A special message to my friends and clients
Posted On: August 30th, 2010 by James Posted In: FHA Mortgage • Financial Health • Mortgage Rates • Portland Real Estate • Refinancing
This is my plea to all of my clients past and present. Even if we closed a mortgage earlier this year, even if you think you are upside down on your homes equity, even if you think for some reason that this recent outbreak of mortgage refinance activity will not apply to you…. you have to give me a ring, or send an email. Many of you are invested in 401(k) plans, and mutual funds, and have been taking a beating from the plunge of the stock market since 2008, well…. think of the ridiculously low mortgage rates that are currently available as a way to BENEFIT from that same down market. (Because as stock markets shrink, money goes to bonds, and when bond yields get lower, so do long term mortgage rates!) Continue Reading – A special message to my friends and clients
Mortgage rates below 4% ?
Posted On: August 23rd, 2010 by James Posted In: Financial Health • Mortgage Rates • Mortgages • Refinancing
Until recently the holy grail of 30 year fixed rate mortgages has been the 4.5% rate. I saw that price appear for 90 minute windows a handful of times in 2009, but it was like a unicorn sighting…. brief and magical, and ultimately only spoken about in the hushed tones of mortgage legend.
We have recently taken a ride into this pricing territory and we appear to have set up camp here for the foreseeable future. In fact, I have been locking rates on 30 year fixed mortgages well below 4.5% in recent weeks- 4.125, 4.25, and 4.375 have all been locked for my clients in varying circumstances.
In these steadily declining mortgage rate environments, the no-cost refinance can start to make a lot of sense for another reason- no cost “recapture period”, makes another refinance a possibility, but I digress.
We are squarely in a new trading range on the FNMA 4.0% mortgage bond coupon, and this tells me that we will be in this mid 4% fixed rate range for possibly the rest of the year, but certainly for the next 4-6 weeks. Continue Reading – Mortgage rates below 4% ?
How Income is calculated for loan approval in 2010
Posted On: August 3rd, 2010 by James Posted In: FHA Mortgage • Mortgage Programs • Mortgages • Refinancing
The rules of the mortgage game keep changing. Ultimately, the changes are a reflection of a much more risk averse lending environment. It is increasingly difficult to get approved for a mortgage. Now, don’t get me wrong, this isn’t the end of the world, and if you have decent credit, and a stable and verifiable employment/income history you will likely be approved for some kind of financing.
The thing to be aware of now is what is considered to be “verifiable” by mortgage underwriters is certainly not what it used to be, nor what a sane person might expect it to be.
THE COMMON TYPES OF INCOME: Continue Reading – How Income is calculated for loan approval in 2010
If your rate is above 4.5%
Posted On: July 20th, 2010 by James Posted In: Mortgage Programs • Mortgage Rates • Mortgages • Refinancing
I’ve been hearing the radio ads just like everyone else, and our favorite breathless loan cheerleader has lately been urging you to call him “if your rate is higher than 4.5%”. I’m sure he would love to refinance you over and over again without any regard to if it makes sense for you.
Lets say you currently have a mortgage for $180k at 5.5% interest. Your principal and interest payment is $1,078. And now you really think that you are being foolishly ripped off for paying more than 4.5% on this loan. Lets also say that your credit score is 685. So now, in order to achieve this magical interest rate, you will need to pay a load of mortgage processing fees, an appraisal fee, title fees, plus 2% in points to cover the premium associated with a 685 credit score. Lender and title fees totaling $7,000. This is what you will pay in order to achieve a monthly savings of $115. The easy math is to divide the monthly savings into the upfront costs and calculate how many months it will take to pay for itself: $7.000 / 115 = Continue Reading – If your rate is above 4.5%
Mortgage Rate Apocalypse
Posted On: June 23rd, 2010 by James Posted In: Mortgage Rates • Refinancing
From the industry that has been “crying wolf” for the last I don’t know how many years about “low low rates”, I know that this is just more noise. I have been trying to figure out exactly how to describe what is happening lately in the fixed rate mortgage marketplace. Because rates usually move in step with the general state of the economy (economy good= rates go up, economy bad= rates go down) we’ve been in a VERY low mortgage rate market for most of 2010, and late 2009. I know that certain radio advertisers have been pimping the so called “rate of a lifetime” every 15 minutes for going on 3 years now, to the extent that the urgency has been drained completely. Well I’m here to tell you that today the FNMA 4% bond coupon that we use to track pricing has just hit the highest level in history.
Continue Reading – Mortgage Rate Apocalypse
