Monthly Archives February 2010

You Snooze…….You Lose…….

Those Who Wait Will Pay Thousands More This Spring Waiting a few extra days or weeks to purchase a home this spring could cost buyers thousands of extra dollars as the office of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) implements several changes for loans guaranteed by the Federal Housing Authority (FHA). Coming just weeks before the April 30 deadline for the Home Buyer Tax Credit and just days after the March 31 expiration of the Federal Reserve Board's mortgage backed securities purchase program (which has kept home loan rates artificially low for over a year), these FHA changes make it even
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Appraisals, Market Conditions & Greece…

February 16, 2010 Mortgage Market Conditions Markets were closed yesterday in observance of President's Day. Today's market news was the manufacturing index which showed improved numbers from last month, increase in business activity and business leaders forcasting better economic conditions in the coming months. Stocks off to a good start precipitated by the report with the DOW up just over 100 points ( 10:00AM CST ). Mortgage bonds relatively flat and holding, providing some stability in mortgage rates for the time being. The recent trend of economic reports have been encouraging but for all the fluffy forecasts to come to
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New Job Report – How it affects Homes, Mortgages & You

New Job Report – a Mixed Bag of Treats ( or Tricks) The Labor Department, today, released the latest government data for Non-farm payrolls ( employment data ) which revealed jobs losses of 20,000 for January. This was a surprise as the consensus expected a gain of 15,000 – 20,000 jobs. Surprisingly, the unemployment rate dipped to 9.7%. However, employment numbers for December were revised to 150,000 job losses as compared to initial reportings of 85,000. Furthermore the Business Survey threw in another revision that indicated an ADDITIONAL 900,000 job losses from March 2008 – March 2009 from what was
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