The Mortgage Manifesto!

So who or what determines the interest rates for mortgages?

We all like to blame the lender for the rates, especially when the rates rise. Did you know that the lender has very little to do with the rate? Your lender may have control over the rate they charge you by about ¼%... especially with this competitive marketplace battling for your loan.

In reality, the lender has very little to do with the rates on the grand scale of things. There is no “Great OZ” behind a curtain trying to figure out how to swindle you out of your hard-earned money. Even the big boys like Citi and Wells or WAMU answer to the higher power for mortgage rates… that being the secondary market.

Reverse Mortgages & Your Financial Planning Concerns

Reverse mortgages are becoming increasingly popular over the last several years. The number of federally insured reverse mortgages increased by over 70,000 in just the last five years. What the consumer needs to realize is that there are a variety of programs and the FHA / HUD insured; although the most popular, is just one of them. There are a number of other proprietary reverse mortgage products.

Sun Belt housing 'flips' backfire

Jun. 18--Housing speculators who got burned and are walking away from their investments drove the foreclosure rate on prime mortgage loans to a record high in the first quarter, with the problem most prevalent in

California

,

Florida

,

Arizona

and

Nevada

.

The trend in Sun Belt states that had greatly overheated housing markets may foreshadow problems in areas like

Washington

that many analysts think also experienced a housing bubble led by strong speculative buying, particularly in condominiums, during t e housing boom between 2000 and 2005. Figures from the Mortgage Bankers Association released yesterday showed that foreclosures are on the rise in nearly every category, but they are particularly pronounced in Midwest states experiencing manufacturing recessions and Sun Belt states where ho sing investors flocked in hopes of making quick money by "flipping" house purchases.

The trend in the Sun Belt emerged only this year and has quickly driven the foreclosure rate on prime loans to a record 0.25 percent. Many of the investors were well-off real estate professionals, riding the wave of the housing boom, as well as middle and upper-income families with good credit and cash to invest. Their dreams of getting rich quick have been replaced by fears of losing a great deal of money as prices started plunging. Rather than take the risk of suffering sizable losses in a protracted housing downturn, some investors have stopped paying their loans and turned their properties over to the bank to be auctioned off.