T Chumba's (rightmortgage) Blog

These days, homes are more affordable than ever as the housing market emerges from a slow winter season and mortgage rates are still near 5 percent. Soft housing and low rates are an excellent combination for home buyers but whereas home values rise with a gradual pace, mortgage rates can change ...

Single-family Housing Starts idled last month, dropping just 3,000 units from the month prior, or 0.2%. According to the Commerce Department’s report, February marked the 8th straight month in which Housing Starts straddled the half-million marker, dating back to June 2009. This is a different s...

The Federal Open Market Committee adjourns from a scheduled 1-day meeting today, its second of the year. The FOMC has held the Fed Funds Rate in a target range of 0.000-0.250 percent since December 16, 2008, and the voting members of the Fed are expected to vote “no change” again today. However, ...

We have been having a pretty nice run as of lately, I’ll have to admit: Mortgage rates are super low, home prices are stabilizing, free $$$ from the government is going in our back pockets, and best of all, spring’s right around the corner. Now that the economy is headed a bit more in the right ...

  If you’ve been running into issues refinancing your mortgage the “conventional” way, here’s some good news – The Federal Housing Finance Agency has extended the government’s Home Affordable Refinance Program by 12 months. HARP’s new end date is June 30, 2011. Originally known as Making Home Aff...

Foreclosure filings topped 300,000 for the 12th straight month last month as 1 in every 418 U.S. homes received a foreclosure filing, Nevada being the worst and Vermont the best. It’s a small improvement from January and just a 6 percent increase over February 2009. On a per-capita basis, forecl...

If your mortgage is set to adjust this year, the smart move may be to let it. Today’s conforming mortgages are adjusting lower than ever before — as low as 3 percent. It may not be what you expected when you signed for your ARM several years ago. The reason why ARMs are adjusting lower is becaus...

As the First Time Home Buyer tax credit comes to an end, it seems as though home buyers are taking longer to find a home that suits their needs. One may call it an issue of supply and demand, however, most are calling it “My Realtor sucks!” Just like early 2007, real estate was booming at an astr...

Long, but very helpful… Increases in FHA UFMIP, monthly MI factor, and reductions in seller paid closing costsI’m sure you’ve heard through the grapevine all the recent changes that are going to be implemented with FHA loans. Basically now, regardless of consumers’ credit score and down payment,...

Yesterday was a pretty big day, and this morning even more. The DOW is currently down about 133 points, and while several economic reports are out, the biggest one is, again, the Jobless Claims is in at 482k, that is the largest jump in claims in the past 8 months – a pretty big figure. What doe...