Super Bowl Weekend traditionally marks the start of the Spring Buying Season in real estate. Anecdotally, real estate agents will tell you that buyer activity tends to tick higher at this time of the year. Meanwhile, with mortgage rates still trolling near all-time lows and Congress debating a first-time homebuyer tax credit, 2009 may bring [...]

The Federal Open Market Committee voted to leave the Fed Funds Rate unchanged today. It remains within a target range of 0.000-0.250 percent. In its press release, the FOMC reiterated most of the key points from its December 2008 statement, including: The U.S. employment outlook continues to deteriorate Consumers and businesses continue to cut spending [...]

The Federal Open Market Committee adjourns from its 2-day meeting today. The monetary policy-setting group is expected leave the Fed Funds Rate within its current target range of 0.00-0.250 percent. This is the lowest range for the Fed Funds Rate in history and, frankly, there isn’t much room left to go lower. Therefore, markets aren’t [...]

Don’t let the plunging median sales price fool you — December’s Existing Home Sales data has home sellers smiling. Just one month after falling below the 5-million unit trend line, sales volume roared back by 300,000 homes in December, surprising housing analysts and making a case that this spring’s Buying Season could be a competitive [...]

Mortgage markets deteriorated last week on the heels of weak economic data and uninspiring corporate earnings. Mortgage rates rose for the second week in a row. They’re now measurably higher than the low point set 3 weeks ago. For mortgage rate shoppers, though, last week’s most important stories weren’t necessarily last week’s most reported stories; [...]

When a homeowner sells his home and decides to buy a new one, there are 3 basic options for the residence — sell it, keep it, or rent it. Unfortunately, no matter which path they choose, move-up homebuyers in need of a new conforming mortgage will find qualifying for a home loan to be more [...]

The S&P/Case-Shiller Home Price Index is a popular measure of domestic home prices, released monthly. The index reports on the largest 20 U.S. markets, painting a broad picture of real estate values nationwide. Despite the Case-Shiller Index’s two obvious flaws — (1) it only counts repeat sales on single-family residences, and (2) it only includes [...]

After a strong start Monday and Tuesday, mortgage markets suffered alongside stock markets in the latter half of last week, leaving mortgage rates higher on the week overall. Market losses were especially steep Friday and mortgage rates headed into the long weekend on a strong uptick. Regardless, the reasons that mortgage rates rose last week [...]

Another week, another screaming headline about mortgage rates falling to an all-time low. Freddie Mac published its weekly mortgage rate survey Thursday and found that the “average” mortgage rate is now 4.96 percent, the lowest since the survey started in 1971. But, if we look beyond the headline, we find that there’s another part of [...]