Is it time you had a mortgage checkup?

Find out if your mortgage is working hard for your financial health.

mortgage checkup

Having a regular checkups by a doctor is a critical setup to ensuring good health.  The same holds true for one of your most important financial investments: your mortgage.  A periodic review of your mortgage can help you determine if your current financing id doing all it can for you. Based on your current needs and situations.

That’s why I am offering a complimentary mortgage checkup to my valued customers.

This no obligation mortgage checkup to evaluate your current real estate financing is designed to help ensure that you are making the best choices for your financial situation.  Whether it’s your primary residents, a vacation home or investment property, I am prepared to discuss topics that include:

1 consolidating your first and second mortgages

2 using home equity to fund an important purchase

3 consolidation credit card and other high interest debt

4 rising payments due to an ARM loan resetting

5 eliminating PMI

Viewing your mortgage as a financial instrument that can help you potentially save money and achieve other life goals is a smart move.

It all begins with your mortgage checkup.

Mortgage Rates Ease This Week

Mortgage Rates Ease This Week

Borrowers found some relief for the second consecutive week with lower mortgage rates.

“After dropping earlier this week on trade-related anxiety in financial markets, the benchmark 10-year Treasury stabilized on Wednesday, but at a level slightly lower than from the start of last week,” explains Len Kiefer, Freddie Mac’s deputy chief economist. “Mortgage rates followed and fell for the second consecutive week. … Though rates on the 30-year fixed mortgage are up 0.3 percentage points from the same week a year ago, a robust labor market is helping home purchase demand weather modestly higher rates.”

The Mortgage Bankers Association reported in its latest Weekly Mortgage Applications Survey that its index for home purchase applications is up 5 percent from a year ago “indicating that this spring is on track for a modest expansion in purchase mortgage activity,” Kiefer adds.

Freddie Mac reported the following national averages for the week ending April 5:

• 30-year fixed-rate mortgages: averaged 4.40 percent, with an average 0.5 point, dropping from last week’s 4.44 percent average. Last year at this time, 30-year rates averaged 4.10 percent.
• 15-year fixed-rate mortgages: averaged 3.87 percent, with an average 0.4 point, dropping from last week’s 3.90 percent average. A year ago, 15-year rates averaged 3.36 percent.
• 5-year hybrid adjustable-rate mortgages: averaged 3.62 percent, with an average 0.4 point, falling from last week’s 3.66 percent average. A year ago, 5-year ARMs averaged 3.19 percent.

Source: Freddie Mac

Higher Property Taxes Hit Homeowners

Higher Property Taxes Hit Homeowners

Many homeowners faced higher property tax bills in 2017. Property taxes levied on single-family homes in 2017 totaled $293.4 billion, up 6 percent from 2016.

The average property tax on a single-family home in 2017 was $3,399 per home at an effective tax rate of 1.17 percent, according to ATTOM Data Solutions, a real estate data firm, from its analysis of more than 86 million U.S. single-family homes.

But some places saw much higher rates than that. The highest effective tax rates were in New Jersey (2.28 percent), Illinois (2.22 percent), Vermont (2.19 percent), Texas (2.15 percent), and New Hampshire (2.06 percent), according to the study.

Property taxes rose faster than the 3 percent national average in 58 percent of the 217 markets studied, ATTOM notes. For example, Dallas posted an 11 percent rise; Houston a 10 percent increase; and Los Angeles saw a 7 percent increase.

On the other hand, the states with the lowest effective property taxes were Hawaii (0.34 percent), Alabama (0.49 percent), Colorado (0.51 percent), Tennessee (0.56 percent), and West Virginia (0.57 percent).

ATTOM Data Solutions analyzed property tax data from county tax assessor offices across the country at the state, metro, and county levels and estimated market values of single-family homes using an automated valuation model.

Source: ATTOM Data Solutions

Home Improvement Personality Types

Home Improvement Personality Types

A homeowner’s personality can have a big influence on their behavior when it comes to home improvement projects, according to a new survey by the Home Projects Council, a group of home improvement experts that aims to help homeowners improve their property values.

The Home Projects Council identified the following five home improvement personality types: The Sensible Improver, the Project Planner, the Reliable Renovator, the Visionary, and the Extrovert.

To identify the personality types, the council gave more than 1,100 homeowners a personality test along with a survey about their recent or planned home improvement projects.

“It is very common to segment home improvement attitudes and behavior by demographic factors, but by using a well-established model of personality, the Big Five, we were able to confirm a direct relationship between home improvement and personality types,” says Fred Miller of Consumer Specialists, who conducted the research.

Source: Home Projects Council

Homeowner Equity Is Hitting a Record High

Homeowner Equity Is Hitting a Record High

Homeowners are getting richer, thanks to rising home values. The amount of equity that homeowners can tap into is now at the highest level on record, according to Black Knight Financial Services, a mortgage and finance industry solution provider.

The amount a borrower can take out of a home—while still leaving 20 percent in it—increased by a collective $735 billion during 2017. That is the largest annual increase by dollar value on record, according to Black Knight. The collective amount of tappable equity now stands at $5.4 trillion, 10 percent more than the prerecession peak in 2005.

“There’s no question that a majority of homeowners have amassed considerable equity gains since the downturn,” says Lawrence Yun, chief economist of the National Association of REALTORS®. “Home prices have grown a cumulative 48 percent since 2011 and are up 5.9 percent through the first two months of this year.”

Homeowners are being more conservative, and lenders are much stricter when it comes to tapping into home equity. Homeowners took out $262 billion in cash-out refinances or home equity lines of credit last year, which is less than 1.25 percent of all available equity and is at a four-year low.

“While rising rates tend to dampen utilization of equity in general, the market is poised for a strong shift toward HELOCs, as they allow borrowers to take advantage of growing equity while holding on to historically low first-lien interest rates,” says Ben Graboske, executive vice president of Black Knight Data & Analytics. “Over half of all tappable equity—approximately $2.8 trillion—is held by borrowers with credit scores of 760 or higher and first-lien interest rates below today’s prevailing rate, which creates a large pocket of low-risk HELOC candidates.”

The amount of homeowner equity varies depending on location. Thirty-nine percent of the nation’s total tappable equity is in California alone. Seattle and Las Vegas have also seen large increases in home equity, Black Knight notes.

Source: “Homeowners Are Sitting on $5.4 Trillion in Ready Cash, the Most Ever,” CNBC (April 2, 2018)