Mortgage Industry Blog

  What’s Ahead For Mortgage Rates This Week : August 29, 2011     Last week was another volatile week for mortgage rates. Wall Street alternately sought risk and shunned it, causing mortgage-backed bonds to rise and fall rapidly. There was a lot to move markets, too, including banking concerns ac...

What's Ahead For Mortgage Rates This Week : August 22, 2011 Mortgage markets improved again last week, pushing mortgage rates in South Carolina to an all-time low; lower than the lows set last November, even. Last week’s low mortgage rate drivers are primarily European. Joining the debt concerns...

What Perks Does Your Favorite Credit Card Offer?     Last week, the Federal Reserve pledged to leave the Fed Funds Rate near 0.000 percent until at least mid-2013. For credit card holders in South Carolina who carry a monthly balance, this is good news. Because of the Fed’s call, credit card rat...

What's Ahead For Mortgage Rates This Week : August 15, 2011   Mortgage markets improved again last week. The combination of global economic uncertainty plus a dour outlook from the Federal Reserve pushed mortgage bonds to highs for 2011, and drove mortgage rates below their all-time lows. Bonds ...

Foreclosures Sink To 4-Year Low   Foreclosure activity continues to slow. According to RealtyTrac, a national foreclosure-tracking firm, the number of foreclosure filings nationwide fell 35 percent as compared to July 2010, a statistic suggesting that the housing market continues to improve. “Fo...

A Simple Explanation Of The Federal Reserve Statement (August 9, 2011 Edition)   Tuesday, the Federal Open Market Committee voted to leave the Fed Funds Rate unchanged within its current target range of 0.000-0.250 percent. The vote was 7-3 — the first time in 5 meetings that the nation’s Centra...

Mortgage Rates Drop After U.S. Credit Downgrade   Mortgage rates continue drifting downward, despite — or because of — a ratings downgrade on long-term U.S. government debt. Standard & Poors issued a single-notch downgrade after Friday’s market close, from AAA to AA+. Of the roughly $9.4 billion...

New Home Supplies Drop, And So Does Homebuilder Confidence     On paper, the market for newly-built, single-family homes looks healthy. Last month, the number of new homes sold on an annualized, seasonally-adjusted basis tallied 319,000. The May reading is the second-highest of the year, and 6 pe...

What's Ahead For Mortgage Rates This Week : June 27, 2011 Mortgage markets improved again last week on a revised economic outlook for the U.S. economy, and ongoing concerns about Greece and its sovereign debt. Conforming mortgage rates in South Carolina fell last week and now hover near the all-t...

Top 25 Least Expensive U.S. Cities     A report issued Monday by the U.S. government showed core inflation rising 2.5 percent in the last 12 months for its biggest one-year gain since January 2010. Everyday living is becoming expensive, it seems. But there are some U.S. towns in which the cost of...