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Need a mortgage rate prediction for the next month? I am a regular participant in the Bankrate.com Mortgage Rate Trend survey and this week's survey may point you in the right direction.
The Bankrate.com survey is for conventional, conforming mortgages only. It does not apply to FHA mortgages, veterans mortgages, jumbo or super jumbo mortgages. Nor [...]

For the 7th consecutive month, the Case-Shiller Index showed a reduction in annual home price declines. That's more than two seasons, folks. Surely, by now, we can say housing is in recovery.

When the government makes it press releases, it doesn't talk in terms of those raw numbers. Instead, it talks about inflation in terms of change from the month prior, as a percentage. The government rounds this percentage to one decimal. According to the government, consumer inflation fell 0.1% last month. And this is where the problems set in.

Earlier, I asked my Twitter followers what mortgage questions they'd like to have answered. I picked 3 of their replies and pushed it to video. The video is a quick 2 minutes.

Need a mortgage rate prediction for the next month? I am a regular participant in the Bankrate.com Mortgage Rate Trend survey and this week's survey may point you in the right direction.
The Bankrate.com survey is for conventional, conforming mortgages only. It does not apply to FHA mortgages, veterans mortgages, jumbo or super jumbo mortgages, or [...]

Oil prices are on the move, crossing $80 per barrel for the first time in a year. The charge can't be coming at a worse time for mortgage rate shoppers. With Wall Street already in debate about inflation, the surge in crude just adds fuel to fire. Meanwhile, you may have that noticed gas prices are up this week. A lot. Use this as a clue -- higher mortgage rates are coming.

With foreclosures proliferating, PMI defaults are up 26 percent over last year and double the levels from 2007. Private mortgage insurers are paying out on many more claims than was expected and, as a result, are booking huge losses. Homeowners are about to pay the price. To shore up balance sheets and protect against future losses, mortgage insurers have raised insurance rates and toughened underwriting guidelines.

Want to refinance on the FHA Streamline Refi program? Better get a move on. Beginning in just 4 weeks -- November 17, 2009 -- the FHA changes over to new guidelines for its popular FHA-to-FHA refinance program. Getting approved for a Streamline Refi will be more difficult and more expensive.

The severity of the "Foreclosure Crisis" depends on where you live, it seems. According to the RealtyTrac.com Q3 foreclosure report, Foreclosures Per Household skews heavy towards just a few states. Nevada leads the nation with 1 foreclosure per 23 households. Its rate is six times the national average of 1 foreclosure per 136 households. Arizona, California, and Florida are a distant 2, 3 and 4, respectively.

Lately, mortgage bonds have been trading at unsustainable levels. Despite a growing mound of evidence that the economy is expanding and what looks to be an over-supply of treasury debt, mortgage-backed securities are priced as high as they've been since May. It's unnatural, really; a hedge against a stock market flop. Or something else. But forget about why rates are low -- low rates are about to end.