Mortgage Market and Rate Forecast – Week of April 13th

April 13, 2009

What is the American Consumer Thinking? Tuesday, we’ll get a look at Retail Sales.  It’s important, because consumer spending accounts for two-thirds of the economy. If a lower-than-expected figure for Retail Sales comes out, it would dampen Wall Street’s current optimism for the U.S. and that would likely lead mortgage rates lower. Where is Inflation […]

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Mortgage Market and Rate Recap – Week of April 6th

April 13, 2009

It’s a Bunch of Ups and Downs For the second week in a row, mortgage markets started the week strong and then ended with a fizzle.  The good news is, In the holiday-shortened week, rates were exactly flat overall. With such a short news week, there wasn’t much economic data to move rates last week. The market’s […]

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Tax Tips If You Haven’t Filed Yet

April 13, 2009

Everyone’s Doing It There are 138 million taxpayers in the United States and, according to the IRS, 20 percent of them file their taxes within 7 days of April 15.  In a holiday-shortened week, that means that 27 million people had better get a move on. And while a portion of this year’s last-minute filers will file […]

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Mortgage Market and Rate Forecast – Week of April 6th

April 6, 2009

Slow News Week This week, there won’t be much chance to change traders’ minds.  For one, it’s a holiday-shortened week.  Secondly, there’s just one release of importance to markets — Wednesday’s release of the March Fed Minutes. On Locking Rates Mortgage rates may not rise for the third week in a row this week but long-term momentum […]

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Mortgage Market and Rate Recap – Week of March 31st

April 6, 2009

A Volatile Week Mortgage markets were up-and-down last week as rates fell Monday and Tuesday before surging higher from Wednesday through Friday. In some cases, after touching all-time lows, conforming mortgage rates added a half-percent in the second half of the week, ruining some homeowners’ chance to lock on existing refinances. It was the second week […]

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The Form For The First Time Homebuyers Tax Credit

April 2, 2009

The First Time Home Buyer Tax Credit Form As part of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, the IRS has officially released Form 5405 (a.k.a. the First-Time Homebuyer Credit Form). I’m sure you’re not surprised to learn that this simple 10-field form is accompanied by 3 pages of instructions.  Fantastic.  It wouldn’t be […]

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Oil Prices Will Climb and Mortgage Rates Will Likely Follow

April 2, 2009

It’s No Secret Don’t look now but oil prices are climbing. This should worry today’s home buyers and would-be refinancers because some of the same forces that helped to push crude past $50 for the first time in 4 months also cause mortgage rates to rise. March 18, the Federal Reserve committed an additional $1.15 trillion […]

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Last Call For Large Cash-Out FHA Refinances

March 27, 2009

Your Best Option Is About To Leave The Building If you’re in want of a cash out refinance, the most liberal cash-out program in town is about to make qualification more difficult.  Effective April 1, 2009, the FHA is reducing the maximum loan-to-value on cash-out refinances by 10 percent, dropping the loan size limit from […]

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Recent Statistics Show Improvement in the Real Estate Market

March 27, 2009

Consistently Positive News The national housing market got its third piece of good news in 3 days: Monday: Existing Home Sales up Tuesday: Home values appear higher nationally Wednesday: New Home Sales up And although national real estate statistics are irrelevant to the local markets in which real estate transactions happen, to a country of […]

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Des Moines Iowa Real Estate Market Recap – Week of March 16th, 2009

March 27, 2009

What’s The Real Estate Market Doing? Do you ever wonder how our real estate market is here in Des Moines? Unfortunately, we spend a lot of time listening to how rough things are in other cities around the country, but too often we don’t really consider what our real estate climate is like. I’m a […]

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