Real Estate

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 […]

Read the full article →

7 Things Your Pool Contractor Won’t Tell You

May 22, 2011

  I know, I’m set to be banished to eternal personal finance damnation for admitting this (after surviving that “rapture”), but we’re putting in a swimming pool!  While I’m fully aware that pools don’t make for a good “investment”, this is a lifestyle choice we made after careful consideration.  When we had saved for years […]

Read the full article →

Housing Values in Real Terms Haven’t Risen a Dime in 100 Years

March 24, 2011

There was a cool chart that caught my eye from visualeconomics.com where they adjusted home values for inflation back to 1890. Ignoring the log-scale nominal trajectory, note in terms of inflation-adjusted dollars (REAL dollars), housing is flat – for over a century.  There were some good buying and selling signals along the way, but each […]

Read the full article →

Study: 33% Needed Thousands Extra to “Cash-In” Refi – Could You Do It?

October 28, 2010

You’ve gotta have money to make money, right?  Well, apparently, you’ve gotta have money to SAVE money also.  As this recent report shows fully one third of homeowners refinancing last quarter had to do “cash-in” refinances at closing.  Dropping home prices and tighter underwriting standards are driving this trend.  It’s gotta be a real kick […]

Read the full article →

Mortgage Rates Break New Records – How Low Can They Go?

October 7, 2010

Today, the benchmark 30 Year conventional rate fell to a fresh low of 4.27%, down from 4.32% last week.  Meanwhile the 15 Year rate was down to 3.72% from 3.75% last week.  This data comes from Freddie Mac each Thursday and the averages include points, usually in the 0.6-0.7 point range. What’s Driving These Insanely […]

Read the full article →

New Construction Pricing for Upgrades – BY THE BALLS

September 28, 2010

For anyone that’s been following my tweets and recent posts, we’d decided to move some time back to get into a larger home, get a larger yard and most importantly, a better school district.  Where we’re at now is fine and if we never moved I think our kids would still have a great childhood.  […]

Read the full article →

Next Entries →