Kevin Warren's Blog

  There is an obvious relationship between the movement of stocks and interest rates. When the economy is doing better, stocks should also improve. This same stronger economy increases inflationary pressures which causes interest rates to rise. In addition, when stocks are doing well, more invest...

  Over five years ago we suffered the worst recession since the great depression almost 100 years ago. Since then our economic recovery has been the weakest of all recoveries as well. There are many reasons for the weak recoveries. The fact that our real estate market was devastated and needed ye...

The stock market has been on quite a run for the past five years or so. Granted, most of this was a rebound from the precipitous drop we experienced during the financial crisis and recession. However, a run this long and this far is hard to ignore. So many times in the past five years we have see...

According to Freddie Mac's latest weekly mortgage survey, rates on home loans hit their lowest levels of the year in the past week. This is good news for potential homebuyers as it has lowered the cost of owning a home. It is also good news for those who are considering refinancing their home loa...

It really could not be predicted. For years during and after the financial crisis analysts warned that the real estate market would be weighed down by an avalanche of bank-owned properties and short-sales. And these analysts were right, at least for awhile. But quicker than most everyone expected...

After the housing market crashed in 2008, the number of single-family renting households has grown by  leaps and bounds. And it doesn’t appear like that increase is going to slow down any time soon. The National Association of Realtors expects that within the next 10 years, 5 to 6 million new ren...

The past few weeks has seen some major volatility within the stock markets. Some weeks have seen major pullbacks and others we have seen significant bounce-backs. The first ten days of April, the volatility of the markets hit on the downside. One thing which is interesting about this pullback is ...

Vacation home sales rose strongly in 2013, while investment purchases fell below the elevated levels seen in the previous two years, according to the National Association of Realtors®. NAR’s 2014 Investment and Vacation Home Buyers Survey, covering existing- and new-home transactions in 2013, sho...

For years the slow recovery was hampered by the existence of tighter credit. A vicious cycle was created when the recession caused consumer credit to worsen and at the same time banks tightened up on lending standards. For some time we have been predicting that lending standards in the real estat...

You are self-employed and are looking to purchase a home or refinance your mortgage. You have heard  horror stories regarding reams of paperwork and underwriters who wanted two pints of blood in order to approve a loan application. As a matter of fact, you have held off purchasing a home for year...