246 articles and videos on mortgage rates, the housing market and smart home financing, in plain English.
102-4 represents where the Fannie Mae mortgage bond closed yesterday. While the vast majority of the general public (including me, until I really began studying the interest rate markets) has absolutely no idea the significance of this number, it represents a very important decision point for buying a home or deciding on whether now is…
▶ VideoIt’s Fed Day again, and they administered another 25 basis points of “medicine” to the economy. You’ve heard me talk about Barry Habib in the past. He gave the greatest analogy. He has been talking about how if you aren’t feeling well, then the doctor will give you medicine. 5 minutes later, if you’ve still…
▶ VideoIn today’s video, we are looking at a chart to take a closer look at what is happening with home prices. I’ve showed this chart before, and this time we are looking at a zoomed in part of it. This piece shows 20 years of housing price data. Real Estate Prices Have Been Coming Down…
▶ VideoReason 942 to own real estate: it’s insurable to the full value of the asset, unlike assets held in the bank which are insured up to $250,000 unless the Feds step in and back up everything else. (And I don’t say this lightly). Real Estate is a Hard Asset In all seriousness… real estate is…
▶ VideoToday isn’t just a typical Wednesday… it’s International Women’s Day! It would be easy to wonder why Bill (the mortgage dude) cares about today. In my world, it means a lot because of the women in my life. My Beautiful Wife and 4 Amazing Daughters It all starts with my wife: she’s a beautiful, strong,…
▶ VideoWe recently rolled out a new product for high balance and jumbo loans – basically anything over the conventional limit. We are so excited about this option because the interest rates are great. Obviously, interest rates are driving everything right now. New Adjustable Rate Options These are full-doc jumbo products. But we are seeing adjustable…
▶ VideoWe just received breaking news today about FHA loans: they are going to be a little more affordable. You can see the full announcement here. The Newest FHA Loan Changes In the past, any time you have a loan with less than 20% down, it means that you are going to need some form of mortgage…
▶ VideoToday I want to run through some numbers because they are worth pointing out. This data is based on a survey done last month by NerdWallet. The two headlines: Regarding the interest rates: the truth is that 7.75% is the average interest rates over the last 50 years. A lot of homebuyers have never seen…
▶ VideoRecently, I’ve heard some funny stories about HOAs. I find that clients are very divided on this topic… some people will never live in an area with an HOA, while others are cool with an HOA. Why Some Homeowners Don’t Like HOAs Why does it matter? I understand why people are opposed to an HOA.…
▶ VideoI’ve talked about Prop 19 before, but the topic has come up a few times recently and I wanted to revisit it. In California, if you sell a primary residence property with the intent to buy another primary residence, you can take the assessment value of the original property with you. How Prop 19 Works…
▶ VideoOn Friday, we received data about existing home sales. There were a few things that popped out to me: Housing Prices Comparison The first data point looks at housing prices in December 2022 vs. December 2021. The numbers show that housing prices were up 2.3%. Obviously, the market has come off the highs (which happened…
▶ VideoIt’s starting to look like the market is moving as we have been predicting: inflation is showing signs of dropping off, and we hope that it will continue to bring rates down. We watched last year: as inflation ran, high interest rates went up. Now, we are seeing inflation coming down and interest rates are…
