With home affordability at an all-time high, buoyed by the lowest mortgage rates ever, it’s been a terrific time to buy or refinance a home using a mortgage.
The good times may not last, though, so today marks an ideal time to lock a mortgage rate. Friday brings risk. Here’s why.
Since 2010, weak economic conditions have been a primary catalyst for low mortgage rates in Massachusetts. Over the last 12 months, though, manufacturing output has been rising, consumer spending has been climbing, and business investment has increasing.
In other words, the economy is improving. However, it’s the jobs market that’s believed to be the economic recovery keystone. When jobs come back, analysts say, so does the economy.
Assuming that’s true, a recovery may already be well underway.
According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the U.S. jobs market has grown for 16 straight months now, adding 2.5 million net new jobs along the way. It’s one reason (more…)
According to Freddie Mac’s weekly mortgage rate survey, for 13 straight weeks, the average 30-year fixed rate mortgage has held below 4.000% for mortgage applicants willing to pay up to 0.8 discount points plus a full set of closing costs.
These are the lowest mortgage rates in history and now — with a bevy of loan programs for the nation’s 11 million “underwater homeowners” including HARP, the FHA Streamline Refinance, and the VA IRRRL — millions of U.S. homeowners can exploit the current mortgage rate environment.
In this 4-minute clip from NBC’s The Today Show, you’ll learn about today’s mortgage market and your refinancing opportunities in Worcester County area.
The video begins by telling us that 14 million credit-worthy Americans have yet to refinance their respective mortgages, and are leaving an average of $471 in “wasted savings” on the table each month which adds (more…)
Home affordability moved higher last quarter, boosted by the lowest mortgage rates in history, a rise in median income, and slow-to-recover home prices throughout Massachusetts and the country.
According to the National Association of Home Builders, the quarterly Home Opportunity Index read 75.9 in 2011’s fourth quarter. More than 3 in 4 homes sold between October-December 2011, in other words, were affordable to households earning the national median income of $64,200.
Never in recorded history have U.S. homes been as affordable on a national level. Even on a regional and local level, affordability soared.
Beginning April 1, 2012, the FHA is once again raising mortgage insurance premiums (MIP) on its newly-insured borrowers throughout Worcester County area and the country.
It’s the FHA’s fourth such increase in the last two years.
Beginning April 1, 2012, upfront mortgage insurance premiums will be higher by 75 basis points, or 0.75%; and annual mortgage insurance premiums will be higher by 10 basis points per year, or 0.10%.
For borrowers with a loan size of $200,000, the new MIP will add $1,500 in one-time loan costs, plus an on-going, annual $200 increase in total mortgage insurance premiums paid.
All new FHA loans are subject to the increase — purchases and refinances.
Standard & Poors released its December 2011 Case-Shiller Index this week. The report is the most widely-cited, private-sector metric for the housing market. The index aims to measures change in home prices from month-to-month, and from year-to-year, in select U.S. cities and nationwide.
According to the report, between November and December 2011, home values fell within 18 of the Case-Shiller Index’s 20 tracked markets; and through the 12 months leading up to December 2011, 19 of 20 tracked markets fell.
Now, these statistics may look dire for the housing market, but it’s important to remember that the Case-Shiller Index — though widely-cited — remains a flawed statistic for everyday buyers and sellers in Worcester County area. Rather, the monthly Case-Shiller Index is more appropriately applied by policy-makers and economists to macro-economic issues than by you and me for buy-or-sell decisions..
There are three ways in which Case-Shiller is flawed — each tied to the way by (more…)
With home affordability at an all-time high, buoyed by the lowest mortgage rates ever, it’s been a terrific time to buy or refinance a home using a mortgage.
Home affordability moved higher last quarter, boosted by the lowest mortgage rates in history, a rise in median income, and slow-to-recover home prices throughout Massachusetts and the country.
Beginning April 1, 2012, the FHA is once again raising mortgage insurance premiums (MIP) on its newly-insured borrowers throughout Worcester County area and the country.