banktime.com

Most consumers know by now that mortgage rates are approaching all-time lows. With the national average for a thirty-year, fixed-rate mortgage hanging just under four and a half percent, there has never been a better time to buy a new home – or to refinance your home loan on a property your already own. It’s ironic that, when so many people are terrified of losing their homes to foreclosure, it’s easier than ever for consumers to afford their own residences. With rates so low, many consumers are finding that their closing costs are either nonexistent or ridiculously low. In terms of refinancing, the experts say that if you stand to save more than a quarter point, it is worth giving it a try.

I’ve heard of some off reasons to borrow against the equity in one’s home, but this surely must take the cake as the strangest one I’ve read recently. There’s no doubt that nice landscaping will take you far if you are looking to see your home, don’t get me wrong. A few nicely-maintained flower beds and green grass will instantly look inviting and attractive to browsing buyers, and add curb appeal value to your home. On the other hand, borrowing against your home equity to fund a landscaping project is a little bizarre – to say the very least! I’m not trying to be judgmental, of course… just realistic.

In exchange for charging lower fees for reverse mortgages, homeowners seeking one of these “Saver” loans would be eligible to cash in ten to eighteen percent less equity on their homes. This is intended to keep the FHA from losing money the way it has been doing on current reverse mortgages.

There’s a tremendous tendency among homeowners to think that every penny you sink into your home is an improvement that will reap you corresponding equity if and when it ever comes time to sell the property. Too bad that things don’t at all actually work that way. Statistics show that, for every thousand dollars that homeowners spend making their homes “better,” they can only expect to recoup around six hundred dollars. And that’s in best case scenarios.

It’s more bad news for home prices in the state of Ohio, an area of the country hit especially hard by the housing collapse and the continued toils of the Great Recession. A new report from Cleveland showed home prices in the northeastern part of the state taking a veritable nose-dive, right in line with overall U.S. home values that were at a ten-year low. From coast to coast, individual housing markets are painting a very clear picture of just how bad off the real estate situation is.

The president is hard at work thinking up ways to overhaul his administration’s tackling of the foreclosure crisis, say experts. Obama is looking to set requirements obliging lenders to lower or eliminate mortgage payments for those homeowners who have lost their jobs. Under the proposal currently being considered, banks would be required to cut mortgage payments to where they accounted for no more than thirty-one percent of the borrower’s income, which is usually equivalent to the amount of unemployment insurance that they qualify for receiving, for anywhere from three to six months.

Mortgage rates are at historic lows, and there is evidence that they will continue to fall in weeks to come. Last week, the national average mortgage rate bottomed out at 4.44%, according to Freddie Mac. Usually in times like these, prospective homeowners and those who already have mortgages would be lined up in snaking queues around the block to attain mortgages and refinancing to get better payments.

Ethics and morality have very little place in real estate. That old axiom had never been truer than in this day and age. I recently read an article in the Denver Post about “buy and bail” homeowners – those who purchase a home when they already own one that is upside-down on equity and considered to be a poor investment – and then ditch the first home. The new home is purchased before the conniving homeowners’ credit scores are trashed by the strategic foreclosure that they plan on executing.

National real estate tracker Zillow.com has shown the value of houses and other properties in South Florida plummeting again, continuing a trend that is by now several years old. This area of the Sunshine State ranks among the twenty worst in the whole country for home values having fallen significantly lower than the houses in question are worth. The sad part is that experts say that the Greater Miami-Ft. Lauderdale market has yet to bottom out, meaning that darker days are still probably ahead for this troubled region.

I recently read a disturbing article in the New York Times having to do with the repayment of home equity loans that were borrowed during the height of the real estate bubble that precipitated the current economic crisis. In the halcyon days of blooming real estate values, during the first part of the last decade, homeowners across America borrowed upwards of a trillion dollars in cash against the grossly inflated values of their homes. Just a few short years later, with home values in the tank, the money spent, and these same consumers exhausted from a half-decade of recession, most of these borrowers are either unable or disinclined to pay back what they technically owe.