After a half-decade of tightening mortgage guidelines, banks are starting to “loosen up”.
The Federal Reserve conducts a quarterly survey of its member banks and, last quarter, not a single responding bank reported having tightened its mortgage guidelines for prime borrowers.
A...
Will your home gain value over the next 12 months? Nobody can know for sure, of course, but should recent housing trends continue, there’s concrete cause for optimism.
The housing economy has suffered since 2007, knocking home values down nearly 20% nationwide. And while some areas have fared...
BusinessWeek recently released its 2011 America’s Best Place to Raise a Family rankings. College-town Blacksburg, Virginia took top honors, breaking a 2-year win streak for the Chicago, Illinois region.
In 2009, suburban Mount Prospect, Illinois placed first. Last year, it was Tinley Park,...
As a homeowner in Gig Harbor , your fiscal responsibility extends beyond just making mortgage payments. You must also pay your home’s real estate taxes as they come due, as well as your homeowners insurance policy premiums.
Failure to pay real estate taxes can result in foreclosure. Failure to insure...
A conforming mortgage is one that, literally, conforms to the mortgage guidelines as set forth by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.
Conforming mortgage guidelines are Fannie’s and Freddie’s eligibility standards; an underwriter’s series of check-boxes to determine whether a given...
After a brief return to lower, pre-2009 levels, FHA loan limits have been restored. As signed into law last Friday, maximum FHA loan limits are — once again — as high as $729,750.
The move creates additional mortgage financing possibilities in more than 650 U.S. counties, and promises to...
