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Archive for April, 2008

US News and World Report just published this article that ties in nicely with my post from earlier today:
Faced with a weak dollar and rising inflation, the Federal Reserve seems done with its aggressive rate-cutting campaign. Here’s how this shift in monetary policy may affect mortgage rates this year:
How have fixed mortgage rates been moving [...]

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I read this morning that the Mortgage Bankers Association reported that new mortgage applications fell 11.1% this week. We have seen traffic fall off a little over the same period but there are a few things that anyone who can buy a house today needs to realize:
1. Assuming we get the quarter point rate cut [...]

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If the current economic news isn’t scary enough, two “respected” analysts have come up with Doomsday scenarios that are guaranteed to terrify you.
Here’s one from Mark Gimein, who writes for Slate.com.
Gimein argues that the subprime crisis is going to spill over into prime loans, greatly expanding both the reach and the consequences of the mortgage [...]

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The media are having a wonderful time mis-reporting housing conditions, ooing and ahhing every time Robert Shiller shouts “Fire!” in the theater. This week he predicted (again) a “30 percent decline in housing prices.” All of them, Robert? Uniformly? Average?
Do the math: if half the nation’s homes stay price-flat, the other half must fall 60 [...]

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The country’s two largest sources of mortgage money have a blunt warning for anyone thinking about joining the growing “walkaway” trend in which homeowners stop making payments and months later send the house keys back to their lender: You will feel the pain.
“Jingle mail” will most certainly come back to haunt you (”Jingle Mail” is [...]

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