Explaining Today’s Mortgage Rates If you’re following mortgage rates because you know they impact your borrowing costs, you may be wondering what the future holds for them. Unfortunately, there’s no easy way to answer that question because mortgage rates are notoriously hard to forecast.   But, ther

30YR Fixed 6.96% -0.13% 15YR Fixed 6.38% -0.04%   Home Prices Hit New Peaks Despite Affordability Issues   The Black Knight Mortgage Monitor for May doesn’t even hint at a housing crisis on the horizon. Affordability is again (or maybe still) a concern, but buyers are out there, and home prices refl

30YR Fixed 7.14% -0.08% 15YR Fixed 6.50% -0.15%   Mortgage Rates Back Over 7% as Markets Digest Economic Data Until a few weeks ago, it looked like we might have seen the last of 7% mortgage rates, but the last 2 weeks have been brutal. The culprit has been a collection of several scheduled economic

Today’s Housing Inventory Is a Sweet Spot for Sellers One of the biggest challenges in the housing market right now is how few homes there are for sale compared to the number of people who want to buy them. To help emphasize just how limited housing inventory still is, let’s take a look at the lates

30YR Fixed 7.02% -0.02% 15YR Fixed 6.42% -0.03%   Mortgage Rates Jumped Over 7% This Week, Even if You Heard They Were 6.71% Mortgage rates have been hovering in the high 6's for weeks, but they broke above 7% on Thursday. At the same time, multiple news outlets reported a 30yr fixed rate of 6.71%.

30YR Fixed 6.91% -0.01% 15YR Fixed 6.32% +0.00%   April Home Prices Bolster Case for Recovery Both the S&P CoreLogic Case-Shiller U.S. National Home Price Index and the Federal Housing Finance Agency’s (FHFA’s) Home Price Index (HPI) show home prices continuing to increase in April although at a muc

Do homes with solar panels sell for more than comparable homes without panels? Caption     Yes, homes with owned solar panels typically sell for more than comparable homes without panels. According to a study by Zillow, homes with solar panels sell for an average of 4.1% more than comparable homes w

Eco-Friendly, Energy-Efficient Homes Attract Buyers Smart Home Features - Add Value to Homes   Are you planning to sell your house? If so, you may be surprised to hear just how much buyers value energy efficiency and eco-friendly features today. This is especially true as summer officially kicks off

30YR Fixed 6.95% +0.05% 15YR Fixed 6.32% +0.04%   Two Ways to Look at Existing Home Sales The reality of the home sales market is in the eye of the beholder these days and the just-released Existing Home Sales report doesn't shed much light.  The National Association of Realtors (NAR) logged an annu

30YR Fixed 6.90% +0.03% 15YR Fixed 6.28% +0.03%   New Home Construction Growth Swings From 14 Year Low to 13 Month High Although the New Residential Construction report released by the Census Bureau has notoriously wide margins of error, it's rare to see numbers like today's rendered irrelevant by a

30YR Fixed 6.89% -0.01% 15YR Fixed 6.28% -0.01% Mortgage Rates 101, Part 5: What Causes Mortgage Rates to Change? Mortgage rates change daily, and sometimes multiple times per day. In this article, “mortgage rates” will refer to the combination of upfront cost and actual interest rate described here

Oops! Home Prices Didn’t Crash After All During the fourth quarter of last year, many housing experts predicted home prices were going to crash this year. Here are a few of those forecasts: Jeremy Siegel, Russell E. Palmer Professor Emeritus of Finance at the Wharton School of Business: “I expect ho

There is no one-size-fits-all answer to the question of how much a house is worth. A house's value depends on several factors, including the location, size, condition, and amenities of the home. The value of a house can also be affected by the current market conditions. Here are some of the factors

30YR Fixed 6.98% -0.03% 15YR Fixed 6.27% -0.03%   Mortgage Applications Decrease Again, Volatile Rates, Stagnant Inventories The Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA) said its Market Composite Index, a measure of mortgage loan application volume, decreased 4.6 percent on a seasonally adjusted basis dur

For many of us, visiting the same vacation spot every year is a summer tradition that’s fun, relaxing, and restful. If that sounds like you, now’s the time to consider your plans and determine if buying a vacation home this year makes more sense than renting one again. According to Forbes:  “. . . i

30YR Fixed 6.69% +0.02% 15YR Fixed 6.05% +0.01%   Lack of Existing Home Listings Boost Builder Confidence Home builders’ attitudes about the market for newly constructed homes continued to improve in May, partially due to the lack of available pre-owned homes for sale. The National Association of Ho

30YR Fixed 6.67% +0.12% 15YR Fixed 6.04% +0.09%   Hi, My Name is Consolidation, And I Can Explain Everything Scroll down far enough on the list of Webster's definitions of the word "consolidate," and you'll find "to form together into a compact mass."  Financial markets appropriated that definition

Buyer Activity Is Up Despite Higher Mortgage Rates If you’re a homeowner thinking about making a move, you may wonder if it’s still a good time to sell your house. Here’s the good news. Even with higher mortgage rates, buyer traffic is actually picking up speed. Data from the latest ShowingTime Show

30YR Fixed 6.49% -0.09% 15YR Fixed 5.90% -0.10%   Lowest Mortgage Rates in Weeks After Fed Hikes Rates. Here's How That Works... The implication of "Fed rate hikes" is a constant source of confusion in the housing market.  The general belief is that the Fed controls rates and if they're hiking, then

30YR Fixed 6.73% +0.14% 15YR Fixed 6.12% +0.14%   Housing and Rates Having Tough Time Finding Momentum Mortgage rates fell nicely to start the week but only after rising rather abruptly in the previous two weeks. That said, short term ups and downs are just a sideshow in the bigger picture where rat