Mortgage rates barely moved in Bankrate’s weekly survey.

The benchmark 30-year, fixed-rate mortgage edged up 1 basis point, to 5.53 percent, according to the Bankrate.com’s national survey of large lenders. A basis point is one-hundredth of 1 percentage point.

The mortgages in this week’s survey had an average total of 0.32 discount and origination points. One year ago, the mortgage index was 6.6 percent; four weeks ago, it was 5.56 percent.

The benchmark 15-year, fixed-rate mortgage slipped 1 basis point, to 4.83 percent. The benchmark 5/1 adjustable-rate mortgage jumped 9 basis points, to 4.95 percent.
Who gets the credit?

Home buying activity is picking up in many U.S. markets, sparking debate about whether a federal tax break deserves kudos for the modest turnaround.

Last February’s economic stimulus package included a tax credit for first-time homebuyers who purchase a primary residence before Dec. 1. Eligible homebuyers can receive a break of up to $8,000 on their taxes so long as their gross adjusted income does not exceed $75,000 for singles or $150,000 for married couples.

Full story is available on Bankrate.com

FHA (Federal Housing Administration) loans have jumped in popularity in recent months, particularly with first-time buyers, mostly because these loans require a down payment of just 3.5% and have slightly looser requirements for high credit scores and debt-to-income ratios.

At the same time, first-time buyers are often attracted to condominiums because they generally are lower-priced than single family homes and because they offer a low-maintenance lifestyle which is appealing to novice homeowners.

There’s a bit of  a catch to this, though. FHA loans are usually offered only on properties which have been FHA approved — and many condominiums have not been approved simply because builders did not always request this approval at the time of construction. FHA loans have not always been as popular as they are now, particularly when low down payment loans were readily available from other lenders.

Full story is available on Examiner

Millions of homeowners all across the country are currently at risk
of losing their home to mortgage foreclosure. This is due to the tough
economy, a bad housing market, and a lot of homeowners with bad loans
which they just can not afford. Well, luckily, President Obama’s $75
billion “Making Home Affordable” allows financially struggling
homeowners the chance to lock in a fixed rate 2% home loan through
refinancing or loan modification. So, here are some of the details of
this plan, and how you can qualify.

This amazing chance for homeowners to refinance or modify a home
loan is being funded by Obama’s “Housing Stimulus Plan” and is being
targeted towards homeowners in order to keep their home mortgage
payments affordable, and ultimately, keep them in their home. With the
rise in the number of foreclosures across the country, housing prices
are dropping and playing a big part in preventing the economy from
rebounding. Obama’s hope is that this plan can curb the tide of
foreclosures, and help millions of homeowners at the same time.

Although millions of homeowners will be eligible to take advantage
of this plan for themselves, not everyone is able to be approved for
this “Housing Stimulus” plan. Only homeowners who are able to meet all
of the requirements for eligibility will be able to get a 2% Government
backed home mortgage refinancing or modification.

Full  story is available on Pr Presse (Pressemitteilung)

Home loan modification has become very popular over the last year as seen on the Google Trends chart. Prior to February of 2008, there were very few, if any searches for this keyword. Today we see that it is searched several thousand times a day as hoe owners are doing anything they can to avoid foreclosure and save their homes. Most of the time home owners are going to have to get professional help to go through this process but that does not mean that you cannot do some research and stay a little bit ahead of the game.

The most common place to do research is at the Making Home Affordable website. This website is very extensive so make sure that you plan on doing quite a bit of research. The good thing about this website is that it has a great amount of statistics and trends for you to see visually. There are also plenty of resources to help you determine if you are ready for a home loan modification. Please be aware that there is much more to this site than people realize; just click around and you will find out.

There are also companies out there that will be more than happy to help you with a home loan modification. You have probably seen these advertisements on television and the Internet. Some of the companies just break down things for you and help you explain them in plain English while other companies actually go through the entire process with you as if they were a mortgage lender.

Full story is available on Examiner

Ontario’s real estate market is strong. But you can find bargains galore in Florida, the U.S. state with the highest rate of foreclosures.

