Related to Mortgage

Although the Fed has cut rates, mortgage rates for 30-year fixed-rate loans actually have risen the past two weeks. Freddie Mac, the mortgage company, reported last week that 30-year fixed-rate mortgages averaged 6.13 percent, up from 6.03 percent the previous week.

Many who bought at the height of the housing boom in 2004 and 2005 can’t refinance because they owe more than their houses are worth. The glut of homes for sale across South Florida and the region’s foreclosure crisis have slashed property values by about 20 percent in the past two years. (more…)

Once you decide to shop around for a certain lender, you have officially started the process of a home mortgage loan. However, it doesn’t end here. You will then have to sign a purchase contract and undergo through the credit approval process, which verifies your actual income, certain liabilities and your ability to repay the potential loan.

When you are invited for a loan interview, make sure to bring a signed copy of the purchase contract. This contract for your house loan specifies the down payment amount, price of the house and your proposed closing date. Typically, when you apply for a mortgage loan, the lender uses all these information to calculate whether the house you wish to buy could serve as collateral for the money you want to borrow. (more…)

Over the last 18 months, the Egglestons have watched one house after another on their street, Gardenview Drive, end up foreclosed and vacant. Although lawns are still tidy and empty homes are not boarded up and stripped as they are in inner-city Cleveland, the Egglestons say Maple Heights no longer feels safe after dark. Nor do they have the confidence they had when they moved in a decade ago that this is the ideal place to raise their 6-year-old twin girls, Sydney and Shelby. So, in May 2006, they put their home on the market in order to move closer to Mrs. Eggleston’s parents in another middle-class Cleveland suburb, Richmond Heights. (more…)