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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.

Thursday, shortly after the markets closed, the Federal Reserve announced a 25 basis point increase to the Discount Rate. The Discount Rate is now 0.750%. Mortgage markets are selling off on the news. The Era of Low Mortgage Rates may be officially over.

In total, there are literally hundreds of influences on the day-to-day mortgage rates you and I see from our banks. It's part of what makes predicting mortgage rates so challenging. You never know which of the hundreds are influences are about to come into play. The obvious influences are inflation data, housing stats, and job markets. It's less-than-obvious factors, though, that really screw things up.

ARM-holding homeowners tend to panic when their mortgage gets set to adjust; the feeling of "I better do something fast!". If that's you right now -- if you have a conventional ARM getting set to adjust -- just relax. Math is on your side. The smart move may be to let it adjust. Your mortgage rate could fall to as low as 3.125 percent.

Small banks and investment vehicles re-opened the market for non-warrantable and condotel mortgages. Rates run about a half-percent higher than a comparable conventional mortgages and the minimum downpayment starts at 25 percent.

Foreclosure-related filings topped 300,000 last month, bringing the 12-month total to somewhere near 1.4 million nationwide. Some states, of course, are more foreclosure-heavy than others. According to RealtyTrac, the state of Nevada keeps its title as Foreclosure Central with a foreclosure rate 4 times the national average. Arizona, California and Florida aren't far behind.

Because of the bonds-and-stocks similarities, we should expect for bond markets to behave like stock markets sometimes, too. This week will be one of those times. Mortgage bond markets are ripe for profit-taking and that will be bad for mortgage rates.