In this last, drowsy week of summer, long-term rates were unchanged: the 10-year T-note held under 3.50%, lowest-fee mortgages about 5.25%. Summer has another three weeks to run to solstice, but it’s all-hands-on-deck next week before a late Labor Day to deal with the first August data, especially Friday’s employment report. The change in payrolls […]
Interest rates are a hair lower at week’s end, more in relief that another massive Treasury borrowing — $109 billion in term debt alone — came off without injuries. However, long-term Treasury rates have been elevated since May, pushing mortgages to 5.50%, past the edge of refinance demand, and near the limit of buyer demand. […]
News of a 467,000-job loss in June, one-third worse than forecast, is hurting stocks but no help to long rates: the 10-year is stuck at 3.50%, mortgages just under 5.50%. Green Shooters say the payroll weakness was magnified by temporary auto-plant closings, and they point to signs of bottom in auto sales and housing prices, […]
As anyone who has recently applied for a mortgage has discovered, credit reports are no longer evaluated by humans, and instead are numerically scored by computer software (the most common: “FICO” scores). Similar systems are used to underwrite all other consumer loans, though not as comprehensively as in the mortgage business, where the larger sums […]
If you are contemplating a home addition, small or large, renovation or full-scale pop-top, to a home you already own or are about to buy, there are two overriding financial objectives. First, to navigate the maze of carts and horses littering the mortgage horizon. How do I finance an addition I haven’t yet built? I […]
The mortgage industry used to care. We cared about all sorts of things… your landlord, your rent, where you got your down payment, your old W-2s, how long you had been on your job, how many jobs, what kind of jobs…. We don’t care about a lot of that stuff any more. The brave new […]
Back in the old days (when the Boomers were worried about turning 40), if you got a loan to buy a house, yousent the monthly payment to the people downtown who held your mortgage in their vault. Not any more. While many consumers have detected the disembodied nature of modern “lenders”, very few havefigured out […]
The refinancing opportunity of a lifetime has gone by like a semi on a dirt road blasting past some poor fellowtrying to change a tire. Why, the slipstream alone was enough to knock a car off a jack. There’s a thing or two worth studying while the gravel settles. Next to buying the house in […]
The unnecessary pain inflicted by computers is not the fault of the machines, but rather that of the eagerwireheads who think computers are so neat that they should be used for everything. Enthusiastic nerds havestruck again, and may the gods of silicon save your credit report. Credit information has been “computerized” ever since the punch […]
Many consumers have learned that their credit records have been reduced to three-digit scores, and that these scores now determine the fate of most loan applications. The higher the score assigned to you by each of the three, giant repositories of credit information (Transunion, Experian, and Equifax), the loCredit scores, and how to manage your […]
