246 articles and videos on mortgage rates, the housing market and smart home financing, in plain English.
▶ VideoFor this week’s topic, I want to reference an article we recently found in Market Insider: it interviews the CEO of Compass Real Estate, which is a big national firm. He said something that I’ve been hearing in other places, but there was one point that stood out to me. Prediction for Real Estate Inventory…
▶ VideoYou’ve been hearing a lot of talk from me lately with one common theme: buy now and don’t wait for interest rates to drop. It seems like everyone is waiting for better interest rates. But it’s important to understand that you are going to be paying a bunch more for the house. Taking a Look…
▶ VideoToday is Fed Day! The Fed did announce a pause on increasing interest rates again, but they also said they are going to raise at least a few more times before the end of the year. I think it’s a strange prediction, but we’ll see what happens. Now we know what the story is: at…
▶ VideoWhen you apply for a mortgage and the lender does a “hard pull” on your credit, it typically triggers an onslaught of solicitations that the borrower gets for insurance, other mortgage offers, and many other services that are related to home buying and home ownership. This comes because the credit bureaus will sell your information…
▶ VideoWho likes rollercoaster rides? We’re definitely on one the last few weeks with mortgage rates. We had the inflation data come out a few weeks ago. It’s been a nose-dive in bonds ever since, which is bad for rates. Every day, rates have been getting worse. It’s been all over the news. We have seen…
▶ VideoWe’ve seen rates creeping back up again, and one reason is because of the current banking situation/crisis that is happening. How do these two things relate? Many people think of banking and mortgages in the same category, and they kind of are. But what is the direct impact here? Long story short: banks lend out…
▶ VideoThis week I want to review a slide that we’ve talked about before: the blue line is the price action on a typical house in the Temecula/Murrieta area. Even though the chart shows local details, it is what we are seeing nationally. Of course, there are nuances depending on the location in the United States.…
▶ VideoWe’ve had today marked on the calendar for a while, knowing that the Consumer Pricing Index (CPI) report was coming out. We had high hopes that it would be a pivot point for inflation. But it didn’t turn out quite like we were hoping, there was a little bit of a scare over the weekend…
▶ VideoThis topic is something I never thought I would talk about, but I’ve had a lot of questions about it lately & it needs to be addressed. Today I want to share information about Loan Level Pricing Adjustments (LLPAs). What is an LLPA? For sake of what we are talking about today, we are only…
▶ VideoA report from the National Association of Realtors talks about the myths of down payments. It’s interesting to understand that down payment requirements for buying a home might be lower than you realize: Additionally, there is down-payment assistance programs that can help. Do You Need Money for a Down Payment? The truth is that in…
▶ VideoThe National Association of Realtors recently released some interesting information. They say that homeowners build 40 times the amount of wealth compared to renters. Real Estate is Generating Wealth You’ve heard me talk about this topic often in my videos: that real estate is generating a lot of wealth than any other asset. You buy…
▶ VideoOn the mortgage front this week, inflation numbers came out this morning. CPI is still trending lower, which is a good sign. You can see in the chart below: our high was 9.1%, now we are down to 5% on the headline number. This is a significant improvement! Of course, it’s still too high, but…
