I work mostly with retirees who have been planning to move to the Great Pacific Northwest, and the question almost all retirees have been asking goes something like this, “Is now the time to buy a home in the Northwest?”  Their question reflects concerns about the economy, the real estate market, their retirement funds, interest rates, and whether home prices have bottomed out.
I’ve noticed a change in the last couple of months as we head into the spring buying season.  Most of the retirees moving here are in their 50’s …

Today RealtyTrac® released its February U.S. Foreclosure Market Report.
The RealtyTrac report shows that foreclosure filings, which include default notices, scheduled auctions, and bank repossessions declined 2 percent from January. A total of 308,524 properties in the United States received one of the listed notices during the month. This equates to 1 house in every 418. Compare that to January’s ratio of 1 in every 409. That works out to a 10% month over month improvement. However, when comparing data from one year ago (Feb 2009), the ratio is 6% worse. 
James …

It’s been a fairly bland week in terms of mortgage rate activity, although that’s a good thing when rates are hovering between 4.75 and 5%.  After two dataless days to start the week and little or no movement in mortgage rates, action picked up on Wednesday. Mortgage rates opened the day lower and after a big turnout at the 10 year Treasury note auction, yields increased and mortgage-backed security prices moved higher into the close.  We expected a lender reprice with better rates, but it didn’t happen.
We had a couple of scheduled economic reports that were …

Wow, March 1st is already here and the countdown has begun to the Federal Reserve’s exit from mortgage backed securities purchasing at the end of this month.   We ended last week with some pretty good rates and things have continued to be positive for mortgage rates this week as well.   The data this week has been of light impact although we’ve seen rates improve steadily throughout the week with figures in the reports showing DEFLATION signals (Unit Labor Costs, Factory Orders).   As of today well qualified buyers should have no problem …

Mortgage rates have risen over the beginning of 2010 and are expected to climb significantly after the Federal Reserve stops purchasing mortgage backed securities in March.  Additionally any improvement to the overall economy will push rates higher as money moves out of mortgage bonds and into stocks.  A couple years ago when the economy was at full steam 30 Year Fixed loan rates were in the upper 5 and low 6% range.   So the question that all home buyers need to ask is how will a rise in mortgage rates affect their purchasing power.  While the exact numbers vary based upon …