Bills to extend the maximum $8,000 tax credit for first-time home buyers are pending in both the U.S. House and the Senate. The current credit is due to expire on Nov. 30. Sen. Christopher J. Dodd, a Connecticut Democrat and chairman of the Senate Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs Committee, is co-sponsor of a bill [...]
Are mortgage rates going up? Are mortgage rates going down? I am a regular participant in the Bankrate.com Mortgage Rate Trend survey and this week’s survey may point you in the right direction. The Bankrate.com survey is for conforming mortgages only. It is not specific to Cincinnati, nor does not apply to FHA mortgages, VA [...]
If you are one of the many Boston Real Estate home buyers trying to get a loan these days, it may feel like you are in a maze of paperwork, searching for copies of bank statements, tax filings and 401k holdings needed by the bank to just begin processing your mortgage request. Many home buyers [...]
A July 10 lender bulletin from Freddie Mac says appraisers “must be familiar with the local market,” select “appropriate comparable sales,” and certify them as “most similar” to the property in question. The bulletin also says appraisers are not required to use distressed properties in their comparable sales analysis unless they represent a good number [...]
Some home buyers are sitting on the sidelines waiting for housing prices to hit bottom. It makes sense to buy a house at the lowest price possible but there are other critical considerations to keep in mind. Trying to time the bottom of any market is always difficult. Also, interest rates are at historic lows, [...]
Researchers at the Boston Fed recently concluded that a pair of reasons lie behind a reluctance on the part of mortgage lenders to renegotiate troubled loans. One reason is the fear that borrowers will just end up having trouble making payments again, the researchers conclude in a new report. Another reason: Bankers think some people [...]
Even though the average 30-year mortgage rate in Massachusetts fell to 5.57 percent last week from 5.68 percent the week prior, rates in the Bay State are still the highest in the country, tied with Illinois, according to online mortgage tracker Zillow. Nationwide, the average 30-year mortgage rate last week was 5.48 percent, down from [...]
Many people agree that the problems we are seeing in the real estate market today were mostly caused by overly aggressive sub-prime lending. The banks and private sector lenders have been given a “get out of jail free” card thanks to President Obama’s huge bailout packages. The banks, people say, are simply “too big to [...]
Pending home sales in April showed a 6.7 percent jump from March numbers, and a 3.2 percent increase from April 2008 transactions according to The Pending Home Sales Index, a forward-looking indicator of the real estate market based on contracts signed. Geographical breakdown: Northeast: The idex jumped 32.6 percent month over month and .8 percent [...]
Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac modified nearly 24,000 loans during the fourth quarter of 2008, up 76 percent from the third quarter, according to the Federal Housing Finance Agency’s (FHFA) most recent Foreclosure Prevention Report. These modifications, along with the foreclosure suspensions that began last November, reduced the number of foreclosures by nearly 27 percent [...]
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