FREE MORTGAGE NEWS 4U.COM by Brenda Jarvis

December 3, 2008

Treasury urged to cut mortgage rates: Financial industry lobbyists are urging the Treasury Department to take steps to lower mortgage rates in an effort to stabilize the housing market. Under the proposal, Treasury would seek to lower the rate on a 30-year mortgage to 4.5 percent, Scott Talbott, a vice president at the Financial Services Roundtable, said Wednesday. That’s about one percentage point below the current rate of 5.6 percent. Treasury would do so by purchasing Read Full Article

November 24, 2008

Decline in real estate is expected to get worse WASHINGTON - Nationwide sales of existing homes fell more than expected last month, as economic fears made buyers leery even though prices plunged to the lowest level in more than four years. And the decline is expected to get worse because October's results reflect sales contracts signed before Wall Street's nosedive. The National Association of Realtors said Monday that sales of existing homes fell 3.1 percent to a seasonally adjusted Read Full Article

November 10, 2008

With few surprises in the election results, investors focused on the prospects for the economy. The outlook for economic growth moved progressively lower during the week, and Friday's weak Employment data reinforced this view. The reports on manufacturing, construction, and factory orders released this week showed declines as well. A sluggish economy is generally consistent with reduced inflationary pressures and is favorable for mortgage rates, and rates moved lower each day from Monday Read Full Article

October 30, 2008

Mortgage interest rates have been seesawing like the stock market over the last few weeks and this week they again took some mega-jumps. According to Freddie Mac's Primary Mortgage Market Survey for the week ended October 30, the 30-year fixed-rate mortgage (FRM) increased from 6.04 percent with 0.6 point during the previous week to an average of 6.46 percent with 0.7 point. This was a healthy jump but fell far short of the increase during the week ended October 16 when the 30-year jumped Read Full Article

October 17, 2008

As people wait for the federal government's various bailouts and rescues to trickle down and stabilize the economy, they got more bad news: The cost of financing or refinancing a home purchase has gotten more expensive. The average interest rate on a 30-year fixed-rate mortgage jumped to 6.74% (6.4% for a 15-year), the biggest weekly increase in 21 years, according to Bankrate.com's survey of lenders. Last week's Bankrate benchmark was 6.2%. According to Bankrate, the new rate means Read Full Article