For buyers and sellers alike, home inspections are a crucial part of the home-buying and -selling process. While setting up a home inspection once you have an offer on your home is an important piece of the puzzle, taking the time to prepare for the inspection can be just as …
FHA has raised the annual Mortgage Insurance Premium to 1.25% beginning April 1st. MIP is required on all FHA loans and used to fund losses by lenders for borrowers who default on their mortgages. As of June 1st, FHA loans in excess of the standard maximum of $625,500, in …
Q: What is a bridge loan?
A: It is a short-term bank loan of the equity in the home you are selling. You may take out a bridge loan, or interim financing, to help with a knotty situation: closing on the home you are buying before you close on …
After three years of slumping business, builders anticipate that the home remodeling and improvement sector will pick up in 2012, according to a recent article in The Orlando Sentinel.
During the recent National Association of Home Builders (NAHB) Conference, NAHB researcher Paul Emrath, reported that remodeling was beginning to …
Freddie Mac (OTC:FMCC) recently released its U.S. Economic and Housing Market Outlook for February showing cautious signs of the economy and housing market moving in a positive direction fueled by an environment of low interest rates and more favorable job prospects for Americans.
Outlook Highlights
• Job gains exceeded …
Increasingly more people are looking to renting as an affordable, flexible lifestyle option, causing apartment vacancies to fall to their lowest point in 10 years. Reis reported that the apartment vacancy rate dropped to 5.2 percent in Q4 of 2011, down from their reports of 5.6 percent in Q3 of …
U.S. house prices fell modestly in the fourth quarter of 2011 according to the Federal Housing Finance Agency’s (FHFA) seasonally adjusted purchase-only house price index (HPI). The HPI, calculated using home sales price information from Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac-acquired mortgages, was 0.1 percent lower on a seasonally adjusted basis …
Yesterday, Freddie Mac released its U.S. Economic and Housing Market Outlook for February, showing cautious signs of the economy and housing market moving in a positive direction. The report attributes this good news to the current environment of low interest rates and more favorable job prospects.
Freddie Mac compiles …
Rental homes can be the IDEAL investment in today's market because they offer a much higher rate of return than alternatives without the volatility of ups and downs in the stock market.
IDEAL serves as an acronym to identify the advantages of rental properties:
Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke made the following speech at the 2012 National Association of Homebuilders International Builders' Show, held in Orlando, Fla. on February 10.
Housing Markets in Transition
The economic recovery began more than two years ago, but it doesn't feel like much of a recovery …