surpassed analysts’ expectations who anticipated a more modest rise of 1.2%. Most economists contributed the large increase to the estimated 200,000 to 400,000 first-time homebuyers rushing [...]

We are definitely seeing a return to volatility in mortgage rates as a see-sawing stock market has made for fickle demand for bonds. While sitting near record lows for several weeks rates bounced back up by late last week and were approaching 5.375% on the conforming thirty-year, fixed-rate on Monday before settling back to 5.25% [...]

Mortgage rates remain low again this week helped out by reemerging doubts about the stock rally and economy as a whole. The benchmark thirty-year, fixed-rate stands just above 5% with no points and the fifteen year is just below 4.50%. While paying a point was buying a full ½% discount to the rate in the [...]

I will be the first to agree that the mortgage industry was extremely under-regulated for years and feel that lack of oversight, among other things, was largely responsible for the collapse of the housing market and subsequent financial crisis we now find ourselves in. But two of the most significant changes we’ve seen in years, [...]

Mortgage rates remain at near eight month lows as strong demand in the bond market drove the yield on the ten year Treasury note below 3.20% before rising slightly to 3.25% today on a renewed rally in stocks. The rate on the benchmark thirty-year is hovering right at 5% with no points and the fifteen-year [...]

Another mixed bag of housing data was released over the past week starting with last Thursday’s report from the National Association of Realtors that showed an unexpectedly drop in existing home sales. NAR reported that sales of existing homes in August fell by 2.7% form the prior month. This broke a four month trend of [...]

We have had some good news on the housing front over the past week as the National Association of Homebuilders reported that builder confidence rose in September for the third consecutive month to its highest level since May of 2008. The Census Bureau also released a report on August home starts that showed builders broke [...]

The National Association of Realtors reported Tuesday that its index of pending home sales rose 3.2% in July from June marking the sixth consecutive month of increases. Though not quite as high as the 3.6% increase reported in June, July’s increase marks the first time the index has posted six months of increases since NAR [...]