Mortgage Industry Blog

Distressed Homes Now Selling At A 20 Percent Discount   The housing market recovery stalled last month. At least temporarily. According to the National Association of REALTORS®, Existing Home Sales slipped 1 percent in April from the month prior, falling to 5.05 million units on a seasonally-adju...

Fed Minutes Put The Heat On Mortgage Rates To Rise   The Federal Reserve released its April 2011 Federal Open Market Committee meeting minutes Wednesday. In the hours since, mortgage markets have worsened; rates in South Carolina are higher by 1/8 percent this morning, at least. The "Fed Minutes"...

Building Permits Fade Faster Than Expected   Single-family housing starts dropped by 21,000 units in April on a seasonally-adjusted annual basis. The Housing Starts report measures the number of homes on which new construction "broke ground". It's tracked by the U.S. Department of Commerce which ...

Home Builders Seeing More Sales Today; Fewer Sales Tomorrow   Home builder confidence can't shake its range, according to the National Association of Home Builders. The group's monthly Housing Market Index put May's builder confidence reading at a level of 16. The Housing Market Index is scored o...

What's Ahead For Mortgage Rates This Week : May 16, 2011   Mortgage markets worsened overall last week for the first time in 5 weeks. Better-than-anticipated economic data plus dwindling concerns for Greece's sovereign debt combined to a spark a bond sell-off. Conforming mortgage rates moved high...

Rising Retail Sales Threaten Low Mortgage Rates   Another day, another piece of evidence that the U.S. economy is expanding. Thursday, the Census Bureau released the April Retail Sales report. Excluding cars and auto parts, retail receipts rose for the 10th straight month and, at $321 billion, re...

Foreclosure Filings Fall To 40-Month Low Foreclosure activity continues to drop nationwide. Based on data from foreclosure-tracking firm RealtyTrac, foreclosure filings nationwide fell below 220,000 in April 2011, a 9 percent decrease from March. A "foreclosure filing" is defined as any foreclosu...

Conforming ARMs From 2004-2006 Are Adjusting To 3 Percent When a mortgage applicants chooses an adjustable-rate mortgage over a fixed-rate one, he accepts a risk that - at some point in the future - the mortgage's interest rate will rise. Lately, though, that hasn't been the outcome. Since mid-20...

What To Fix Before You List With housing prices down across the country, there are a lot of homeowners in Spartanburg barely breaking even on their respective home sales. Some are even losing money. You may find yourself in that position, too; wanting to sell, but worried about bringing cash to y...

What's Ahead For Mortgage Rates This Week : May 9, 2011 By  amortgagebyfrank  in Mortgage Rates  Comments (0)  RSS   Mortgage markets improved last week on a bevy of economic and geopolitical news. Conforming mortgage rates in Oconee improved, falling to their lowest levels of 2011. It's a welcom...