Real Estate, Mortgages and Homeowner Resources

Mortgage modifications – for those who are unfamiliar with the term – are special adjustments in a homeowner’s mortgage payments that are intended to help them keep making payments and avoid foreclosure. Mortgage modifications have been in the news a lot over the last few years as the real estate bubble burst and the economy [...]

Have we seen the bottom of the housing market? Some experts think so, and for now there is some evidence to back that opinion up. A new report from TransUnion – on of the “big three” credit-tracking agencies – reveals that homeowners are suffering a bit less when it comes to paying their mortgage. There [...]

As our previous article makes clear, mortgage lenders are holding potential borrowers to a much higher standard than they have in recent years. The days of reckless abandon when mortgage lenders were handing our loans to just about anyone with a pulse are clearly gone. With a smaller number of buyers that qualify for loans [...]

Despite the rosy talk of an improving real estate market, lenders are not quite ready to ease up on the tough standards they have put in place since they woke up and realized they were dishing out mortgage loans that many borrowers could not afford just a few short years ago. The current situation leaves [...]

Although many homeowners make payments to mega-banks like CitiGroup, Bank of America, Wells Fargo and others, a lot of them may realize that the big bank is simply acting as a mortgage servicer for one of the big quasi-Federal mortgage lenders like Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac. The big banks, as you might expect, line [...]

We’re seeing some pretty amazing developments in the mortgage industry these days. It is being reported that rates for 30-year mortgages just hit a new low of 4.01 percent. That’s being described as a “historic low” and there’s some expectation that rates may have room so slide even further south. Rates for 15-year mortgages can [...]

With interest rates lower than they have been in years, many would-be home buyers are finding out that it’s often not easy to get into a new home with one of these new low-interest mortgages. The whole economic meltdown has lenders scrutinizing potential borrowers a lot more closely than in the past. I know from [...]

Bank of America. Just typing that it in makes my skin crawl. This is of course, is my personal opinion, but Bank of America is one of scummiest corporations doing business on this planet. With that out of the way, it actually brings a smile to my face to learn that this MegaBank may be [...]

The 15-year mortgage has been around for a while now. A new article in Time magazine examines the potential advantages of choosing a 15-year mortgage instead of the more traditional 30-year mortgage. Anyone who has had experience with mortgages probably knows about the advantages of the 15-year mortgage – the most obvious being that you [...]

New mortgage standards currently being hammered out by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau will attempt to reduce the risk of mortgages being given to consumers who do not have the ability to pay them back. The foreclosure crisis we have been experiencing for the last few years is blamed partly on mortgages approved for borrowers [...]