Charleston Real Estate Blog

In the administration's continuing effort to successfully help underwater borrowers be able to refinance their mortgages at today's record low interest rates, one more plan has been announced using FHA financing and costing from $5 to $10 Billion. Here's more from the Washington Post. But since it will require congressional ...

A couple of big stories out there in the Financial World have my attention and it's only my opinion but I can't help but give a BIG FAT F on my report card. Unlike almost everybody from surprisingly on both the left and the right, I don't blame Fannie and Freddie for causing the housing mess. I think it was reckless lending and ...

Bad news is good news for mortgage rates. Courtesy of Bankrate, here is a one year chart of the 30 year fixed rate conventional mortgage and as you can clearly see, the trend has been your friend in the last year whether you are buying or refinancing a home in Charleston.  With the sovereign debt crisis in Europe driving investors into ...

A tale of distressed property in Charleston that illustrates the point that home values sometimes decline far more than the average because this home appears to be back to where it sold around 2002. Now, you don't really know what the condition of the property is that caused the price to be what I think would normally be pretty much below ...

As a Charleston real estate agent, I generally quote mortgage rates to clients (or readers of this blog) in nice round numbers like 4, 4 1/4, 4 1/2, etc., based on what rates my preferred lenders are currently offering. Back in the old days of 6 percent mortgages, it was really easy to let buyers know what their monthly payment would be, at ...

One of the most important jobs I have as a Realtor is to insure a smooth transaction when a client buys a home and nowhere can a transaction get more messed up than in the mortgage process. It's just one of the reasons that I insist that clients use one of my preferred local mortgage lenders who I know are both reliable and ...

The administration is to announce a turbo-charged HARP (Home Affordable Refinance Program) today in Nevada, the foreclosure capital of the United States designed to allow underwater homeowners who are current on their mortgage to refinance at lower rates if their loans are owned by either Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac in a streamlined ...

Why do mortgage rates tend to decline slowly but rise sharply. That's the case this week off a better than expected jobs report (which in my opinion wasn't exactly a great report with a dismal 9.1 percent unemployment rate and only 103,000 net new jobs aided by the return of striking Verizon workers which isn't exactly the same thing ...

First of all, let me say that there is nothing wrong with renting and there are times when it's a better choice. But the other day I viewed a home that was available for both rent and for sale. The offering price was $300,000 or $2400 per month. Actually, it seemed like a pretty good value to buy but it seemed a little high to rent. So I ...

Helicopter Ben just resurrected a 60's program to twist the yield curve by swapping short term debt with long term securities. I suppose Chubby Checker will once again be popular as a result. Anyway, interest rates on long term treasuries plummeted yesterday as a result with the 10 Year US Treasury (a proxy for mortgage interest rates) ...