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Most lenders prefer homeowners to escrow and, as such, they penalize those that choose not to. The fee to "waive escrows" -- to pay your own taxes -- can be as high as 0.25 percent of the amount you're borrowing. On a $400,000 mortgage, that amounts to a $1,000 fee and it's one reason why homeowners often choose to escrow. Unfortunately, seeding an escrow account can be expensive, depending on the time of year.

Credit scoring is a huge part of the mortgage world. A given credit score can mean the difference between a 5 percent rate and a 6 percent rate; a conventional mortgage and an FHA mortgage; an underwriting approval and an underwriting denial. And yet, there's a persistent belief among Americans that "having your credit checked" is a bad thing. In some instances, yes. In most instances, though, no.

In mortgages, nothing's done until it's done. Here are 8 things you should absolutely not do between application and funding. Ignore them at your own peril.

Need a mortgage rate prediction? I am a regular participant in the Bankrate.com Mortgage Rate Trend survey and this week's survey may help you.

Conforming mortgages are appropriately named; they "conform" to the mortgage underwriting guidelines of Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac. Mortgages meeting these criteria are securitized on Wall Street as mortgage-backed bonds.

As mortgage performance has weakened, however, lending standards have tightened. Today's would-be borrowers are asked to document more income, deeper reserves, and higher credit scores. One underwriting area that hasn't tightened, however, is the maximum allowable loan size.

February's mortgage market could be categorized as "on edge". For the most part, rates didn't change intra-day. It was common for lenders to issue rate sheets in the morning and stick to their pricing through market close. However, there were two days on which 3 rate sheets were issued, and 1 day on which 4 were issued.

A fair number of my readers are mortgage- and/or real estate-related businesses. Consider this a public service announcement. REtechSouth is March 25-26, 2010 in Atlanta -- 4 weeks away. This is a show you should make time for.

Life as an FHA borrower is getting tougher. In an effort to shore up its flailing balance sheet and dwindling capital reserves, the Federal Housing Authority is rolling out sweeping financial changes. FHA borrowers have to look better on paper and be better credit risks. Mortgage insurance premiums are rising, too.

When banks make fixed-rate, principal + interest home loans, a borrower's monthly payment gets calculated from amortization schedules (ah-mor-ti-ZAY-shun). With respect to mortgages, amortization is the process of paying a loan to $0 over time. For homeowners, an amortization schedule's most important trait is that it creates interest-heavy repayments in...

According to Freddie Mac, Primary Mortgage Market Survey results are collected Monday through Wednesday, then published to the public Thursday. By design, therefore, the survey lumps mortgage market activity spread across 3 days into 1 single point of data. Survey results are skewed, therefore, based on the when survey responders get back to Freddie Mac. Last week, this point was painfully clear.