Mortgage

Even at 3.25%, Refinancing Makes NO SENSE! Here’s Why

October 16, 2011

There’s an old rule of thumb that if you can refinance at an interest rate 1% or more below your current rate, it’s a good deal.  That advice is too broad and may not be true in many circumstances.  It doesn’t take into account so many factors like how far into the current loan you […]

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50 YEAR LOWS on MORTGAGE RATES – Who’s Refinancing?

August 19, 2011

Mortgage rates nationwide plunged to new lows not seen in over 50 years.  Here are some key national averages from Freddie Mac, but of course, review this local rate table to see how low you can go in your area: 30-year fixed-rate mortgage average is 4.15% with an average 0.7 points for the week ending […]

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Renters Are Deluding Themselves – Here’s Why

August 16, 2011

It’s en vogue now to be “anti-homeownership” given the recent crash in home prices and all the shenanigans the mortgage companies, banks and Wall street firms pulled over the past several years.  People tend to use the recency effect and confirmation bias to formulate their opinions which dictate important lifestyle and financial decisions. Before you […]

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Pre-Paying Your Mortgage – Obsessive or Responsible?

July 13, 2011

I have a co-worker friend that is hell-bent on paying off his mortgage as quickly as possible.  Paying down debt of any type and saving for the future is a noble cause, but he’s pretty much obsessed over it and I can’t help but question (as I have to him) what he’s giving up in […]

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Woo-Hoo! Mortgage Rates Are Tanking Again 8th Week in a Row!

June 9, 2011

So, now that we’ve decided not to move, I’d been eying a refinance all along, but at the time we made our decision, rates had increased too much for it to make sense (thanks to QE2, rates actually rose following the announcement, huh?).  Anyway, in the face of continuing poor economic numbers, a rising unemployment […]

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Crowd-Sourcing Fail

April 26, 2011

I read about the latest crowdsourcing initiative to be generating some buzz.  In this case, it’s a mortgage rate comparison tool which relies on reports from “the community” instead of the usual inputs that mortgage sites list.  The site is called SmartHippo with the tagline “join the herd, save money“.  The premise here is that […]

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