Property values have dropped about 40 per cent since the market there peaked in September 2005.

For example, a four-bedroom house with pool in Cape Coral (on the Gulf coast) that sold for $495,000 in 2005 is now listed at $339,000.

The property actually sold for $290,000 last month, says listing agent Carolyn Simoneau. But the buyer had to back out and wants just enough to cover his realty commissions.

Full sty is available on Toronto Star

In previous articles, I have introduced some basic Feng Shui principles, which you can read in the archives. Today I want to describe a famous principle used in home buying. The principle is called Left Dragon and Right Tiger .

Before you buy a house/condo, Outer-Environment-Feng Shui is the first thing you need to check out in your Feng Shui checkpoint list. Let’s start with a Feng Shui principle regarding the Outer-Environment Feng Shui called “Four Magic Creatures”. This is a simple but powerful principle that tells us a lot of information about your house. The four magic creatures are: (East) Dragon, (West) Tiger, (North) Turtle and (South) Phoenix. This principle originatee from classical Chinese Astronomy. In fact, these four magic creatures represent individually different dictionary energy fields around our living environment.

Full story is available on Cambridge Chronicle

Although there are a record 4.09 million previously owned houses for sale from which to choose, Americans are still buying new.

That helped push July new-home sales well past economists’ expectations, rising 9.6 percent from June’s revised numbers and more than 31 percent above their low point in January. Economists predicted only a 1.6 percent increase.

Sales volume was 13.4 percent below that of July 2008, the Commerce Department reported yesterday. The median price of $210,100 was $300 lower than in June and 11.5 percent less than a year ago, the Commerce Department said.

Full story is available on The PhiladelphiaInquirer

The number of mortgage applications across the nation rose for a second week, boosted by an increasing demand for refinancing.

According to the Mortgage Bankers Association’s survey for the week ended Aug. 21, demand for applications increased 7.5 percent from the previous week.

Demand for refinancing increased 12.7 percent from the previous week, the third increase in the last four weeks.

The refinance share of mortgage activity increased to 56.5 percent of total applications from 53.3 percent the previous week, while the adjustable-rate mortgage share of activity remained unchanged from the previous week, at 6.5 percent of total applications.

Nationwide, the average interest rate for 30-year, fixed-rate mortgages increased to 5.24 percent from 5.15 percent, with points increasing to 1.07 from 0.98.

Full story is available on BizJournals.com

Google plans to begin offering loan quotes online as early as this month, a lawsuit filed in federal court this week claims. The suit was filed by LendingTree, which offers consumers mortgage quotes and conditional loan offers online, against Mortech, a company that provides some of the technology that powers the LendingTree service. Google is not a party to the case.

But according to the complaint, filed in United States District Court for the Western District of North Carolina, Mortech plans to make its technology available to Google, which, in turn, plans to release a service that competes with LendingTree. The complaint alleges that would be a violation of a contract between LendingTree and Mortech.

“LendingTree recently learned that Google imminently plans to launch a loan aggregation service in late August or early September of this year that would compete with LendingTree,” the complaint says. “Lending Tree has also learned that Mortech intends to make its pricing engine services available for use with Google’s new service and will send information related to mortgage loan offers to be displayed to consumer on Google’s Web site.”

Full story is available on The Newyork Times

A new company, formed by mortgage specialists and real estate professionals with over 30 years experience, recently opened for business. They recognized a demand for integrity in the mortgage modification business. County loan modifications sets themselves apart from the typical foreclosure rescue service that uses marketing campaigns like “Stop Foreclosure” and “Save your Home.” These services typically come with high fees and little value.

County Loan Modifications uses information and data gathered in a forensic audit of a loan file to track and collect evidence of non-compliance, mortgage fraud and predatory lending. This provides leverage for negotiating a mortgage modification.

Mortgage loan forensic audits often turn up evidence that compels a lender to modify a loan even if the borrower is unable to qualify for mortgage modification. mortgage loan forensics gives County Loan Modifications a leading edge while increasing the probability of success in negotiating with lenders.

Full story is available on EmailWire.com