Peter Tamura's Blog

Here's what Mortgage Insurance is costing you now, and here's what the increase will cost.   Let's look at an example of a $200,000, here in Tulsa, Oklahoma you can get a nice home for this amount. *Note that PMI costs more with conventional financing which means that you are paying a below marke...

This was the heading of an article in the New York Times on April 10th, the average 30 yr fixed rate around that time was 4.875% according to mortgage-X.com.  It's interesting that interest rates did indeed go down further, the average rate from the same source now is 4.25% with brief forays belo...

It happened again. This time to a different short sale and not in Sacramento. This short sale is in Roseville. High demand neighborhood -- such high demand that I received more than a dozen calls within 24 hours of putting this short sale on the market. Several months later, I'm still receiving p...

Here's a great blog by Cari Anderson that explains the new changes.How Will the New FHA Mortgage Insurance Structure Affect Your Buying Power? Earlier this month, HUD announced that there would be some forthcoming changes to its FHA mortgage insurance program on October 4th of this year. Since FH...

When you have made a decision to buy a home, it can be helpful to understand the cognitive biases, or shortcuts your mind uses when sorting information to make decisions.  Sometimes, these will lead to poor decisions, let's take a look at some to see if we can avoid some common pitfalls. *Short t...

  If you are planning to sell a home, in Tulsa it is acceptable to use the courthouse records as the basis for your home square footage or an appraisal.  So you may not have to change the courthouse records.  It is quite common for the courthouse records to be off by several hundred feet, the hom...

Long dryer vents are less effective, but the trend is for utility rooms to be in the middle of the house making the venting  system for the dryer problematic.  Dryer vent installation requires understanding the purpose and function of your dryer vent system.  Forced heat produced by natural gas o...

With the current turmoil in Greece, worries about the ability of the 16 member Eurozone to support the Euro and fears of a double dip recession, capital is moving toward safe havens.  These have traditionally been the US Dollar, the bond market & gold.  When investors retreat to the bond markets,...

A lot of times when you go to look at new construction, you may be looking at a home that is partially completed and not notice some things.  This was the case when we recently went to look at a new floorplan in Jenks, we did not notice that there was no fireplace  designed into this 2,000 square...

I volunteered for the Extreme Home Makeover that is going to take place in Tulsa starting tomorrow, and wouldn't you know it, there is a winter storm watch tomorrow afternoon through Friday afternoon. Well, I am scheduled tomorrow from 12-8PM, and Simmons the Homebuilder is saying that, "We will ...