In 2021-2023 several market factors combined to make things hard for first time homebuyers. First, constrained supply of homes on the market combined with low interest rates made home values skyr...
In our last post, we went into some detail on figuring out how big of a mortgage and home purchase price a homebuyer can afford. In this post we will share a simple rule of thumb to figure out th...
Home values have skyrocketed all across the US over the last 2-3 years. This has resulted in hundreds of thousands of dollars in additional equity for a large percentage of American homeowners. T...
People often come to us wondering “how much house” they can afford. This is a somewhat complicated question because there are many variables that contribute to that answer. In this post we’...
The global pandemic that has gripped the world for the last year has not only been a health emergency, but has also massively impacted financial markets. One of the side effects of widespread fea...
Market forces have converged in recent months to push mortgage interest rates to lows no seen since the fall of 2016. In addition, values of homes have been steadily rising all across the U.S. fo...
On occasion consumers will ask us “what is the optimal down payment amount for a home purchase?” The answer to that question depends on the circumstances of the borrower, but the following ar...
The Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) recently announced that the maximum loan limits on Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, and FHA mortgages are increasing in 2018. Starting this month the loan limits...
Several weeks ago the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) announced that the HARP program would be extended through the end of 2018. In addition, a new program designed to allow borrowers to re...
After the general election in November of 2016 mortgage interest rates spiked significantly higher than they had been the weeks and months prior to the election. Since then rates have not returne...
While the USDA and VA mortgage programs require zero down payment when purchasing a home, the two most popular government-backed mortgage programs, FHA and Fannie Mae/Freddie Mac, do require down...
As we discuss on our home purchase page, there are several government-backed home purchase programs available. The main categories of programs are Fannie/Freddie loans, FHA loans, VA loans, and U...
In January of 2017 the FHA announced that it would be reducing its ongoing mortgage insurance fees for 85 basis points per year to 60 basis points per year. While not an earth-shattering change, ...
For many years the maximum loan amount for a conforming (Fannie/Freddie) mortgage has been set at $417,000 except in counties designated at “high-cost” counties. Starting in January of 2017 t...
As we reported last spring, the USDA Rural Housing program will be significantly improving its terms starting in October of 2016. Here is an excerpt of the announcement from the USDA: Upfront Gua...