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mortgage news
by Dan Rafter on August 24, 2009
The news on housing foreclosures isn't getting any better. In fact, it's getting worse.
According to a story in the Wall Street Journal, one in every eight U.S. households with mortgages was...
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mortgage news
by Dan Rafter on August 14, 2009
Remember when the number of housing foreclosures first started to boom? We liked to say it was because of all those greedy homeowners who took out high-risk subprime mortgages to get into homes they c...
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mortgage news
by Dan Rafter on August 11, 2009
Pres. Barack Obama wants mortgage companies to do everything in their power to prevent families from losing their homes to foreclosure. You can bet he's not thrilled with a story that ran earlier ...
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by Dan Rafter on August 10, 2009
If you own a home, the odds are good that you'll be "underwater" by 2011.
No homeowner wants this. It's when you owe more on your mortgage loan than what your home is worth. Accordi...
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by Dan Rafter on August 7, 2009
A rising number of U.S. residents in June signed contracts to buy homes. It's just one more piece of evidence that the U.S. housing market is finally recovering from its long slump.
And that'...
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by Dan Rafter on August 4, 2009
Mortgage lenders have received their share of grief for the country's housing and financial crises. Many blame the companies for passing out risky mortgage loans to borrowers who never should have...
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by Dan Rafter on July 30, 2009
A growing number of economists are joining the chorus: A housing recovery has begun.
To that, we can all add a hearty "Hallelujah!"
The latest economic type to opine that the housing recov...
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by Dan Rafter on July 28, 2009
The Obama administration had the right intentions when it came up with a program to reduce the number of home foreclosures across the country by modifying existing mortgage loans. Problem is, the prog...
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by Dan Rafter on July 23, 2009
You can practically hear the real estate agents screaming for joy. Yes, there is yet more evidence today that the housing market is in the midst of a recovery. Yes, it's early in the process. And,...
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by Dan Rafter on July 20, 2009
We like to see justice done, don't we? We want to see our villains caught, given a fair trial and locked away. We like the thought of Bernie Madoff in jail for the rest of his life.
Unfortunately...
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by Dan Rafter on July 17, 2009
Is the long housing slump nearing an end? I suppose that depends on whom you ask. But there are a growing number of signs that, while things definitely still are not rosy in the housing industry, we m...
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mortgage news
by Dan Rafter on July 14, 2009
Maybe there is something to that old "American Dream," after all. How else to explain that even as the residential real estate industry suffers through a catastrophic slump, U.S. residents s...
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by Dan Rafter on July 8, 2009
If you own a home in Los Angeles, watch out for the scammers. Your city leads the nation in mortgage fraud, according to the FBI's annual mortgage fraud review.
The FBI's Los Angeles field of...
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by Dan Rafter on July 3, 2009
The housing slump has certainly had some unforeseen consequences. For instance, it may have actually helped boost the number of people living in New York City, Los Angeles and Chicago.
A story by Blo...
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by Dan Rafter on July 2, 2009
It's harder to become a mortgage broker these days. Of course, it seems like an ever dwindling people want to be mortgage brokers today. Maybe, then, it's an example of everything working out ...
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by Dan Rafter on June 30, 2009
As part of his efforts to protect consumers, and keep the country from suffering another wave of foreclosures, Pres. Barack Obama has called for the creation of a new consumer protection agency. The a...
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by Dan Rafter on June 26, 2009
It's difficult to imagine the stress that homeowners feel when their home falls into foreclosure. Losing your home is a sign that you failed. You couldn't cut it. And now you and your family h...
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by Dan Rafter on June 25, 2009
The sales of existing homes rose once again this May, according to the National Association of Realtors. The May increased marked the first time that national existing-home sales rose for two months i...
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by Dan Rafter on June 23, 2009
You'll often hear conservative commentators on FOX News and other stations putting the blame for the country's mortgage meltdown on the poor and on the federal agencies that tried to get them ...
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by Dan Rafter on June 19, 2009
I'd like to think that we've seen the worst of the foreclosure crisis. I'd like to think that we'll be seeing fewer homes fall into foreclosure, and fewer homeowners missing their mort...
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by Dan Rafter on June 16, 2009
Home builders are a nervous lot these days. Who can blame them? Ever since the housing slump began, they've been going out of business or declaring bankruptcy in record numbers.
It's no surpr...
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by Dan Rafter on June 11, 2009
Mortgage interest rates are still pretty low. But they are rising. That has some economists worried. They're wondering whether increasing mortgage interest rates will slow or even halt the modest ...
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by Dan Rafter on June 9, 2009
I've learned not to necessarily trust everything that mortgage professionals say. But that's because I've been covering the mortgage and real estate industries for more than a decade now.
...
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by Dan Rafter on June 8, 2009
Whenever I tell people that borrowers shouldn't always be blamed for the bad mortgage loans that they take out, I get sneers. These borrowers should have done their homework before taking out a mo...
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by Dan Rafter on June 5, 2009
I'm always amazed that so many people pin the blame for our nation's current housing crisis on homeowners facing foreclosures. Yes, some of these homeowners — but not nearly all of them ...
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by Dan Rafter on June 3, 2009
I'm waiting for some good news out of the housing-finance industry. Really. I'd like to wake up one morning, open the paper and read this headline: "Foreclosures fall to record lows!"...
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by Dan Rafter on May 29, 2009
It only seems as if the housing slump, and the national recession that followed it, have been going on forever. The housing slowdown, though, didn't start until the middle of 2006 or so.
The prob...
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by Dan Rafter on May 28, 2009
Yes, mortgage interest rates rose this week. According to Bankrate.com, the average 30-year fixed-rate mortgage loan carried an interest rate of 5.45 percent. That's up from 5.24 percent a week ag...
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by Dan Rafter on May 26, 2009
It's clear that the Obama administration wants to see fewer housing foreclosures. That makes sense: Housing foreclosures help no one. The banks certainly don't want these homes back. Foreclosu...
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by Dan Rafter on May 21, 2009
There's one benefit to the still slumping housing market: The government has consistently made moves that have resulted in lower mortgage interest rates.
This means that buyers who qualify for mo...
