NEWSLETTERS

 

MORTGAGE FINANCE NEWS
1.	READING THE HOUSING MARKET -- After five straight record-setting years, the housing market faced a decline in 2006. Read this article to help understand how analysts project the housing market.
2.	THE CREDIT QUIZ -- What issues help or hurt our credit scores?
3.	THE IMPORTANCE OF GOOD CREDIT -- Read about how your credit affects the mortgage industry.
4.	APPRECIATION RATES NORMALIZE -- Double-digit home appreciation rates in recent years have kept some homebuyers out of the market. Good news for homebuyers is that these rates have begun to normalize.
5.	FICO UNDERGOES ADJUSTMENT -- How will FICO's scoring adjustments affect you?
6.	TAX BREAK ON PMI -- Deduct (perhaps a portion of) your monthly PMI payment for the tax year 2007.
7.	FIXED RATE LOANS -- 30 year fixed vs. 15 year fixed rate
8.	CREDIT SCORES STILL MISUNDERSTOOD -- It appears that the difficulties in the subprime mortgage market may have peaked. When looking back at a survey that was released last year, it is not hard to understand why some of these problems may have occurred.
9.	THE MARKET FOR 2008 -- Roughly six to eight months ago, the National Association of Realtors (NAR) projected a very modest turnaround in the real estate market by the third or fourth quarter of this year.
10.	YOUR HOMEOWNER'S INSURANCE -- Many homeowners assume that they are sufficiently insured when it comes to their homeowner's policy. However, recent surveys indicate that relying on those assumptions may be causing some homeowners to be underinsuring their homes.
11.	DOES CALIFORNIA FORECAST CHANGE? -- Many analysts believed that the housing market wouldn’t hit bottom until some time next year.  The National Association of Realtors (NAR) predicted earlier this year that home sales would be slow the first half of 2008, rise during the second half, and finally show a year-to-year increase in 2009.
12.	GIVE YOURSELF A CREDIT BOOST -- Due to the shakeout in the mortgage industry over this past year, the importance of a good credit score has become ever more evident.
13.	LOAN LIMITS FOR 2009 -- The last quarter of 2008 was a bit chaotic, and lost in all this was some good news with regard to the mortgage lending industry as it relates to mortgage loan limits.
14.	BENEFITS OF THE STIMULUS PLAN -- By now, most everyone has heard of the new administration's "stimulus" package that was signed into law this last February. Many argue that it won't do much to actually stimulate the overall economy, but analysts in the area of mortgage finance do see some benefits to homeowners or hoped-for homeowners.
15.	DO WE NEED MORE STIMULUS? -- According to the latest data as of this writing, pending home sales rose for the second straight month, so says the National Association of Realtors (NAR). Though this is a positive sign, mortgage and real estate experts and some in Congress say the government could do more to stimulate home sales.
16.	REFINANCE NOW -- If, because of the economy, you have been waiting to refinance your mortgage, you may want to consider not putting this off any longer. Mortgage interest rates remain at historic lows, but prior to this writing they had been trending upward modestly for more than a month (though the latest weekly figures as of this writing show a slight decline - call for current information).
17.	CREDIT CHECKS -- The issue and availability of credit has been one of the key factors in the housing and mortgage market in the past several years.
18.	WERE RATES A BELLWETHER? -- The prediction was that once the Federal Reserve stopped buying Mortgage Backed Securities, rates would increase.  Were they correct?