From the category archives:

Mortgage

Mortgage Rates Dip Below Key 5% Level – How to Get Yours Even Lower

Mortgage rates dipped below the key 5% level for 30 year fixed rate mortgages again this week. While many had predicted that rates would rise by mid-2010, it’s looking as though they may stay low at least through the year. The government intervention and reluctance to raise rates given a near 10% unemployment rate has [...]

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USDA Home Loan Program – The 0% Down Bonanza You’ve Never Heard About

The USDA loan program is offering, and has been for years, home loans at incredible terms even following the housing collapse, under the edict of rural lending (farm loans) given the challenges faced in finding a mortgage loan or deriving high income in sparsely populated areas. The surprise is – many of the zip codes [...]

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40 Year Mortgages – And 50 & 60 Year Mortgages While We’re at it

I’ve been seeing more ads lately for 40 year mortgage loans and once my curiosity was piqued, I also found that there are 50 year and 60 year mortgage loans out there. On one hand, I found this to be rather unorthodox and novel since you never hear about “40 year mortgage rates breaking new [...]

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Is it Ethical to Re-Lock your Mortgage Deal when Rates Drop?

With mortgage rates hitting record lows last week following the news that the Fed would buy up to $300 Billion in Treasury securities on the open market, there was a mad rush to lock in the best rates and inevitably, there was a fair amount of “mortgage envy” on behalf of borrowers who had recently locked. [...]

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Mortgage Rates Dropping to Record Low – Time to Refinance?

Mortgage rates dropped again last week to below 5% for conventional 30 year mortgages and will possibly break the recent record set in January when mortgage rates briefly dipped below 5% and then popped back up again. Fifteen year mortgages averaged 4.61% last week, down from 4.64% the week before. Based on recent market conditions and [...]

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Net Present Value: Why You Should Use it in Everyday Life

I was working on a Refinance this week and was confronted with various options: Different rate/point combinations, different lender fees, etc., and this got me thinking – I should just build a Net Present Value model to see which loan offered me the “best deal”. Without objectively assessing all the cash flows in and out, [...]

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Lowest Mortgage Refinance Rate Comparison by the Readers!

After perusing the web for the best mortgage refinance deal out there, it’s evident that the rates, points and fees required by different lending outfits are all over the map. Even worse, in corresponding with some loan officers on a refinance that I’m considering, I’ve found the practices to be rather deceptive (didn’t we learn [...]

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